How Freelance Writers Self-Sabotage and What to do Instead
I have lived a long life of chronic self-sabotage out of fear, anxiety, worries over things that have never happened, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome…oh, you have, too? That's why this week we're going over exactly how freelance writers end up self-sabotaging their business building efforts, even when they have good intentions, and what they can do instead to move forward. Will it be difficult sometimes? You betcha. But in my decade of experience, it's always worth it.
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Let's talk about self sabotage. So this is something that I have dealt with for a super long time as a freelance writer. And then also I've seen it a bunch in my freelance writer, wealth lab students, and then also in my coaching students. So I think this is a really important topic that we talk about. Um, I just don't feel like it's talked about enough in our community, in our writer, community, where we talk about imposter syndrome. We talk about self-doubt we talk about, um, feeling like we're not enough, or that we're not good at writing or all these other random things, but the deal is that we don't talk about, well, all the things that we do, uh, to sabotage ourselves as freelance writers, and we do it all the time. It's more of this thing where it seems like it's just something you do, right?
Like it's something that it's a pattern that you've repeated for so long that you don't even know it's really self-sabotage you kind of categorize it as something else. So I think this is important that we talk about this and I have some notes and we have some, we have a question today that we're gonna answer. And if you have any questions as I go over anything or anything about freelance writing, feel free to pop it in the chat, or you can always pop it in the comments below. We have two puffins here. Oh man, I always try to get you guys on camera and you guys can just never participate in the same frame. You guys just love sitting in opposite sides. Hey Vicki. Welcome in. Glad you are able to hang out. Hey, she, uh, you're welcome. Sherra. I'm glad that you feel like this is a topic that needs to be addressed.
She says, hi. Thank you so much for addressing this topic. You're welcome. I feel like we need to talk about it more. Uh, Hey, vena. Welcome in. Yeah. Vena says it's super important. I agree. It's not talked about enough. Yeah. Self-sabotage is like a very serious, you know, it's a very serious thing that we do and it kind of holds us back from all the important things that, uh, we wanna achieve as writers. So let's get into it. So let's talk about how we end up self sabotaging ourselves. Um, even when we have good intentions. So here's a couple of things I've noticed recently from my students, my coaching students and my freelance writer, wealth lab students. And then also just from my own personal experience. So self-sabotage even when you're trying means that you set a hundred LO's and now you're like, everybody hates me.
I don't wanna do this. I'm the worst. That's self sabotage. Once you start sending these Lois, this part of getting the train going, right, this is part of the process. This is going to be your life. Now this is going to be your life. Now that you have to keep sending these marketing messages. Like even though I've been freelance writing, you know, for 10 years, I still have to send Lois. I don't send a hundred a month. You know, I send them, I don't know. I usually send them like every quarter or every six months now. And I probably send 25 to 50. Hey, Annie. Welcome in hi team. Hey Tracy. Welcome in. Yeah, I like that. You guys talk to each other too. I like that. You said hi team. I it's. I think that's for me, one of the coolest things about having a live stream is that we can all talk to each other.
Uh, and it's a time when I get to see everybody at the same time, instead of it being just like putting in a YouTube video and then everybody kind of just commenting. I like that. We all get to hang out. I think that's fun. So the deal is that when you do your marketing, your marketing is part of running your business. This is part of your life now. So when I get messages where like I've sent all these Lois and nobody likes me and everybody's not responding, like that's, self-sabotage, you're just trying to prevent yourself. Right? You're like thinking that the outcome is gonna be negative. So instead of being like hopeful, like, Hey, something's gonna work out. I'm doing really well by sending all these other lies. I'm moving my business forward. I'm controlling what I, I can control the self-sabotage comes in and is like, you're a loser.
You should stop. No one answered you stop now. Like, it's just not, it's not a thing, right? That's just your voice in your head saying like, you should quit. Everything's gonna be terrible, right? That self-sabotage all of these efforts. And these forward motion, things that you're doing are, are great for your business. Always sending Lois, being consistent about your marketing, reaching out to the right clients, making sure that you're kind of refining who you wanna work with. That's really important. And if you start, self-sabotaging all the efforts that you're putting into your business, guess what? You wanna quit? You hate it. So what ends up happening is like, I get a lot of writers who come to me and they're like, yes, everybody, nobody answers me. And then this thing happens and I'm like, okay, well what's going on? And they're like, oh, well I've only gotten this percentage of response.
