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Calling out Your Common Freelancing Fears

And right now we're gonna continue kind of ripping the band aid off a little bit, and we're gonna talk about common freelancing fears. Now, this stuff is it's scary, right? But this is good, because we're doing the scary stuff today and then tomorrow is not scary at all. There's gonna be nothing scary about tomorrow. I just piled all of that on today. So right now we're gonna feel the freelancing, fear on we're going to do it anyways, These are the things that just are so scary for us. They keep us from taking action on our goals and our dreams and the things that we want for ourselves. Right? So let me give you some common career fears. You could see what resonates with you and number one. I'm too old. We talked about this earlier today. I'm too old. I'm not experienced. It's doom. Risky. All of these coming with the silly voice. I won't make any money. I don't have the education. We talked about a lot of these already. I'm not special in off. I don't know if this is what I want to do...

forever. And if I don't know if I want to do it forever. I shouldn't do it now or start it. I don't have the time. I don't have the energy. What did I am? This I want I want to write some more freelancing fears. We'd love to hear them in the chat. But before we got there Liz. Heather, What comes up? Teoh, With those voices you hear in your head? Yes. Rules that I think I need to dio all the roles All the different roles, like finance, the financial side, all the management, the creation, the shipping everything. So I'm writing It says I can't wear all the hats. Yes, I can't wear all the hats. Yea, so more fears. Great. What else? My biggest one is probably What if I fail again again? I feel like that again. Word is just What if I fail again? What else? Let's just get them all out. Just get them all out And no, it hurts Painful. Are they coming up in the chat yet? Canna They are just We just prompted them to again. There's a delay, but keep them. So it's what are your biggest fears around? Ditching your Yeah, your freelance fears. I like to call them the Vampire Voices because they're what stuck the goods things out of us and sometimes their external, Um, but mostly their internal. And so it's the voices that you have in your head, which is where I, you know, got all of these from, like, these are what are vampire voices are saying to us to keep us in that safe little space. All right, so we have rocks. T saying a regular paycheck on a regular paycheck is a fear with Scorpio. I won't get the clients that I need to keep going. People won't take lead me Seriously from sassy seamstress Scared to give up that study paychecks over and over. Everyone we know everyone, right? I mean, kind of the similar to some of the things up there about not being as experienced or have. USP says I have faith in my ability to do jobs, but I don't know if I will be able to find clients who trust me before I have a huge portfolio can show what you're worth is so I guess that feel. I mean, part of that is like, no, clients aren't gonna be any clients, but I think that's also like maybe a mark fear of marketing, um, or selling yourself like I don't know how or I'm not comfortable selling myself, and that's a huge one. So just even knowing how to price yourself putting a value, especially for creatives, how do I put a dollar sign on what I create, um, and that people will actually buy? Yeah, uh, if you guys go to my website when I grow up coach dot com, you'll see a Pinterest icon, and if you click on it, you could go to my fund finances folder on interests. And there's a lot of really great pricing. Resource is there. That's just where I keep all of my lengths of all the good stuff that that I find and that could really be helpful. Um, I think pricing. It's one thing when you have a product based business, because you at least have some numbers to work with in terms of what your materials are and what those costs are. But over and above that, I think we often undervalue our own experience on what we're bringing to the table to our clients and especially when you're in a service based business. It could be like a gut thing more than anything. Yes, Heather. So one of my things is that, um I feel like the the people that I know now are not in a position to pay for what I could offer. So meeting people and then being able Teoh ask them for money when I feel like Well, you know, I don't know, I haven't ever had a lot of money. So to me, having a disposable income that you could pay for some of these things is foreign to me. Soto ask someone else to pay for it. Seems a little ridiculous, you know, kind of like what you said earlier about this is something that I can do all the time. Why would I pay someone else to do it? You know, it's like, sort of like asking people to spend money on something that is not really worth what I'm asking for. Uh, yeah, totally make sense or kind of add that, like, I don't know how to sell myself. I'm not comfy selling myself, and maybe that's also actually, I don't believe I feel like this is different than no clients, but It's like I don't believe anyone will pay me what I needed. I don't believe I'll be paid what I need to be paid. Um, that's a big fear that I think is even actually different than like a regular paycheck. It's part of I won't make any money. Um, but I have to chance. I have to challenge that assumption that I think I heard that, like your friends, people that you know wouldn't pay for what you have to offer. Have you ever have you asked them? Has this been something that you tried to do? And there were crickets? Or is this just what's in your head? Um, a little, a little. But I mean, some of it is because there has been some, like, Why would I pay somebody do that and then also some I have. Because of that, I haven't really pursued it because it was like, OK, that must have been a dumb idea. Eso that kind of typing like I've gotten bad feedback before. I've gotten questionable feedback before, and so I don't want to get more bad slash questionable feedback. It's really hard to keep your head down into your work and, you know, detached from it. My infamous story that relates to that is when I first when I first launched when I grow up coach dot com