It’s been about a week since I’ve redesigned this website. It’s gone through several changes since I bought the domain to my name all the way back in 2016. At first, I used a theme recommended by Seth Hymes, the creator of the In Demand Career course, which I still recommend if you’re a new digital marketing looking to break into the field.
It will teach you the big picture of what digital marketing is about, although you will have to do some of the legwork on your own if you want to dive deeper into parts of digital marketing you like most. I know that’s what I did when I became fascinated with both SEO and PPC, but that’s not the point of the post that I have for today.
What I really want to talk about is my philosophy when it comes to time and productivity and why I think it’s so important for digital marketers to have a solid grasp of. You can always earn more money. It’s true! In a year or two of working in this field, you could be earning well over $60,000 a year if you play your cards right. You could probably top that amount if you decided to go solo and take a great risk creating your own freelance digital marketing agency.
It seems that money is endless. The whole U.S. government has printed trillions and trillions of dollars and pumped it into the economy for the past several decades without much consequence or any risk of going insolvent. We live in one of the most powerful countries on Earth that’s abundant in wealth and real resources.
So money is a tool that you can find just about anywhere if you’re willing to do what it takes to get there. But there’s a resource that’s far more limited that I think a lot of people tend to overlook when it comes to figuring out how to be successful entrepreneurs, and that’s time. And I mean time as in an asset that you use to decide what you’re going to expend your energy on.
Are you going to use that time to do a great job for someone else, or will you take a more experimental route and spend time on yourself to sharpen your skills and become the best digital marketer you can be in your own time? Let’s dive a bit deeper into this subject and find out why time is your best asset if you want to succeed in this world and in digital marketing and web development for that matter.
The Way that I View Time in Digital Marketing and in Life in General
From the moment we’re all born, we all have a shelf life on this Earth to do what we need to do to have the impact that we want. In my case, I’ve always wanted to create art and animation and entertain people through cartooning. It’s been a passion instilled in me ever since I could remember being old enough to pick up a pen, paper, and pencil and do silly little crayon doodles inspired by one of the cartoons I was into at the time.
I knew from day one that would be what my destiny would eventually be, no matter how much adversity I had to face to get there as a digital marketer. I didn’t have the same advantages as other folks, however. For much of my life, I didn’t have a job at all. I spent much of that time in school getting a degree that I thought would be useful, and in some ways, it was. I really got a lot out of the corporate finance classes that I took for example.
In other ways though, I look back and regret not using some of that time to learn other high value skills that would have allowed me to accumulate wealth faster, so I can use it to buy the capital and equipment that I would need if I ever wanted to make animated films.
That’s a huge reason why I got into digital marketing and web development. Yes, I love both fields and the challenges you solve. I also love how there’s so much room for both problem solving and creativity in each, perfect for someone like me who uses their right and left parts of their brain heavily.
I always remember, however, that I spent a ton of time self-studying and learning from the very best in these fields. I studied the Neil Patels, the Brian Deans, the Grant Cardones, and all the many others who are killing it right now in digital marketing because I wanted to know how I could someday make serious returns out of these skills that I had been determined to learn and master.
What I noticed from each individual I studied is how much they value time, and I came to form my own view of what time really means, and how you can also tie it to productivity and anything else you want to see happen in your career and in your life.
Gary Vaynerchuk Said It Best
The one guy who really shaped my view of time has to be Gary Vaynerchuk. Although I don’t really follow him that often, I think this is one of the best nuggets I’ve ever seen him offer. Here’s the post if you haven’t seen it. It’s every bit worth the read in my humble opinion.
To sum it up, we’re all going to die at some point. There’s no way around it. We have only one shot at making it big in this world. Once you’re dead, that’s it. You could be working for a long time, and then out of nowhere, drop dead and have the employer find someone else. The job in this way outlasts your obituary.
Knowing all of this, you have to start thinking in a certain way. You have to value every moment that you have to be yourself and do the things that you like to do and to work every step of the way to meet your dreams and goals.
I know this sounds all preachy and corny, but this was so powerful when I first heard about this concept so many months ago. Then, I started getting back on Facebook and meeting a ton of cool people in the digital marketing and coding realms. Many of the people I’ve met there also helped me to put the pieces together about why I valued time so much as an asset. It’s really a finite resource but you can do so much with it.
You’re Not Beholden to Anyone in Digital Marketing, so Break Out of that Mindset!
The problem that I see with many people working in digital marketing is that they feel that they are beholden to others. Sometimes I still struggle with this same problem. It’s an unhealthy pattern that causes more harm than good in the long run. It causes people to go against their own interests, wants, and desires to please other people instead of working on becoming the best versions of themselves.
Wouldn’t you want more time to work on that next great PPC business idea of yours, or to take that same time and how SEO is going to play out in the 2020s? With these skills, the sky is the limit with what you can really do to help others and yourself too. Never forget that.
Even if a company you’re at is going through some dire straits, keep calm knowing that your skillset, your passion and your work ethic and determination can really carry you far. Don’t let anyone stop you from achieving the things that you want in digital marketing.
So what if you didn’t start out as a digital marketing specialist right off the bat? Or maybe you didn’t know that much about WordPress or web design or the more technical aspects of SEO? It’s completely okay to use that time to experiment, trip up, make mistakes, and even be wrong at times.
As a friend of mine would say, it’s okay to be wrong at some point, but it’s never okay to stay wrong. It’s also never okay to overlook your most valuable asset on your side and to waste it focusing on things that really don’t matter in the end.
Stop stressing out about being perfect and trying to please other people and worrying about what they think. If you feel that your time is better spent elsewhere and especially on yourself, go with that gut feeling and really own it. Don’t hold back or take crap from anyone. Most of all, do you because besides our family and friends, that’s all we have in this world and never forget that.
What Are Your Thoughts?
If you enjoyed this post, let me know in the comments section. I’m really excited to see how much I can grow this blog and talk about things that I love in the way that I want. Later, I’m going to bring up the subject of time and go into how I try to stay as productive as possible and resist procrastination and other time killing activities to help me become a better digital marketing professional in the field.
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