Being your own Boss

I am now a few months in to this whole Freelancer/Entrepreneur thing and thought I would reflect on how it has been.

Firstly.. If I was not passionate about my chosen profession I would be stuffed!

Getting up when you want, booking meetings and working with clients all can be done whenever you want. This can be dangerous if you are lazy or unmotivated as the days can just fly by as you sleep in till midday and play xbox until 2 in the morning.

PAYING YOURSELF

I have been earning some dough and the business gets "paid". I have not mastered yet how much of that pay comes across to my own account to pay for food, petrol, bills.

At the moment its like this...

OHHHH I need money to pay for groceries...

'Jumps on Westpac to pay myself'

I don't really know how I should do things but really don't want to take too much out of the business and then be left with nothing!

DO GOOD WORK

At the moment I am juggling the Vlog life with the commercial projects. I spend very little time and effort on my personal content (colour correction, grading, music selection etc)

and on the flip side I want to create something AWESOME for my commercial clients. This balance is refreshing because I am a firm believer that 'Done is better than Perfect.' You can spend 1000 hours on something for the smallest minor tweak and sure sometimes that needs to be done but I believe in this industry things are moving QUICKLY... So getting things done, learning from the customer and audience response and improving for next time is the way to go.

This video from Peter Mckinnon was pretty refreshing and inspiring. An awesome message!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YarKjguI94w

GET UNCOMFORTABLE

I don't mean sit on a cactus... I really mean that putting yourself into situations that are uncomfortable can help you grow your business. Talking to that stranger, sending that email, holding your camera out in public.

I will give you an example... A few months back I was asked by the Ministry of Awesome to speak at one of their Coffee and Jam events. I immediately was apprehensive (What would I say, how would they respond?!) But I said YES and booked in my slot for a practice session where the team at the Ministry of Awesome meet me and discuss my 'pitch'. One week later I was presenting to a group of 50 people and it was pretty nerve racking but afterwards I felt amazing!

Hope all is well in your world!

Feedback on what you would like me to talk about would be appreciated :)

Dave

The hardest part is STARTING...

Hello and welcome to my first ever BLOG entry.

Some weeks will be video....Others a written blog... lets just see where this goes...

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would start my own blog but here goes nothing.

OK so to start from scratch I am going to type this as I would say things. My punctuation is not great, spelling probably a bit off and and have never been a big fan of typing things down. I find it hard to get my point across but need to work on it and want to share my perspective throughout this amazing time in my life.

Some quick facts...

My name is David James Risdon

I have an amazing Mum and Dad

A supportive sister

An amazing fiance (that I am marrying later this year)

Two dogs

And I am a Freelance Videographer.

I film and edit videos for a living.

I thought I would start this blog by telling you a bit about how I started on this journey.

Sooooo...

I trained to be a High School teacher and had an amazing three years at a Christchurch school. The staff were AMAZING, Students were great but I still found myself wanting more. I was looking forward to Fridays and hated Mondays...When I realised this I decided I would dabble in something in my spare time that I really enjoyed.

I enjoyed filming friends and family in skits and holidays from a young age. At many times in my life I realised how much I enjoyed it but THERE WAS NO MONEY DOING THAT so didn't do anything about it.

THEN... Snapchat and new smart phone technology came about and changed the game. Anyone could take photos and videos but not only that they could SHARE them. That share-ability is something that I love.

I started to share things on Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat and LOVED IT.

I also wanted to see more content showcasing things to see and do in our city.

(Christchurch, New Zealand)

My friends and I were starting to settle into the pattern of ..

(Work, dinner, Netflix, Bed) and Repeat

I was a bit over this so I started to teach myself how to take photos and shoot video.

I enrolled in 'Youtube University' and spent my evenings, early mornings and everything in between learning as much as I could. I was OBSESSED.

I picked up my first DSLR ( Canon 600d) and kept learning...

Roughly a year later I handed in my resignation and prepared for life as a freelancer.

I don't want to dive too deep into the gear I use this week (I would love to) but lets save it for another post.

The message I want to get across this week is that if you are unhappy about what you are doing for a living, OR you have a passion for something...I challenge you to do something about it. The excuses of ' ohh I don't have time' 'ohh I have bills to pay' ohhh I have a good paying job' can easily creep into your thoughts but I think to myself..

I could die tomorrow..

Life is far too short to do something you do not LOVE for 40+ years

OK Ill keep it reasonably short and sweet.

Welcome to the Blog, Stoked to be sharing this with you!

I will be sharing my learnings, gear info, business mistakes, highs, lows and everything in between!

Take care,

Dave

Comment below or hit me up on Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter or Facebook.

@qualityantics

Photo credit: Reuben Looi (He is the man)

https://www.facebook.com/reubenlooiphotography/