It's RJ and this is the freelance podcast. I'm excited to have you guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks for popping in those earbuds and doing whatever it is that you're doing. For me, I used to listen to podcasts on my commute back when I had a good old day job. And to be honest with you, I have a hard time. time listening to podcasts.
and getting like serious work done so i have a hard time listening to a podcast and like coding for instance i can really only focus my brain on one thing so i i listen to podcasts less than when i had a day job and the commute was the place to listen to. But that has nothing to do with today's show, just in case you wanted to know about my podcast listening habits. All right, so here's what we're going to talk about today.
and we're gonna talk about stagnating stagnation not uh i guess it could be considered continued education which i did a show on continued education but i i've just been thinking about this a little bit lately And as a freelancer, you know, somebody that cuts their teeth and pays their dues, you know, essentially, here's my work. And, you know, you trade your work for time or excuse me, you trade your time.
for money and your your work for money with a client and we always have you know each client is different right so you have clients always will ask you oh well can you do this or can you do that and you know depending on how you project yourself on your portfolio and in-person meetings and stuff like that. Some of it, you know, may not be too out of the scope of what it is that you do.
But depending on if you don't or if the client just literally has no clue, some of it could be completely out of scope of what you do. You know, a designer, you know, if you hire somebody to say design a logo for you, it wouldn't be. I guess out of the question to also ask them like, oh, now can you like do a logo opener video for us for our corporate videos, you know?
To a client, those seemingly are related, but obviously they're not to you, the professional. Now, you may be able to do that. You may not. But I kind of digress here. So when you're a freelancer... I think it's extremely important. One of the key characteristics to a freelancer who can continue to grow and continue to find success year after year is one that is a constant learner. One that is always pushing themselves.
are always interested in finding out how to do what they do better or even learning how to do something completely brand new. I attribute my desire to, you know... be the best to always kind of know what's going on in my uh you know career and stuff I look back, I have this conversation with a designer who I've worked with for years now. And in fact, I had a phone call earlier today with him where he does work for an agency and the agency is looking for a dev. So obviously he recommended me.
and he was just talking to them as they were asking what they typically ask like oh you know what is his hourly rate and you know oh that's a high hourly rate compared to what we pay other people and then they ask you know how long does it take him to do something and my time was
actually greatly smaller and their first question was well how is the quality you know and and then he he showed her some stuff and uh the quality was better than what they get now so um i attribute that to constantly getting faster, getting better, and being of more value to clients because... I don't code. I don't do things the way that I do, the way that I did, you know, five years ago. Honestly, even a year ago. I'm always trying to be open and aware of new ways to improve.
my skill set. And if you're a freelancer, this is really important. I have heard, I have seen, I have dealt with so many freelancers and even just people in general. that get to a certain level, and then that's it. They've learned what they needed to learn, they feel confident in what they can do, and they do what it is that they do.
I actually came across this, you know, head on when I was hiring at my last full time job. You know, I was in charge of the customer service department and I was hiring junior developers, designers. And, you know, a lot of people would feel. I've been doing this for 10 plus years. And to me as an employer who was also a developer,
That was almost a bad thing because when, you know, naturally I'd give them a code test to, to test their skills and you see the way they do things like, Oh, you've been doing it for 10 years. And like you're, that's how you did things probably 10 years ago. It's almost like... It's kind of the unspoken about driving force, lifeblood of a freelancer is one who is a constant learner, somebody who is always pushing themselves to improve upon what they can do.
at this moment in time. I'm kind of going through a little bit of that right now as I'm... kind of being forced with this new retainer. If you remember me talking about that a couple of episodes back, you know, the quality and budget for these projects that they're bringing me are larger than I'm used to. So I'm having to spend a little bit more time and doing things that I wouldn't.
normally do but that that's part of the reason i took the retainer because i like that i like having to learn new stuff i like how it directly impacts what i'm capable of as a developer i love how I can do something that I did for this person and bring it over to another project. And then somebody comments like, oh, wow, I've never seen you do that this way before. I like that. It really works nicely.
