Why The Most Talented Freelancers Sabotage Their Own Progress

**Brian Hood** (0:00)
This is the 6 Figure Creative Podcast, episode 371
Welcome to the 6 Figure Creative Podcast, where our mission is to help you turn your creative passions into a stable, reliable income. If you're in audio, video, design, photography, or really any other creative field, and you just want to learn from other successful creatives, you're in the right place. This episode is for my real pros, the ones who are actually good at what they do, the ones who are like top of the game, the masters of their craft, someone who's been so good at something for so long, people actually look up to you. If that is you, this episode is for you, because I want to talk about a pitfall that you have likely already fallen into. You've been good at your craft for so long, you cannot possibly stand the idea of sucking at something again. And so you end up avoiding crucial things that can make or break your business, or just make or break your life. You get into this cycle, and honestly, if you're not even a master at your craft, you're just good at what you do, you can still relate to this. You open new tech, something that you know you've been needing to do, like a CRM or something, you feel dumb at some point because it's complicated, you close it off, you tell yourself that you don't really need it yet, you can worry about this later, and you know it's a lie. You know it's a lie because you know you actually need a thing, but you're not lazy, so what is it? It's generally an ego protection mechanism of some sort where you want to avoid the discomfort of being bad again, and you just can't stand being bad at something again because you've just been so good. Everything you touch turns to gold. You're always used to being the best. My question is, when was the last time you were a noob? When was the last time you were actually bad at something? We build this moat of excuses around us when we're again masters at something and we're trying something brand new. You say you're not tech savvy. You say you're too busy with client work. You say you're a perfectionist. You say you'll outsource something. You'll outsource it now. You're also so later. You do outsource it, which we'll talk about all that. You say, I'm a creative, not a business person. Or you say, I don't want to sound salesy. Or you don't want to look desperate. These are all things that I hear in the world that we are, which is like helping with client acquisition and marketing. But there's a lot of other areas that this shows up. This is also how you get stagnant in one area where you refuse to adapt because the new things that you have to do to adapt are scary. You're not a natural at them. You suck at them. You're a noob again. And so you never get good at the shit you have to get good at in order to reach your goals. Whether that is you need to get more clients, whether that is you have to update your sound, update your vision, update your portfolio, update how you do something, how you operate. Your work is starting to show its age and now you're not showing up anymore in a modern way. And another way of looking at this is everyone's got someone in their mind that they look up to. And if you think about that person for a second, you want something that they have that you don't have. And that's how a lot of people feel. A lot of people want something that other people have, but if you think about it logically, very few people are willing to put in the work that that person did to get there. I think Alex Ramosi said something like, everyone's jealous of what someone has, but they're not jealous of what they had to do to get there. It's probably a better way of looking at that. And I say on this stupid sign over my left shoulder is it takes more than passion. Everyone has the passion to do something, but very few people are actually going to put in the work to get there. It takes more than passion. It takes more than creativity. It takes more than vibes. You have to suck before you can be great at something. And it's been so long. Again, I'm talking to you, the person who's great at what you do. It's been so long since you've been a noob. It's been so long since you've sucked at something that you've forgotten what it feels like to suck, but you know you have to suck at something before you'll be great at it. So there's a mantra by somebody who's been on this podcast. Episode 104, way back in the day. This is back in 2019 The episode's called The Recipe for Platinum Records, Number One Hits and a 7 Figure Income with Seth Moseley. If you don't know Seth, he has been songwriter of the year, producer of the year, dozens of number one songs.