Hiya writer friends,
I’m back from India! The trip was fantastic. The high point was getting to hang out with my niece and nephew, and the low point was the plane landing at Heathrow in the midst of a storm.
The return flight was bumpy overall and there were a couple of hours where everyone, including the staff, had to remain seated. People were, unsurprisingly, freaking out. I, on the other hand, put on some music and fell asleep. When I woke up 90 minutes later, the guy sitting next to me was amazed. “I can’t believe you slept through that!” he said.
“I chose to,” I replied. “If something terrible happens, they’ll make an announcement and wake me up. But if not, I don’t want to sit here being stressed for two hours.”
This is something I have learned and practiced over the last few years: I simply refuse to worry about things I can’t control. There is no part of sitting in an airplane that’s experiencing turbulence that I can control other than my reaction, so I focused on that.
This thought process has served me well in my business. I can’t control whether my clients all decide to use AI and let go of their freelancers, but I can learn how to work with new technologies and use them in my own writing so that when my client asks if I can create AI-assisted content, I know how to do it exceptionally well. Which is what happened last month.
I can’t control large-scale media layoffs and how it impacts the need for freelancers, but I can do such an incredible job for my clients that when they let go of the entire team and only have one freelancer left on their books, I’m that lone freelancer. Which is what happened last week.
I can’t control whether publishers will want to put me in an immigrant box, even though I don’t write about immigration, but I can control how I choose to position myself and turn down opportunities that don’t fit into my vision for my brand. Which happened today.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity,” or so the quote goes. This will no longer be a fruitful career for people who are not willing to experiment, to learn new things, to try new ideas, and to constantly reinvent themselves to serve the needs of their clients and readers.
The only people currently succeeding in media are those who are willing to learn, take chances, and keep building new skills. And the only people who will thrive are those who understand that a living is not owed to them, but that one is possible if they’re willing to reinvent themselves constantly as the market changes.
If you need help building those skills and staying on top of what’s coming next, don’t forget to check out Wordling Plus. We know it’s a difficult time for writers, which is why we’ve kept our prices super low. You can sign up and get access to hundreds of hours of training right away, with more live events and masterclasses coming really soon. Check out all that we have to offer here.
Enjoy the issue!
Cheers,
Natasha