Mini Series: Practice to Professional (6 of 7): Chasing The Fog.
Vol. 062
Chasing The Fog.
How the pursuit of the unknown helps you find what you love, and what you don’t, and allows you to experiment and pivot in your creative career.
Mini-Series Schedule:
A 7-week series dissecting the 6 main points of my keynote speech: Practice to professional: manifesting your ideal creative career. This mini series culminates with a live webinar and Q&A where I talk through actual examples of how I applied these 6 main points to grow a 6-figure + creative business. You can rewatch the webinar through the link in week 7 below.
Week 1: You are your brand
Week 2: Free and underpaid work can be okay*
Week 3: Never Stop Experimenting
Week 4: Lie More
Week 5: Your Network is your net-worth
Week 6: Chasing the fog
Week 7: Watch the Webinar and Q&A!
Continue reading below…
“Chasing the fog” is a mindset that has opened up some of the most amazing, unexpected and profound experiences in my career.
Chasing the fog is the idea of intentionally pursuing that which is not fully realized… It’s the idea of working towards “something”, even when you don’t know what that “something” is or where it’s going to lead you.
Simply, chasing the fog is trying something new even if you have no idea if or how it will be beneficial for your career.
For example, if you’re a graphic designer, chasing the fog might mean trying to teach your first class despite having no teaching experience. As an illustrator, it might mean trying to paint your first mural, despite not knowing anything about murals. If you’re a lettering artist, it might mean reaching out to a bunch of the biggest agencies in the country to get your work in front of them, even if you don’t feel ready.
4 years ago, I had never taught a lettering workshop. I then blindly just went for it when my now buddy, Brooke of Goodtype, asked me to. That year I ended up making $13k teaching lettering workshops. Through simply trying something new and embracing the idea of feeling scared, I found a totally new, unknown and lucrative revenue stream.
To chase the fog is to follow your gut (and, to quote Ted Lasso: if you check in with your heart on your way down to your gut) you’ll almost always find yourself on the path that you should be headed down.
Many will tell you to set short and long term goals, and work towards them, ignoring everything else that may sprout up.
I’m here to say the complete opposite.
I’m here to encourage you to keep an open mind to anything and everything, and try everything that sparks your curiosity, whether it’s aligned with your “long term goals” or not.
How does this approach help you find your creative passion or niche?
I personally think it’s close-minded to think that we know what’s best for ourselves and our career. A belief that anything along our creative journey that wasn’t in the plans is a mere distraction is both ego-centric and naive. How the hell would you know if something “isn’t for you” if you’ve never tried it?
Chasing the fog affords you the opportunity to try new things without overthinking, and learn more about your true passions and creative potential. It enables you to experiment, learn and get out of your comfort zone. Not only will this help you find what you love, but — maybe more importantly — this process allows you to find what you don’t love!
Knowing what you don’t love to do is crucially important, and enables you to more easily refine your creative business by saying yes and no to the right projects.
How do you chase the fog?
The problem with being too focused on a set goal is that you have blinders up to the rest of the world. You lose sight of what the universe is putting directly in front of you.
When you’re presented with something new, consider a few things:
Does this excite me?
Does this scare me?
Does this intrigue me?
Is this something new?
Is this something that could be fun?
If it’s a new opportunity, and I have a “yes” to two of these, I’m almost always in. Chasing the fog is what led me to self-employment. It lead me to lettering, illustration, painting murals, acting, modeling, teaching — you name it, taking a blind leap of faith into something new simply “because” has been the catalyst of almost all that is success in my business.
Some of the best opportunities and experiences in both your career and more importantly, your life, are these unexpected/ancillary opportunities.
This is the final week of the Practice to Professional mini series. Next Sunday (6 days from now) I will be delivering the 6-part keynote as well as taking a live Q&A, and showing/breakdown my 2017 finances: my first 6-figure year! I hope to see you there!