That's something that, as a freelancer, you always need to be going through. You always need to be in a cycle of learning and improving. Now, I'm not saying wipe the slate clean every couple months and, you know... really dive deep and okay how could I be doing this better just be aware that regardless of where you're at You are not, you know, an expert. I guarantee you if you were to talk to the top people in their fields, whether it be designers, developers, even going as far as actors.
and athletes and businessmen. I mean, just any field. I think it would be hard for us. hard pressed, I think the data that would come back would be about 99% of them feel like they could still be better, and that's what they're pushing forward to. You know, as I record this, I'm not a huge basketball fan, but I do pay attention.
to sports and uh it's if you pay attention to sports in any way you know as when when this was recorded yesterday uh was Kobe Bryant's last game he's retired he's officially done with the game of basketball And that's kind of what got me thinking is, you know, here is this long career that, you know, Kobe Bryant has had. And, you know, he ended with 60 points in his last game, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. But just somebody who's dedicated.
dedication to being the best you know when he won you know when he won his his championships and kind of the the heyday of the lakers so to speak um you know he didn't just okay i did it i'm here he kept pushing he kept working to get better. And I think that's super applicable to us as freelancers. I'll go as far as to say, I guarantee, that's right, guarantee, I guarantee.
That if you are not that type of person, you have either already hit the level of success that you will achieve or you're not far off from it. And that's not to bring anybody down. That's not to, I guess, discourage anybody. But what I'm saying is that freelancing is tough. It's really hard in case you didn't know that already. If you are genuinely working as a freelancer and either working for yourself already or you're working towards being able to be full-time.
It never necessarily gets easier, but... The people that I've seen, even the people that I look up to, they're always pushing their own boundaries. And sitting stagnant is the same as dying. You know, what's the saying? You know, sharks have to constantly be moving or else they'll die. I don't know if there's any scientific proof to that or not. I guess if you're into...
you know, marine biology, you can write me and let me know. But, you know, that's how the freelancer has to be. The freelancer has to constantly be moving and improving and working on this and adjusting that in order to... to reach a level of success and then more importantly keep that level of success you know by no means am i some rich freelancer dude guru who you know is going to write a new york
Times bestseller on how to be a successful freelancer, but I consider myself successful. And I've only been, I've been freelancing for, I guess, roughly eight years at this point, but only full time for about, you know.
close to two and a half at this point. And if anything, each year that goes by and I get a little more successful, it actually creates... more of a drive for me to get better and be better at what I'm doing so I can have, you know, more success or at least keep the level of success that I think that I have. And I don't see that from a lot of people. I don't see that from a lot of people that I speak with. And it's a little disheartening because...
I enjoy helping and getting to know other freelancers. I like talking to other freelancers and hearing about their successes and even hearing about their failures. When you have those sorts of conversations, you start to get a sense of the type of person that they are. And it just goes, I'm just... What I'm trying to get across is it is important that you as a person, as a freelancer, continue to grow, continue to want to grow. If you don't grow your skill set, you don't keep your mind open.
you're going to sit stagnant and you're going to get left behind. That's just, I mean, that's probably common sense, but every once in a while I think we all need to hear this. You know, I think about this all the time for me when it comes to how I handle situations. So not...
not how I, you know, learn a new programming language or whatever. I think about it in terms of how I handle situations where I used to be very kind of matter of fact, like, woe is me, I'm the victim here. I now try to work hard. harder, I don't always succeed, but I now try to work harder in seeing, you know,
What is this other person trying to accomplish? What is their situation? What's going on in their lives that could maybe have brought this on? Where was the potential miscommunication that led to this? And... you know, that's something that I'm constantly trying to do because I know at the end of the day, that makes me a better communicator. It makes me more enjoyable to work with. And that leads to, you know, word of mouth and new clients and all this other stuff.
So I don't think there's really much need to go on. Think about where you stand on improvement. You know, again. Maybe it's personal. Maybe it's emotional. Maybe it's directly related to the skill set that you have, or maybe it's a new skill set that you have. It's important that you're always... improving and most importantly, open to improving. You have to be open to getting better. You have to be open to hearing criticism on how you could have done something better.
So let me know. Shoot me an email. You can rj at rjmccolum.com. You can also go to my website, rjmccolum.com. Go to the contact page and fill out the form. That is how the majority of people get in touch with me. Let me know. What's something that you... possibly been working on improving or what are some tips that you have for other freelancers that you know they can do maybe it's you know I spend the first 20 minutes of my day reading up on something just to keep me fresh with what's going
on in my industry you know if you have any special tips or anything that you do that that feel that you feel helps keep you kind of ahead of the pack and in the know uh send those in let me know if I get some good ones I'll uh let you guys know next week but that's all i have for you i hope you have a great weekend i hope you've had a great week and if you do have any questions always feel free to reach out until next time guys we'll see you then