Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

For those who feel lost…

For a long time, I felt lost. I felt like I was floating from hobby to hobby, trying to find my footing in a slippery world. I felt like I was yelling from the rooftops, just for people to tell me to “get down from there!” 

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

Swing as hard as you can

We try to focus on everything: making good work, and making a lot of money, and treating our clients well, and finding work-life balance, and having a good brand. When we focus on all of it, we aren’t really swinging that hard at any of it.

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

Forgiveness as a strategy

Even though 99% of the people I talked to about my dreams were excited and supportive, all I could think about were the two people who weren’t supportive. 

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

18 months…

Trust takes time to build with clients, especially as a freelancer. Early in your career, people hire you as a band-aid; someone to “patch up a hole in the business real quick.” Clients look for someone who seems like they can fix their problem, and who doesn’t cost too much, and they hire them. 

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

You have to jump first

They were both selling their paintings for thousands and thousands of dollars. They both had commissions from wealthy buyers, and were working hard to keep up with demand. Every artist’s dream. So what changed?

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

10 things to do when work is slow

#4. Set up a one-day sprint work session. I’ve seen photographers do this. They’ll rent a studio for the day, and then sell 30-minute portrait sessions to their friends, family, and audience.

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

“Artist Status”

"...once you start making things, once you take that leap, you have the same status as any other artist."

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

The art of abandoning your ideas

As a child you may have been way into dinosaurs or ballet or firetrucks or mermaids. You are probably not way into those things anymore. You quit them! You found other hobbies and interests that serve you much better now. Except maybe you haven’t touched those hobbies recently, either.

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

We don’t negotiate with terrorists

Good news: your mind is a master negotiator. The bad news? It’s only good at negotiating with you. You know what I’m talking about. You know the crafty promises it makes, when it convinces you to stay in bed for “just a few more minutes.”

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

What if it took less time?

You want to post consistent social content. But the last time you made a video, it took more than an hour. Posting content every day of the week would take up a whole workday. Obviously that’s not worth it. 

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

The poker table of dreams

So many people claim to have a dream, but they aren’t sitting at the table. They don’t have a chance to win, even by a stroke of luck or genius or happenstance.

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

Beat “the resistance”

As Steven Pressfield shares in “The War of Art,” there’s always so much resistance to doing creative work. The resistance shows up in cunning, crafty ways to block us from the creativity we so desire.

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

Views are down

How did you discover that views were down? Hopefully, by posting. I have a lot of respect for people who continue to put in the work, sharpen their sword, and stay in the game, even when the economy or the algorithm isn’t exactly in an optimal place.

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

My first book is finally here

Even after publishing over 700 articles on my website since 2018, writing 465 days in a row, and writing over a quarter of a million words…the resistance was still strong. The imposter syndrome was still there.

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Reese Hopper Reese Hopper

The Dip

If you’ve been on Instagram for a few years, your followers are probably made up of people you know. Friends, family, acquaintances. This creates a strange scenario if you’re thinking about posting consistent content to grow your audience.

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