back in 2000 and eight and it looks nothing like you see now. And it was so basic. I sent the link to my my really good friends and my family members and said, like I've been telling you about this life coaching thing here. It is now on the Internet, and my father, who's very supportive and wanted to be helpful, called me and he said, Well, I looked at your website. I just have to tell you I wouldn't hire you on, so I just kind of like I kind of smiled because I was. I was confident with my stove. At that point on, I said him. Okay, well, why? Why Noah's well, your tone on your website is very casual, and it doesn't come across this professional to me, and you mention too often that you're Jewish or something. I think everyone in my bio that I'm a nice Jewish girl from Long Island and then somewhere else, I said, Boy, they and my dad's Jewish and Obviously there's too much being Jewish and you know, it's not professional tone. And so I wouldn't hire you when I and I kind of kind of stop and smile, and I said to him over the phone, Thank you so much for your input, but I don't want to work with six year old businessman and I trust at that point The biggest lesson that I took away from being an actor is that I needed to be myself, and I needed to be myself right out of the gate. I didn't want anyone to question No, Who is this part? What would it be like to work with her? What's she gonna be like if I'm meet up with her? Or would she be like to work with more to talk to, like I wanted them to know through my website and things that I put out there? This is what you're signing up for on I said to him, I trust that the creative people that I want to work with in their twenties, thirties, forties fifties that they're gonna resonate with it and I want the other people to go away. I want the six year old businessman to go away. I don't want to work with them. That's not gonna be a good relationship for anyone. And he did one of those dad things. It's like, Well, do what you want. But now and a few months later, when I was still at my day job, I got contacted by Newsweek. They were doing a video feature on life coaches, and they wanted to interview me the next day. So I called out sick from my day job, a Newsweek essentially made, like a three minute video about me. That was about life coaching, but I was the only one in it. So once that happened, my dad called and said, Yeah, I think maybe I'm old and I don't know what I'm talking about and so keep doing what you're doing and you're doing just fine. So pay attention when you get that feedback. I know it's really hard to not internalize it, um, and not let it sit and take it personally. But know that, um, see where it's coming from and just take what you need from it and release the rest of it because we're gonna get to this in a second. Thank God the age of the Internet. If there's no one that you know in real life that's gonna buy your stuff, which maybe I'm still have to challenge you on, there is a market. I'd be very surprised if there's not a market for everyone that that, you know, wants to buy things I just want to add. Maybe one more. Lee has a little bit different. Is the fear of success. Eso I've seen that here is what happens if I am successful? Can I keep being successful? I am I going to be able to handle it and manage it, um, and be able to continue to do all that. I have a client who called this the going to Hollywood syndrome, and I love this so much because it's so like it's such a positive way to be scared, she said. Well, Michelle, I can't write that novel because if I write the novel and then it gets published, then someone's gonna want Teoh have me do the screenplay and make it into a movie, and I don't want to move to Hollywood, so I'm not gonna write the novel literally. That was her train of thought and I loved it because it was so positive. But it was a fear. And that's what held her back and getting started on the novel. So I love that we have a lot of Do we see all of these, right? So, everyone, I hope that you're writing down your own freelancing fears either on pages 25 26 of your workbook more on your own sheet of paper. But I hope that you see through all these and through these, I hope he realized that these are all excuses. They're all excuses, and they they range from being totally valid. Excuse, right? Totally valid things to be scared of to totally insane. I think some of the things you could look at him just go. That's a crazy thing to be scared of. But thankfully, I know what you're creative career does and doesn't care about. Right. So this is what needs Teoh. What you don't need to worry about because you're creative career doesn't care about these things that you're afraid of. It's good being the when I grow up, Coach, because I know all of this firsthand, right? So the first thing if you have a degree and whatever you're doing touched on this a little bit today, your education. It's great to have an education and streets have a degree. It's great to have a certificate, but ultimately it's not what gets you hired in a creative career. You just need more knowledge of the thing that you're selling. Then the person who's buying it from you, that's it. So make sure that you taken to account you being self taught, the personal projects that you've done, taking side classes that maybe didn't results in ah, certification or a degree, but that gave you the skills to be a designer or a copywriter. Thes all counts, right? Your creative career also doesn't care about whether you're doing it. Full time on when I hired my Web designer has been exclusively my my Web designer and my graphic designer since 2000 and nine. She I was working full time as an executive assistant. She was working full time in advertising. The only thing I cared about was that I loved her style. Her static was great, and I thought it would translate really well. It's what I wanted to dio. I cared that she came highly recommended from my husband. She worked with my husband and advertising, and he had nothing but great things to say about her. So I trusted that it would be, ah, good process to work with her. And she was going to deliver on that. The price is right. She didn't charge me anything that was out of my budget. We actually bartered. So if you think that you need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on