And so let's talk about that a little bit. So for me, I would say maybe, um, I don't have like exact, but I would say over the course of my lifetime as a freelance writer. So 10 years, my response rate is probably 20 to 25% ish. So out of all of the Lois I've ever sent one fifth to a quarter of them have gotten a response that doesn't mean I've gotten work from it. It just means I've gotten a response. And I think kind of the general thing is 10%. So like, if you haven't like, this is 10 years worth of data, right. I'm giving you 10 years worth of me sending like thousands or not, maybe not thousands, but definitely hundreds of Lois. So that's a pretty good response right over years. Right. And I wrote this to my, um, email list, right. And you can always join my email list.
Um, I also, in addition to this live stream, I always send out, um, a weekly email that has other tips and tricks. Um, and you can join it. Like if you grab my pricing guide, you can just, that adds you onto my email list. So if you go to Mandy ls.com/pricing guide, you can get my free pricing guide, freelance writers, and you get to join my email list. So I wrote about this, Hey, Getty, welcome in. Um, I wrote about this in my weekly email. I had someone reach out to me five years after I sent an LOI. And my previous record was three years. So out of all the data I've been collecting, I've had several people reach out to me years. Like they found the email, they saved the email, they did whatever they did with it. And they reach out to me years later.
So when I talk to freelance writers, who've just started, right? Like people who have just started or people who are like one to two years in and they're like, yeah, my response rate is 10 to 15%. And I'm like, that's really good. Like, that's really good. Um, like if you weren't getting any responses, that's a big problem. Uh, if you were getting like, you know, a very, very low rate of response, or maybe let's say you were getting a very low, um, conversion into someone hiring you, that's a problem. But the fact that like, yes, let's talk about this too. The fact that like, you're sending these Lois and you're worried about like the response rate is not as important as the close rate. Okay. So like the amount of people who get back to you is not as important as the amount of people who actually sign contracts and give you cash money.
That's the important part. Like for me, um, my response rate has gone up over to time. So I'm glad that Vicki asked this question. Vicki always pops in here and asks great questions. So thank you, Vicki. Um, yes. So when I started out, my response rate was like 5%. Like I did these horrib. I did these horribly long Lois and I, it just was like just nightmare town. So when I started, I did everything wrong that one of the reasons I started this live stream and I started my weekly emails is like, I wasn't one of those writers who like magically made six figures in my first year or like figured it out super quickly. Like it took me a long time to get my together and finally figure everything out. So for me, when I started my response rate was abysmal. Like it was terrible.
And then I finally figured out, like, it eventually got to like 5%, then it eventually got to 10%. And now, like, I think it's somewhere like 20 to 25%, like over the years. So if I was gonna take my LOI rate for the like last six months, it's like really high because I'm very particular about who I send Lois to and the types of companies target. So for me, sending Lois and getting that better response rate and raising your response rate over time is like, you become an expert, you become a known entity, people read your stuff in magazines, or they read your clips elsewhere and they start to get to know you. Um, like I'm more of like a well known thing in a bunch of my fields. Like people are like, oh, I saw your up in this thing. Or, oh, I saw that you wrote for this place and I read your work.
Like that kind of stuff happens over time. So then when you put that in your LOI, you're like I wrote for these big organizations in your niche, then you get a higher response rate. Cuz people are like dazzled by these things, right? Like, so let's say you write for like, um, you know, two really like two unicorn startups and like two fortune 500 companies. People just get back to you cuz they're interested in that. Right? So for me, the more you get more focused and you become an expert and you learn more things, the higher your response rate, because you get to tell them like I've worked for your competitors, I've worked for all these people that you care about. We should try to work together. That really helps. But like I said, over 10 years, like it's 20 to 25%. It's something like that.
And when I first started, it was like 0%. It was horrible. I finally got to like 5% then 10 sent. And then as I kind of figured my out and figured out who I wanted to target, then it gets even better. So this is the thing we don't wanna self sabotage in the beginning because you don't actually know what you're doing. So I'm glad Vicky asked that you don't really know what you're doing. This is how I kind of started out with food. Like one of my niches was, and now I write about hospitality, tech, restaurants, um, and a whole bunch of other things in the food category, but it's not really tech like food, you know, it kind of crosses over and does a bunch of different things. But when I was like starting out, I was like, all right, food, like anything that's food.
