Staying Creative and Connected

Hello friend,

It’s been a while.

You’re receiving this because you’re on my email list, if you don’t remember signing up, hi 👋

I’d like to apologise if you subscribed and read ‘weekly’ newsletter, this has hardly been weekly. There are a few area’s I struggle to commit too, writing weekly is one. I’m very committed to changing this.

I hope you’ve been well since I last wrote, it feels like a lifetime since we’ve done this.

If you remember, back in my second letter I wrote about Paul Jarvis, I’ve just completed his course and am writing an article about it, stay tuned for that!!

🎨 Staying Creative, Systematically

I’m a big fan of Paul Jarvis, he’s a freelance web designer turned author and product developer. I’m slowly getting through his book Company of One and I’ve mentioned it here on the newsletter.

If you like the lifestyle business approach and minimalism, he creates a fantastic argument for why growing bigger isn’t always better. I must admit, I’m a big subscriber to this idea and really encourage others to pick up his book.

I just completed his course Creative Class and I cannot recommend it enough for aspiring freelancers and new web designers. Since Paul comes from a WordPress Design/Development background, I relate to his journey a lot.

Just a few months ago he did a Webinar with Ben Pines from Elementor and it was the perfect piece of content for me. His process-driven approach resonated with me, he gets that you can have creativity in a step-by-step project, I love it.

You might be interested in following him but you won’t find him on Facebook, he’s never had a profile. However, he does like Twitter so look for him there.

📐 Measuring Progress

Thanks to Ali Abddal & Ben Hardy, I found Dan Sullivan a master business/strategic coach who has published a few books, he’s got a free ebook called Gap and Gain, it’s worth the read, currently, I’m up to Chapter 3 and am loving how he explains our brain’s way of glorifying ideals and fantasies instead of being specific and focused.

Dan shows in order to ‘measure your progress’ and be happy about what you’ve accomplished, there’s a mind shift you need to actively engage in. To oversimplify, stop day-dreaming about what other people have put before you and acknowledge the fact you have improved. It can be something as simple as reading a book, landing a job or exercising. Acknowledge what you’ve accomplished, measure your progress by saying “hey, before I read that book I didn’t know about the Geometric series, wow! That’s awesome!”.

Personally, I have around 10 subscribers on my newsletter and about 150 subscribers on my YouTube channel, that’s not a lot compared to what others have done, I could measure this progress to the ideal, millions and millions of subscribers, which is always a fantasy and never achievable. Or I could measure this progress to the fact as I had 0 newsletter subscribers and 0 YouTube subscribers when I started and now I have MORE, I have progressed, looking back helps to measure progress. It’s a simple mind shift, but it makes me happier to see the progress I’ve made compared to the perpetual disappointing fact of never reaching my ideal ‘horizon'.

🏆 Traits of Success

Another misconception I’m slowly breaking down and destroying is the notion that success comes from natural-born traits. This podcast episode deep dives into how so many successful entrepreneurs grow the skills needed over a long time of hard work and trial and error to have traits of success. Tim Ferris and Guys Raz gave us a heartfelt, emotional conversation around entrepreneurism, anxiety, depression and a lot more topics worth hearing.

One thing I’ll use here from Guy is how he explains nature vs nurture regarding traits/skills that entrepreneurs desire. He explains that we’re all Clark Kent’s, but the difference between us and the successful entrepreneurs we know is, they’re going into the phone booth.

How cool is that? I love it! We’re all equal, it’s the effort we put in the makes the difference.

Guy has also released a book entitled ‘How I Built This‘, same title as his famous podcast but to me, I feel like the title has taken a new meaning with this book. I think it’s a more personal dive into Guy and his journey with all of the incredible people he’s interviewed over the years of hosting his podcast.

If you’ve never listened to the How I Built This Podcast, it’s worth every second of your time.

🎓 Learning, Web Design Conversion

This week I’ve been grateful for learning. How good is learning?

There’s something so rewarding about understanding new information or having that pin-drop moment. I’ve recently been diving into Cyber Security and deeper levels of Computer Networking. I found TryHackMe, a great interactive resource with a lot of community-driven courses, it’s a great place to start.

Elementor dropped another great webinar, this time with Talia Wolf from getuplift.co. I wrote a small write up called 4 Ways to Increase Conversions with Talia Wolf if you’re interested in checking it out.

⚡ Something Exciting – A New Course

So here is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, create my own course. I love learning and teaching, so it’s a natural progression for me to launch something of my own.

The problem I have is I get these ideas, I start sketching out plans and typing away what it will look like. Then I get stopped by actually sharing or releasing my progress, I’ve ignored these feelings for a long time. What’s happening is that I’m terrified of getting backlash from others, bad comments, rejections, failure etc. It’s a long list of negative emotions that go on and it scares the hell out of me.

Long story short I’m sick of it! So here I am, an idea I’m sharing and working on in public – Website In A Week Course (In development)

💌 Thanks, Friends

I appreciate your time reading this and would really love your support by replying to this email with any thoughts or feedback you have.

Question, what are you struggling to start right now?

For me, it’s YouTube. I wrote a massive video script a month ago and tried recording twice and fear of failure got so real I haven’t tried again. Sucks.

Thanks again, friend!!

Have a great day,

Ash

P.S. If you’d like to work together on a website project, download my Getting Started Guide on my website.

Any/all feedback welcome, please use my feedback form and select letters.