Becoming an enhancer, micro-journaling, and freelancing as a safety net.

The menu of this edition: becoming an enhancer to stand out as a creator, using micro-journaling to develop self-awareness and as a self-care practice, and why freelancing can be a good safety net for a creator.

Creative freedom: become an enhancer

I was watching a YouTube video.
This is not very original I know.

But bear with me because it wasn\’t some mindless binge-watching.
I got a different perspective on how to find uniqueness and thrive as a creator

Not a completely new idea (but is there any?). Absolutely not in the end, but you may want to consider it as I don\’t see it that often discussed in the creator economy.

The concept I want to explore here is how you can become an enhancer.

Becoming an enhancer is a way to develop your creativity and show your uniqueness.

It has two faces: enhancing the work of others to make them shine and using it to shine yourself.

I am not talking about copying or mimicking. The aim of this tactic is to add more and tweak to magnify an aspect of the creator\’s work. Or add your own perspective.

Let\’s go back to the video I mentioned earlier.

It is a video of a French music band named Shaka Ponk.

Here it is:

I already watched it a few times (more than that actually.I have a weird way of listening to music: obsessive repetition. Until I feel it into my inner fibers. Music is that important to me).

But this time, I had a clearer vision of what was going. It is more than a cover of a famous song by ACDC. It is almost of new song build on top of it.

Shaka Ponk are very good musicians. You may not like the style (I don\’t like everything they do, far from that), but they are good.
And they are enhancers. They know (and work hard surely) how to bring their fired-up craziness to a song.

But even more, when they perform a song from another band together with this band, they magnify their performance. They make the band look even better.

Here is how they performed with The Offspring:

That\’s an excellent example of an enhancer.

It is not uncommon in music where covers can become more famous than the original. See this one for example:

But I don\’t see that very often in writing (at least in non-fiction) or other creative works.

It\’s something worth trying.
As with anything new, it might suck at the beginning, but it could be what makes you stand out from other creators.

Will you give it a go?

Mental freedom: micro journaling as a self-care habit

Journaling is very popular and praised by all the gurus.
I tried it myself and I envisioned the benefit of it. But I didn\’t keep doing it.

Why?
Because I didn\’t start it the right way.

I aimed too big and I didn\’t choose a good time to do it.

It was at the very end of the day, just before sleeping. Sounds like a good idea to wind down and get a more relaxed sleep.

But it didn\’t fit the way I usually live. I tend to go to bed when I reach exhaustion or almost. I know it is not the best way to manage my energy and I am improving things a little (thanks to my caring wife).

This means that I couldn\’t stretch my day ten more minutes to journal while falling asleep on my laptop.
You need to keep some neurons awake to write something useful.

Also, journaling involves diving into your emotions. And this might not be the best way to find sleep if you had a stressful day or sad news.

I am playing with the idea of doing what I call micro journaling. Journaling for super short sessions at random times during the day.

(it might already exist, I don\’t know, I didn\’t do the research yet)

The benefit it could have is to develop more efficient self-awareness and feel better more quickly.

By closing the gap between the time when you experience emotions and the practice of journaling, you would have a way to become aware of how you feel and why. And ultimately to deal with emotions better.

This could be powerful.
Emotion control (but not dismissal) is the path to mastery, to live free.

Financial freedom: freelancing as a safety net for creators?

This is against what you read online (and on Twitter or YouTube particularly).

It seems that if you don\’t live and die by passive income, you are a loser. Or a slave of someone else.

Well, I\’d like to differ.

Trading time versus money is not that bad.

It has many benefits over the randomness of the content creator\’s life, always subject to funky algorithms that nobody controls.

Freelancing (or a regular job) gives you control over your income.

Not really the case when your tweets’ impressions fluctuate or your YouTube views go down without any clues of what is going on.

And you can get your precious account banned at any time. It happened to many (Tim Denning, the multimillionaire writer, for example).

Not safe.

You will argue that you can distribute your content over different platforms. That\’s right and a good strategy to safeguard your creator\’s business.

But it is tough. Growing on one platform is already exhausting. Doing that on multiple can quickly lead to burning out.

I did a crazy challenge where I published every day 1 YouTube video, 1 blog post and 1 podcast episode. (Yep. Every single day.)

It was super exciting. totally crazy. And I did for 37 days, not 100 as I aimed initially.
Maybe because I was a beginner and working full time. But still. It is hardcore.

I will do it, but differently.

Anyways…

My point is that freelancing gives you direct access to cash. And you can predict more easily how much you\’ll make the next month.

Another benefit is to get immediate feedback on your craft. Your client will let you know if you do a bad job.

It is also the fastest way to gain financial freedom.
You have a skill, you get paid for it.

You can make a full-time living in a few months. And if you do well, you will only work a half day and have time to do something else.

Thus, learning how to freelance effectively can be a good investment for your financial freedom.

Outro

That’s it for this edition.

I hope you found some or all of it useful.

Let me know what you think of this new format: do you like it or do you prefer the long-form in-depth letters of the previous editions?

I will certainly publish a long-form version of each point separately, probably on Medium, if you are interested, you can follow me there.

Take care and be great,

Frank