But as you kind of go along, you learn to like, okay, it's this. And then it's actually this. And I like actually writing about this too. Like you, you kind of learn that. So in the beginning of you start, self-sabotaging all this marketing that you're doing or all these efforts, right? Like let's say you update your LinkedIn, you update your website and you're like, no, one's contacting me. Um, if you start self-sabotaging really early, you don't get the chance to like, let business be the ameba that it is, it kind of needs to grow and stretch and be kind of wiggly. And then you kind of are like, oh, okay, maybe it's this. And it, it changes over time. And if you sell sabotage, you're not actually letting your business grow. Right. Like if you looked at a tree, right, like some trees take, right?
Like those giant sequoias and Oak trees, like we have a lot of Oaks around here. If, if, if you look at a seedling and you're like that seedling sucks, it's never gonna be anything. Okay. Well, like that's not actually helping you. Right. And that you, we all know that it takes a long time for those big sequoias to have been been sequoias. Right. Or it takes a long time for an Oak tree to like really, you know, um, be like a giant, big, robust tree. Right. That's why they have rings on the inside. This is kind of the deal. If you start kind of looking at it in a short scope, like your telescope's too short, then of course it's really easy to self sabotage. You're just like, well, I'm not doing it as well as, and so right. You compare and despair or you're like, oh, well, if Mandy does this and I do this, I'm doing it wrong.
Or you kind, you have to let it, you have to have a long term view and you have to let your business kind of wiggle. So the deal is that all of my friends, like all of my friends, um, all my, my freelance writer, friends who I love, love, love have the same thing. They all started out saying like, I think it's this. And then they're like, actually it's this, oh no, it's this. You have to give your time, self time to experiment. You have to give yourself time to let your efforts play out. And you have to learn about yourself. You have to learn about the writing you wanna do, and you have to learn about your clients, right? So that's the deal. The, the self sabotaging is like guessing the future. Like you guess that it may not work out or you're expecting a negative result or you kind of lose hope that it'll figure itself out instead of paying attention to the fact that wow, I'm putting myself out there.
Wow, I'm actually doing my marketing on a schedule. Wow. I'm getting a response. Right? We spend a lot of our time as writers in silence. Response is just good. Getting a response is good. Uh, wow. I signed a new client. I signed a new contract, loved this thing. I got paid up front. Oh my goodness. That is a weird noise. You just made you wanna come over. I'll squeeze you. If you come over here, you know? Okay. So the deal is that you have to have like a longer view. You have to let your business kind of experiment a bit and you kind of have to give yourself credit for all the things you can control. You can't control who gets back to you. And when, whether it's, whether it's five minutes or five years, you can't control when people get back to you, but you can control how many times you're, you're basically like betting on yourself.
This is something that was a concept for me, that really helped with self sabotage is like, instead of worrying about all of this X stuff, I am gonna continue to put you. Don't like this idea. I love this idea. You could continue to put coins in the, in the bet on yourself machine. This is like the thing I have in my mind. Every time I send an LOI, every time I get a project, every time I do something and it doesn't work out, at least I bet on myself. I bet on myself. I bet on myself over and over and over again. And guess what it takes a while. You have to keep betting on yourself. Even when things suck. Even when you wanna self sabotage and be like, everything's not working, I should quit. Like you have to keep betting on yourself and I'm gonna squeeze you.
Come here. No, I'm gonna pick you up and squeeze you, come here. You, you wanna be a grumble fair. You can be a grumble fair up here. I know you don't like it. Cuz you're just gonna like you, you can't grumble at me. So that's the difference. The self sabotage is like trying to get rid of all of the good effort you just put in. Instead of saying, I keep putting coins in the bet on myself machine. Remember that like for me, that was the big shift. And that's another thing that switches you right? From effort goals and like response rate. So for me, I started looking at how much effort I was putting into my business. How much, like how much time am I spending? How much, um, how many times am I doing this thing to move my business forward? That helped me a lot more than worrying about like who gets back to me and when, because you can't control that.