things to think about how you could barter who you know that you could say, Hey, will you designed my website and I will make your new Nisa homemade quilt or whatever and figure something How? Right? So it doesn't matter if you're doing it full time yet no one really cares. Um, public recognition. Sure, it's great to be in Oprah magazine. Get big press mentions. But what matters is that you're doing a good job for your clients getting their referrals, getting their praise, getting their testimonials. That's what builds up your business. A super slick website, my basic website that I've been talking about and I'm so mad because I can't find an image of it anywhere so good to show its everyone because it was like it was so basic. It worked. It worked enough for me to build my business up to the point that I had more clients. I wanted to work with me. Then I had time to work with them while I was still at my job. And while it was important for me to have a professionally designed website in order to feel comfortable and confident leaving my job, that basic website was still all that a client needed to get to know who I am. What coaching Waas What I offer. My block was attached kind of read, different things that I wrote felt like they got to know me. The end wanted to work together. You don't need a crazy, complicated 1000 plus dollar website, your age, your gender, where you live, it's sexual. You will never see her bio. That says Michelle Ward is a 37 year olds career coach like it's not No, no one's putting this out there in that way. Uh, and thankfully, we are in the age of the Internet, so you could build your business globally instead of just being constricted to the people who live near you. So it doesn't matter if you were a 60 year old from Idaho who does modern art, and you're like no one in Idaho wants to buy a modern art. That's that's I'm sure there are nothing against people in Idaho. Uh, just off the top of my head. Uh, it doesn't matter. So you do your modern art and you know you're selling it globally or your pitching it to different art galleries that are outside of Idaho. There is just that communication method is just wide open. Here's what your creative career does care about your point of view. There we go, your point of view, your copy, your aesthetic, your personality, your experience. You are branding, which I like to call your Eunick witty because I think branding is one of those words and the branding and marketing over leg. I like to call it your Yoon equity, so you have to trust that what you're putting out there on the line is going to resonate with those that you work best with. I love being a gatekeeper. I think everyone needs to be a gatekeeper. Be a gatekeeper Don't be afraid to niece yourself or to push people away from what you're offering. Because, uh, that's going to allow you to not waste time unp people who aren't going to be picking up what you're putting down. I don't want anyone that doesn't resonate with the word creative. Uh, because I'm a creative career coach, anyone that doesn't resonate with that word creative, I want them to go away. I don't want them to email me. I don't have a consultation call with them. I certainly don't want them to put down money for one on one sessions because it's gonna be torture and they're not gonna get good results. And I think that a big part of the success of my business is that I push those people away. So the people that comes to being that I work with, I do a really killer job with because we speak the same language. They know that I understand them and were able to do really great work together. Number two what? Your commitment to your work, right? So what sinks your creative business is, you know, dragging your feet by answering your emails, not putting up any new work for a very long time, not sharing your offerings disappearing on your client's not delivering what you promised. The stuff Being a flake does not make a successful business owner, so you know you have to commit to your work and follow through on what you promise Number three, your network that this came up earlier. You know, thankfully, in the age of the Internet, I feel so old, saying that you could cast a really wide net for your clients and your customers online. And now it's about whether there's a group of people throughout the world who resonate with what you're offering. Enough to like it. Buy it, tell others about it. That's what you're looking to build your creative career cares about your network. Mm, I'm wondering if there's anything that I miss. So we'd love for everyone in the chat to talk about more about what they feel maybe their creative career does and doesn't care about. But do you ladies have anything that you think maybe wasn't mentions that you create that you feel may be your creative career cares about or not? I think it cares that you're passionate about what you're doing? I love that. I love that. Although I the word passion, I'm always surprised. Like, really, um, it's hard for some people, I think, and especially us multi passionate creative people might not have felt passion. For one thing, it was weird. It was like this epidemic with my clients at one point where I asked them the questions that I give them before he worked together. You know, what is it that you're passionate about? And I had so many in a row that just said, I'm never my passion about anything and like I believe in it, I know it exists. I hear about it from other people. But I've always just been interested, interested in so many different things, or I go from one passion to another so quickly it makes me question whether I'm passionate at all right. So I think that if you're someone who resonates with that word passion, then like on I do in a big way, then that's great. And I'm totally, totally with you. But if you're someone that goes, I don't feel the thing. And if I don't feel like this Ah, love, where the thing that I'm doing is going to make me want to run into the woods and dance with the animals and seeing like snow, I Then I shouldn't be doing it. And that's not the case. Tonight. We're going back to what we talked about at the top of the day, where it's simply like you just have to enjoy it. Just have to enjoy it. You have toe look forward to doing it. And like what you're