Man, it feels good to be on the inside!
I swore I would buy an INSIDERS subscription when I made my first $1000 providing value to others, and it was one of the best promises I've ever made with myself. As you can tell from this post, I've hit that first milestone.
If you go back on my account and look at my "progress thread", you'll see a lot of wantrepreneuring, and action faking. I like to think I've come a long way since then, although I'm still a long way from the Fastlane.
What happened? I stopped telling and started working.
So here's my story.
I'm 20 years young and am a self-taught photographer and videographer, who's recently become self-sufficient on purely freelance work, doing around $2000 a month. This is the most money I've ever made in my life, and it's upwards from here.
I did a lot of action faking, 'trying' ecommerce etc. But it was all BS with a lack of effort and execution. (I was selling a product for $15 which there was a youtube tutorial to make yourself for $5, lol.)
I also have a bit of experience in social media, from working and travelling with two social media influencers last year, which was the craziest experience of my life.
Current situation:
I just turned down a "dream job" at 20. I got offered to be head of digital marketing for the second biggest brewery in South Africa, for $2000 a month, with a $500 bonus if KPI's were hit. This would take away all of my freedom (I've built a small personal brand around action/adventure/lifestyle), have me working full time, and earning the same amount I'm earning now.
I was seriously considering taking it, just to build up capital and learn more about business etc, but I'm already doing that through freelance and enjoying it more. This video sums it up pretty well: Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk on Instagram: “People have it upside down! After school or when you hit 18,21 people think they have to go conservative and get a “real job” in fact the…” (sorry if you hate Gary Vee lol)
Going forward:
I'm currently self-studying my degree, which I absolutely hate. I have an internal argument daily about whether I should drop out, but for the time being, I'm going to keep going at it, and freelance to build up an income, personal brand, and capital. The problem I'm having at the moment is that it's all hands-on time for my freelance work, which leaves me little time to work "on the business". In the next 4 months, I want to scale out into more of an agency, with other filmmakers below me to help reach more clients, while maintaining quality.
Also on the cards is a photography specific digital product store. I helped the influencers I worked with launch their own version of this last year, and they did $100 000 in the first week, and a steady $15000 a month going forward. A lot of that was through their personal audience of about 1M followers, but I have some cool ideas to differentiate from whats already on the market, and reach new markets.
I swore I would buy an INSIDERS subscription when I made my first $1000 providing value to others, and it was one of the best promises I've ever made with myself. As you can tell from this post, I've hit that first milestone.
If you go back on my account and look at my "progress thread", you'll see a lot of wantrepreneuring, and action faking. I like to think I've come a long way since then, although I'm still a long way from the Fastlane.
What happened? I stopped telling and started working.
So here's my story.
I'm 20 years young and am a self-taught photographer and videographer, who's recently become self-sufficient on purely freelance work, doing around $2000 a month. This is the most money I've ever made in my life, and it's upwards from here.
I did a lot of action faking, 'trying' ecommerce etc. But it was all BS with a lack of effort and execution. (I was selling a product for $15 which there was a youtube tutorial to make yourself for $5, lol.)
I also have a bit of experience in social media, from working and travelling with two social media influencers last year, which was the craziest experience of my life.
Current situation:
I just turned down a "dream job" at 20. I got offered to be head of digital marketing for the second biggest brewery in South Africa, for $2000 a month, with a $500 bonus if KPI's were hit. This would take away all of my freedom (I've built a small personal brand around action/adventure/lifestyle), have me working full time, and earning the same amount I'm earning now.
I was seriously considering taking it, just to build up capital and learn more about business etc, but I'm already doing that through freelance and enjoying it more. This video sums it up pretty well: Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk on Instagram: “People have it upside down! After school or when you hit 18,21 people think they have to go conservative and get a “real job” in fact the…” (sorry if you hate Gary Vee lol)
Going forward:
I'm currently self-studying my degree, which I absolutely hate. I have an internal argument daily about whether I should drop out, but for the time being, I'm going to keep going at it, and freelance to build up an income, personal brand, and capital. The problem I'm having at the moment is that it's all hands-on time for my freelance work, which leaves me little time to work "on the business". In the next 4 months, I want to scale out into more of an agency, with other filmmakers below me to help reach more clients, while maintaining quality.
Also on the cards is a photography specific digital product store. I helped the influencers I worked with launch their own version of this last year, and they did $100 000 in the first week, and a steady $15000 a month going forward. A lot of that was through their personal audience of about 1M followers, but I have some cool ideas to differentiate from whats already on the market, and reach new markets.
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