You never know who’s watching you…
… in a good way.
This thought doesn’t stem for a place of paranoia. But rather one of surprise.
I’ve always wanted these blogs to be a resource for you if you’re looking to tread your own path in your career.
I can’t pretend for one second that so far I’ve achieved any notable level of succes, but I’m hoping that by sharing my thoughts and experience, it can help you get a head start and fast-forward through a whole load of lessons I’ve learned along the way.
An idea that’s been at the forefront of my mind recently is that although you might be going it on your own business you’re never really fully alone…
There’s always going to be a voice in the back of your mind telling you the right thing to do is to give up and go get a secure job.
And it’s something I’ve witnessed from people of all levels of success.
If you’re self-employed or running your own company, the sheer fact of not knowing where your next pay-cheque is coming from can be a terrifying thought, especially the older you get and the bigger the bills you have to pay each month become.
Only you can properly decide whether that voice of doubt is telling you the truth or if you should ignore it and keep going.
It’s an important decision, one that I have no business advising you on.
But it does sadden me when I see friends in my own and in other industries who I believe are in the early stages of something really special, who have ‘giving up’ as such a concrete plan if they don’t meet certain targets by a certain time period.
And if there’s one thing I can tell you with my complete certainty is that in life and in business everything is going to take much longer than you think it will.
Whether or not giving up is the right choice is something you need to deploy serious introspection on.
But at the end of the day if you can chase your dream whilst still being able to pay your bills and support your family, why wouldn’t you go for it?
Gary Vaynerchuk has been my favourite business thought leader for many years now, and yes I know I harp on about him in every single blog post but I truly believe his unique perceptive on the business world will be of unbelievable benefit for you. You should stop reading this article and consume his instead, it will help you more).
(I’m sure the reading figures on my blogs aren’t so high because I’m sending so many people to Gary’s content… that’s what I’m telling myself anyway).
There’s a tale Gary often tells to people he meets, I’ve paraphrased it below…
“Imagine you’re working on your business idea, you get a year or so in and it hasn’t blown up the way you wanted it to yet, so you throw in the towel.
At the end of your life you get to heaven and God says, I really wish you’d kept going…
“If you’d just kept going for three more weeks it was going to happen”.
It’s darkest before the dawn is a massive cliche, but for myself and others it’s funny how often I’ve seen the biggest breakthroughs come when you’re reached points of despair.
I love the content creation industry for many reasons, one of my favourites is the cyclical nature of it and although there’s certain colleagues and friends you may not work with every day, it seems to be that every year or so you’ll find yourselves working together again on a project.
Of course nowadays in our industry everyone is sharing their content as much as possible but over the last year or so I’ve been surprised by friends and colleagues who have seen certain things I’ve worked on.
And my intuition says you never know who’s watching you.
I’ve talked in a previous blog about the belief that one view from the right person is all you need to catapult you forward to opportunities in your career that you never thought possible.
And you never know the right person might just stumble across that next piece of content that you post.
But if you give up and don’t keep posting, they’re never going to see it.
So I hope if you are ever at a low point and considering whether or not to keep working towards your ambitions, this thought will be a helping hand in your decision making.
And remember, you never know who’s watching.
I wish you every success,
Jack
What I’m Currently Reading…
‘Crushing It’ — by Gary Vaynerchuk — it’s a great one! Check it out here… https://amzn.to/2t13pmR)
About Jack
I help people, brands and business communicate more effectively with their customers through visual, audio and written content.
I do this through Southpaw Sport, the sports content marketing company I’m currently building as well as on a freelance basis working for agencies and production companies.
Visit www.jacktompkins.co
You can follow me on YouTube where I post weekly vlogs sharing my experience and opinion on content production.
YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/user/jackt18
And my social media for behind the scenes look at what I’m up to
Instagram — @jackwrtompkins
Twitter — @jackwrtompkins