doing and with whom on I think that ties in really well, so passionate or at least like you. You like it? You enjoy it. You'd be happy doing it in a big way. Mm. Lives anything come up for you? I like that you're writing. Oh, yeah. Just taking notes on nothing. Nothing new really coming. Coming to mind. People at home are tuning in and saying red Scorpio says, I think my creative career cares that I am willing to do the work. Oh, yes. That's a good one. Good one on cat s so one being genuine with what you can do and can't do And being honest with yourself about those Yeah, genuine, honest. I love that. And I think just to add to that it's being honest with the people that you're working for. There is no need to pretend that you're not a beginner. If you're a beginner, like you do not have to put that mask on. And I think that you're gonna find that the pressure is off. If you embrace the fact that you are a beginner or you're new at this and you communicate that and say I'm still in school or I'm your be one of the first people that I worked with So, you know, Please let me know. Like I'm open to feedback. I want you to tell me blah, blah, blah or I might say one thing and I come back to later on because I realized it's not the best thing. Don't feel like you have to put that mask on and you have to hide it. Now. I'm really interested that you said that because you do hear a lot of people saying, Well, you have to. You probably know what I'm gonna say. You have to fake it till you make him, huh? But at what point is that? Faith? I mean, what is it? What is your? Because you just argued against that? Yeah, you know, fake it in the way that you if you don't have the confidence if you don't have the total trust and what you're doing Yeah, um, we've touched on this all day, like then you have to fake it by at least saying Lee showing up is faking it a little bit, right? Like because you don't trust that you could do it and that things work from beginning to end and you're gonna deliver a good product, and in that way, you have to fake it. But I know for me, I think that there is just something that comes across very disingenuous in, um especially now, especially in 2015 with all these, you know, Sola pra Nouriel on creative entrepreneurs that, you know, if I go to your about page and it says we but you were the only one there like why are you saying why are you saying we don't say we if you're an eye? Because then that's gonna give the impression to the client that you have have a team of people and you don't have a team of people, and so they might actually that might actually work against you guys. Maybe they want to work with someone really intimately and know they're getting your full attention. But I think we think like, Oh, we have to say weeks we have two way. Have to make sure they know that where this group of people or were professional. Um, I think it's just a bit. I think it's bad. I think it's bad. I think it's bad. And I know when I first started blogging, I put the mask up so hard because I was like, Well, I'm a life coach And so I should have life figured out and I need to just just show my life coach, she wisdom on the world's My blog's readers. I kept everything to myself. I didn't I wasn't honest with the fact that I was at a day job. I wasn't honest with, you know, finance, financial peace like I didn't I didn't put anything vulnerable out there and after three or four months, I realized my blawg was so boring. Even I wouldn't want to read it cause there was nothing like human about it. It was just move, you know, spewing out what I thought people would want from a life coach. And finally I let that go and I said, No, I have a day job. I'm still getting my certification. I'm a failed actor when I started telling those stories, and that's when he connected with people Oh, my good news on. I find that the more nervous I am about putting something out there, Not to say that you have to share all your private secrets, you do not. But the more it helps me connect to my people who get it. And and I think that people want to get to know you want to get to know you. And if you're a one person business, let them get to know you really, as you are in the space that you're in. And I think it's exciting when they get to say, Oh, you know, I worked with her, you know, five years ago when she was, you know, 1/4 of the price that she is now or whatever, Uh, and let them lift you up and let let them help you. Um, don't. I don't think you need to hide that. You just need to own your do you still need to own your expertise, though. You still need to own the fact that you're going to do a good job, and you know what it is that you're doing. So I said, Yeah, well said, because that was another comment was saying, Okay, well, but you do have once you are no longer beginner and you do have the experience, then you've got to own that as well. Like I am doing this. I am an artist. I am, or whatever. And I think even when you're a beginner, you have to own your expertise. So one of one of them, the most powerful exercises that I did in my life coaching school was right, a bio for myself as a life coach, like the first month I was there. And I thought it was so ridiculous, Like I just got here. I don't know how to coach anybody. What is anyone talking about? How can I write a bio about being a coach? And when I sat down to do it, this is a really great exercise for everyone. When I sat down to do it, I realized my whole life had led me to being a life coach. But even though I had unofficially coached anyone, I said, Oh, the fact that you know I was an actor The fact that my relationship skills, my communication skills are the most important things for me and what I feel I do best. All of those things will lead me to being a good coach. And so you need to recognize early on what you're already bringing to the table, even if you're new at it. And I could guarantee you that there's something that you bring to the table human if you're new at it and don't discount again your personal projects, Um, any, you know, life skills that you have, maybe a degree that you have that's not directly related. But you're able to see where you know where it's transferable. Um, don't Don't hide that and and you need to own what a good job you're gonna dio right off the bat.