So if you're ever feeling like you wanna self sabotage or you're like, everything's not working and all of my effort is for not. And da, da, da, even though all the stats say something different. Or even though you've been really trying hard to be on a schedule, do all the stuff, submit your work on time, uh, get paid on time. All of those things you have to remember, you're putting coins in the bed, on yourself machine. That's what matters the most, not, not where you're looking at something. And um, like, well, I'm trying my hardest. And like it's not working. No, you're trying your hardest. That's the thing. If you believe that you're putting in like a really good effort, right? Like you really believe that you're like, this is my best. I'm doing my best. That matters way more than whatever else is going on because that always works out.
That's the thing I, to focus on. And I used to self-sabotage I'm like, well, I'm working really hard. It's never gonna work out. Right. I'm working really hard. And because I'm working really hard and because I'm not getting X result immediately or within X amount of time, I should just quit. And that's the self-sabotage is like, you're forgetting all of this hard work you're putting in. And it's like building the foundation. This is something that has to happen. There's no house where you're like picking out paint colors before the things actually built. Right? You have to find someone to build the house and put the framing in and put the pipes in and put the electrical in, right. Not fancy, but needs to be done. Right. You don't go into a house and you're just like, I think it's gonna be C foam green. That's what makes sense.
Like, that's just not gonna happen. The deal is that you have to do all of these framework things and you have to set all of that up. And if you start self sabotaging, you forget some nails. You forget to connect the, the electrical. You forget to call the utility company. Your pipes are leaking, like all that stuff. Um, Getty says with direct mail and outbound telemarketing campaigns, you, he was calibrating predictive models for a typical 1% response rate. And I did that for decades. Yeah. So like some things are only 1%. I think 10% is probably like pretty reasonable. Um, you know, and like I said, I think this is also something that grows over time. Like my rate has grown over time because I'm very particular about who I reach out to and who I connect with. And I think that really helps. Like I connect with very specific types of prospects now, like potential clients.
Um, and also I've worked with a bunch of their competitors or I've worked with a bunch of like companies in their niche. So I have like a better chance of getting a response because they're like, oh, I recognize these company names, all of them, but I recognize two of them. And that really helps. But that takes time. Right? You have to work with different clients over time. Uh, Marie says, yeah, sometimes it's been really hard sending out Lois and getting no responses. And then from them having zoom meetings and you know, they're not the client for you. Yeah. That's part of the process. But the deal is that in like the deal is that the self sabotage part here would be that you just stop sending Lois or you stop getting on meetings. But the positive thing would be to just get on the meetings and learn, right?
Like one of the things I know Marie we've talked about is that you have to learn whether or not the client's for you. And the more calls you get on the more time you spend talking to other clients, you're like, no, no, no, yes, no. Like it's a lot easier to say no, cuz you know what fits you? That's the part where you're growing in your business. That's the part where I think a lot of people miss that, a lot of people miss the fact that you have to learn that you have to figure out which clients are right for you and which aren't. And having those meetings, you know, is really important. Having those meetings and talking to potential clients and figuring out their vibe and like pinging them on like, what's your project? What are your long term goals? What does this actually look like?
Um, figuring out if like the way they talk about their company or their content or working with you actually works for you. I think that's a really important piece. Raquel says welcome. Raquel. I don't know if you've ever put a comment in here. So welcome. We're glad you're here. Raquel says putting coins in the bed, on yourself machine. I love that phrase. I need to it on a post-it note for motivation. Yes. Save it. I, um, I don't know if I've ever said that to anybody else besides like, you know, people I know, but not on the live stream and not in, maybe I need to write that down. I'm gonna write that down. Cause I should put that in the email the bit on your shelf machine. Okay. Hold on, hold on. Everybody gotta write myself a note. All right.
Okay. Now that I wrote myself a note. Yeah, I think that's in, that's an important thing. We need to remember that we're continually working on the things that we can get better at. And we are putting the coins in the machine, right? We're saying like every time you send an LOI, you're like, I'm betting on myself. I'm betting on my business. I'm betting on the fact that I can get better at this. Or I'm betting on the fact that someone will get back to me. And eventually people do you send enough, Lois people get back to you. People sign contracts, you make connections. Like people move companies. And they're like, Hey, I know we talked six months ago, but I've moved companies and I wanna hire you now. That's all we really key, important stuff. And if you're not putting coins in the bed on yourself machine, then you're not gonna get those opportunities.
