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Welcome to this week's edition of Freelance Fuel, where, as always, we share curated content that will hopefully inspire your business or get you started.
Today we look at the art of knowing when busyness becomes procrastination, how to spend the last 101 days of the year, how the bargain lifted a creative business and how to use ChatGPT as a shortcut to upskilling.
Let's get started.
/Jannik from Factofly
🚀 Motion & Action
In James Clear's bestseller Atomic Habits, one concept in particular is worth taking on board.
He calls it Motion vs. Action.
You know it as the difference between feeling busy and actually generating an output.
However, the two things are connected.
Where exercise is researching and coming up with 10 ideas for blog articles, action is actually writing and publishing one.
🌪 Exercise is finding workout plans.
🚀 Action is showing up at the gym.
🌪 Motion is zooming in on 30 new leads.
🚀 Action is grabbing the bone and getting them on the phone.
When you're the sole captain of your business, you can easily fall into a motion spiral where the website needs a little extra tweaking, or the outreach email needs a little tweaking before it can be sent.
Exercise is important, but be aware of when it becomes a procrastination that makes you feel busy.
It's the output, the action, that drives your business forward.
⏱️ 101 days left
It was a freezing summer a moment ago and suddenly there are 101 days left of 2023!
I'd like to hear from you and what needs to be clocked before the hand tips over to '24. It can be both private and professional ambitions, and who knows, maybe there are others on this list who can help you get there.
Simply reply to the email here and we'll feature a (anonymous of course) selection in next week's edition.
🎈 Make them a bulletproof offer
Always empathetic Chris Do from The Futur, shares how he built his business from 0.
Chris's big frustration lay in the classic catch-22 all startups face. You can't land customers until you have experience, and you can't get experience until you land customers(see or re-watch Alex Hormozi's strategy for landing the first five customers here).
Hear Chris describe how it was his offer in particular, and the way he went about it, that really lifted his business and helped him with the one thing he desperately needed as a creative - a feel for running a business.
💯 Upskilling and ChatGPT
When it comes to upskilling, if you can feed ChatGPT with the right prompts, it's a gold mine.
One of them is the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 principle.
If you want to get under the skin of complex concepts quickly, this one is worth saving.
📚 The secret bestseller list
If you need reading material for the cold months, jump on board here.
We especially recommend Nike founder Phil Knight's book, Shoe Dog.
