Summary

The author reflects on the importance of humility and openness to learning in professional growth, emphasizing the benefits of doing seemingly menial tasks, offering freebies, embracing all opportunities, learning new skills, and taking the initiative in communication.

Abstract

The article discusses how the author's past experiences with tasks they initially resented, such as creating mailers in a corporate job, have unexpectedly become valuable skills in their current endeavors. It highlights the significance of giving away free resources, like an ebook, to build an audience and add value without immediate financial gain. The author also shares insights on learning from those with different perspectives, acquiring new skills like Figma for content creation, and the power of making the first move in networking, which led to a potential contract with a client. The piece concludes by encouraging readers to let go of ego-driven attitudes that hinder professional development and to adopt a humble and curious mindset to achieve greater personal and professional fulfillment.

Opinions

The author believes that tasks perceived as beneath one's skill level can lead to unforeseen opportunities and should not be disregarded.
Offering freebies is seen as a valuable strategy for building an audience and establishing credibility, rather than focusing solely on immediate monetary returns.
Learning from senior colleagues and embracing tasks outside one's comfort zone is advocated as a means to gain new insights and skills.
Taking the initiative to learn new tools like Figma, even when not initially required, can enhance one's skill set and create new networking opportunities.
Making the first move in communication, rather than waiting for others to initiate, is presented as a crucial step in building relationships and advancing professionally.
The author emphasizes that a willingness to be humble and curious is essential for personal growth and success in the professional world.

Are You Losing Golden Opportunities Because of Your Ego?

Four arrogant approaches I changed to get golden clients and build an audience.

When I was in a corporate, I didn’t like when I had to do shit I didn’t sign up for. One of them was creating beautiful-looking communication mailers for senior executives. And I couldn’t even use simple software like Canva, I had to use PowerPoint and Excel to build these painful charts and create templates.

I deeply resented it.

Now, one of my clients wants some graphs in a report and wants to make my life easy by sending me PowerPoint templates to write on. And you know what gives me an edge here? The sucky corporate grunt work I deeply disliked. I had no idea these small things would pay off later on.

Similarly, there are plenty of times when what looks meaningless or stupid can lead us to better places. We just have to put our ego aside and attend to it.

Giving Freebies

I recently released a free ebook on side hustles. Here’s a conversation between my mom and me:

Mom: Why didn’t you put a price to it?

Me: 500+ people have downloaded it in less than a month. If I asked for money, maybe only 10 would’ve bought it.

Mom: You could’ve made it cheap for $5.

Me: It’s okay, I just wanted to add value and if these readers find my content valuable, they’ll be more likely to pay when I charge for something in the future.

Mom: I don’t understand this, but okay.

Give away things for free for no ulterior motive, just for the heck of adding value.

We need more good people in the world, be that good person. Try to give away your expertise, tweet about advice from your experience that’s worth $500, and give away free stuff because you don’t know where that lands you.

Even in my corporate job, I did a lot of things that weren’t a part of my work. All those things are paying off in self-employment, so why not willingly do it instead of whining about it?

You Think You’re Too Good for This

Some of my seniors at work were people I’d probably not befriend in real life. They were a decade older than me and had an entirely different thought process. Once I got to know them, I realised there’s so much to learn from them and they’re exceptional at what they do.

Recently, I was given a task to research and create a report as a selection process for one of my clients. I found the research bit quite hard, and it took me hours to get the facts and numbers in place and wave my writing wand to make this content interesting enough to read.

By the end of this stint, I learnt a lot! Not just the skill of researching the right way but also about one of the sectors I researched about, which I later got to know is the second largest contributor to GDP in my country. It took me a Bulgarian client to learn more about my nation!

Don’t think you’re too good for anything, take what life throws at you and treat it as an opportunity!

“Why Should I Do It?”

This was my reaction when I had to learn a bit of Figma for one of my clients. I mean, they had a designer, and I felt my job was limited to creating content. So why should I do it?

Once I got on an hour-long call with a colleague in Russia, I got to know that my basic work in Figma isn’t all that hard and what I learnt was something I can even use in the future.

Not just that, I think I developed a great rapport with this colleague that I otherwise wouldn’t have. Call it building a relationship or networking, but it wouldn’t have happened without that call and now I’m certain I can reach out to her for help.

An open mind towards learning, even if it may seem super hard, can lead to something great.

You Don’t Want to Make the First Move

If you’re in the creator economy and work on your laptop remotely, you’re in luck because you’ll probably never meet the person on the other side. On that note, don’t spam them!

Even if you’re in a traditional job, what is there to lose? What's the worst that can happen?

I’ve been going back and forth with a client since April now. In June, I let it go because it felt clear that they didn’t want me. They told me I’ll be interviewed soon and the interview never happened.

Then, one random day, I left a text. I thought I’ve already bombarded him with my texts, though frequently spaced out. What's the big deal!

On September 02, I had an interview with my potential leader, who was such a delight to speak to and we laughed a lot. Right now, we’re in the process regarding my contract!

None of this would’ve happened without that one random text. And even if things didn’t work out, I’ll at least know that I pushed to land up an interview with an ideal client of mine.

Try to leave your ego aside about being the first one to text. It doesn’t make you a big person to not reply and not make a move.

Growing up, my mom always said,

Believe in destiny, but it won’t come to you sitting on a couch.

So wake up and get moving!

Summary

These few things have not been easy to do but have given me significant results. Sometimes, we need to change the approach we take in our professional life versus our personal life. What may be okay in one place may not be in another.

Being humble and curious is the way to go.

Here are the four things we discussed that we often feel too proud to do:

giving away things for free
thinking we’re too good for a certain task
saying “why should I do it?”
not making the first move

Let go of these small things that give our ego a kick.

All of them have helped me get something better, not to forget – become more grounded as a person. And that’s much better than feeling haughty.

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