Mindset tips: Changing your life & business through personal growth
The first time you get a challenging question will always feel uncomfortable, and you’ll probably say something you’ll regret later. But that interaction is a valuable lesson, and the trick is to get prepared for the next time someone asks you the same question—because there will definitely be a next time. Here are my polite, no-nonsense answers to questions about pricing, free work, discounts, extra revisions, scope creep, NDA-s and other things that make you sweat. Read more...
The habit of turning to outside sources every time we need an answer trains us to lose trust in our own judgement. It’s great to have mentors and teachers, but at the same time we need to be able to trust ourselves. So what’s the alternative? How do we find our own answers and become empowered decision makers? Let me share my secret tool with you. Except it’s not a secret. Read more...
How is it that sometimes I can be so full of inspiration and drive to create, but other times I can’t even get myself off the couch? Why is it so difficult to remain in the state of forward momentum? How could I reinvigorate that creative spark after the fire has died out? I’ve tried to answer all of these questions, and more, in this essay. Read more...
I help clients who want to be seen and valued as experts in their field to increase their visibility and impact. Unfortunately, many people don’t feel emotionally prepared to receive attention, so they keep putting off their marketing activities. In this article I offer tips and techniques you can use to shift your mindset and prepare yourself before you step into the spotlight. Read more...
It’s the time of the year when business owners and bloggers flock to reminisce on their past year, highlight their biggest achievements, and plan for the year ahead. I feel that goal-setting can sometimes create pressure that only makes us feel inadequate, instead of inspired. Read more...
Mandatory shutdowns have removed the only income source from many small businesses. Everyone keeps saying the answer is “technology”, but what if you’re among the people who find technology extra challenging? Sadly I don't have a magic wand that can make technology easy overnight, but I hope that this article can help you start thinking about it differently and open up more possibilities for learning and growth. Read more...
I started earning money with my creative skills when I was 19 years old, and have been running my own design consultancy since 2014. I admit that I got into this career with some unrealistic expectations, and I learned many lessons that no one warned me about. If you’re still early in your career or studying in a creative field, consider this post as a warning so you can decide whether this is something you’re willing to accept as a part of your life. Read more...
If you own a business or do creative work for a living, it’s very likely that some (or a lot) of your clients are friends and family. That’s great, right? However, some of your friends and family might think they’re entitled to a discount just because they know you. My stance on this is that friends and family should pay the full price like everyone else, and in this post I explain why that is. Read more...
A rare person can say “Look at all these things I’ve accomplished, now it’s time I take a well deserved break.” There’s always more to achieve. There’s always a way to become better, and to make a bigger impact. It’s my belief now that pure discipline in the service of success doesn’t lead to a life well lived. Read more...
Working on long-term goals is hard. Our brains are not exactly wired for it—we carry biases that undermine our efforts to become successful at whatever we’ve chosen to do. If we want to achieve something bigger than we’ve ever accomplished before, we need to support ourselves better because willpower alone is not enough. Here are the methods I’ve used to overcome my own unproductive patterns and self-publish my book. Read more...
Too many creative projects never see the light of day because their creators fear that their idea is stupid. This is a tragedy. Creating anything is an emotionally vulnerable experience that makes us question everything. I’m not immune to this, and neither are artists whose work I follow. If you’re experiencing this problem as well, in this post I share my thoughts on overcoming this mental block so you can finish and publish your thing. Read more...
I write a lot about branding on this blog, but I don’t blame you at all if you’re getting sick and tired of hearing this word all the time. Let’s try something different today instead. Let’s drop all pretense of there being any system or formula that you need to know or follow in order to succeed in business. Let’s deconstruct “branding”. Read more...
Sometimes I get the feeling that people put me on a pedestal I don’t deserve to be on. I fear that if they knew of all my past and ongoing mistakes, they would change their mind about me, and wouldn’t want to be my friends or work with me ever again. But I’ve spent the past year teaching and mentoring intensely in different ways, and I’ve learned that what I’m most interested in is teaching by example. If I want others to feel safe about admitting to their mistakes, I need to do the same. So that’s what I’m doing right now. Read more...
Good ideas are cheap – you hear a dozen new ideas every morning before breakfast as you’re scrolling through your newsfeed. They don’t change you. They don’t turn you into a better person. Positive change requires conscious effort. It requires you to think, implement, test and evaluate, and it requires you to make difficult decisions. Read more...
A big part of being human is running into things that make us feel sad, angry, helpless, betrayed, guilty, or any of the rich spectrum of the so-called “negative” emotions. Sometimes, things are just not good. And you’re allowed to not feel good. At the same time, we also don’t want to not feel good forever. We want things to get better. We want to get better. This is what this post is about – all the things I do to make myself feel better. Read more...
If you’re reading this, I assume one thing about you: you probably feel like you’re not really made for this world. We’re kind of stuck here, and the only remaining thing to do is to make the best of what we have.
What if we looked at life in a different way? Read more...
How often do you go through an experience, and afterwards you think “Why did I get myself into this again? I’ve been through similar things so many times before, I’m supposed to know better by now.”
Falling for the same thing time after time doesn’t mean you’re stupid, or that you lack self-awareness – it just means you're not doing enough to remember what you already know. In this post, I offer some tips on how to do that. Read more...
Why do opportunities often seem to come with a side dish of pickles? (Metaphorical ones.) I wish I knew the answer to that question.
It's just too big a coincidence, hearing all these stories from people who had a total shit storm happen as they were preparing for something big. One of these things happened just last Friday, as I was on my way to WordPress Meetup in Zagreb. Read more...
Your core values are a compass that guides you throughout your life, and they’ve been lurking in the background of all the decisions you’ve been making, no matter how big or small. In this post, I explain the role of our personal values in our business, and give you a process to discover your core values. Read more...
You know which blogs I mean. You’ve probably read them, too. Those blogs that feature a new post every day of the week – a post that looks and feels exactly the same like the post from the day before, and if you've read one, you've read them all. Those blogs that seem to talk a lot, yet say very little. Those blogs that are listed on every life coach’s sidebar under the title “As seen in”.
I wanted to like them. I truly tried to enjoy them, but I just couldn’t. One by one, I unsubscribed from those blogs, and continued my search for meaning without them. And what a great decision that was.
What triggered me so much that I want to dedicate 2000+ words to this now?
An epiphany. Read more...