I just, it's just not gonna happen. All right. Let's see. I think somebody else said something I wanted to pop in here. Um, yeah. Tracy. So Tracy said, yes. It's lovely. Also this metaphor of building the house before picking out the colors. Love it. Yeah. I always kind of think of it that way. Your business has to have a framework to stand on you. Like, think about it this way. If you started sending a hundred Lois and you got a hundred responses, how would you deal with the overwhelm of all those meetings and all those clients and all that? Like, let's say everybody got back to you then it's like, do you have the skills to pick the people out of those hundred, to that are good clients for you? Are you able to discern who's a good fit and who's not. Are you able to pick out the projects that make the most sense for your niche and make the most sense for your writing and make the most sense for your style and your future?
If everybody got back to you or even 50%, let's say 50 people out of a hundred, got back to you. How do you deal with the overwhelm? How do you deal with like all of these things? If you don't have the framework set up. Sometimes I think freelance writers for forget that the ramp up period and freelance writers includes myself. Like I am included in this, you forget that the ramp up period is really important to actually like figuring out where the nails go. It's not just like, I need work. I need everybody to respond to me. Like I need to like build a house really fast. We all know that like super quickly built houses usually have, have a lot of issues. Right? So the deal is that if everybody got back, if like 50% got back to you, right, you had 50 people get back to you.
Are you able to navigate all of those situations simultaneously? The, probably like the answer is no that's way too much. It's way too many contracts, way too many proposals, way too many meetings. It's like, everybody wants a different thing. It's you for get, who wants what? And what's going on? Like it's too much. It's better to in like, think about the ramp up period and be like, huh, okay. I had this meeting. It didn't go great. Why didn't it go great. Or I had this meeting and you know what? There was something about talking to Tracy that really made me feel good or something about talking to Tracy about this content that I really liked. Well, what was it learning? All of those things is the framework to get to the point that Marie was talking about where you're like, no, no, no, yes, yes, yes, no.
Like you can pick out very easily. Who's a fit. And who's not. That's the piece where we kind of move away from self sabotage. We start realizing that the ramp is teaching us how to get to a point where we can run our business effe efficiently and effectively. And it's helping us get to a point where picking out a paint color, like the foundation is so strong, right? You've built this very strong foundation where in order to make a decision, it's like five seconds, right? Like you get on a call with someone and wi within a couple minutes, you're like, hell yes or no. And sometimes what you're doing is you're like, I picked out this paint color when I first got started. Right. Like I picked out this color. I don't like it anymore. It actually needs to be this other color that's building on your foundation and learning which type of things you actually like.
And that's part of the ramp up. I think that's really important. Um, do, do, do, do, Marie says one of the most important things for me is to not, uh, to not self-sabotage are attending the Q and a at the wealth. Yeah. So we have our live. I never, sorry. I know this is like a thing that I do where I halfway answer. Okay. Attending the Q and A's, um, in the wealth lab with Mandy, which are so elevated from her Friday, Facebook or our lives that we're doing now, connecting with other writers and listening to an expert. Yeah. So like one of the other things that we can do to stop self sabotaging is get support. Right? Like I talk about my course and I talk about coaching on here, but honestly there's lots of ways to get support. There's like hanging out on this live stream where you can ask questions and talk to other writers and see what they're saying.
Like that's really helpful that avoids self sabotage, cuz you're reaching out to get connection. Self sabotage is like, no, you know, nevermind. Uh, you know, that kind of stuff. What we wanna do is connect with others and be like, oh, or is a way forward or, oh, like if they can do it, I can do it. Right. Or, um, trying to figure out, like for me, I always took pieces from my own puzzle and then pieces from other other people's puzzles and then things that I learned and expert stuff. And I made my own mush of a puzzle of how I built my business. And I feel like that's the part that people are like, that's what happens with self sabotage is you think you have to have all the puzzle pieces. You think that you have to build it by yourself and you don't, you can get support, you can get help, you can always ask questions and you can kind of build your own puzzle.
You can build your own framework. Right. Um, and I always kind of think about it as like building your business is like a different type of logic puzzle. Like, you know, there's all those different logic puzzles that you can do. And I used to do those as a kid. My dad was, was isn't well was, I guess he's retired now, but he was an engineer. So like, he'd make me do all those logic. He'd get me like this big giant book of logic puzzles. And I used to do them. Um, and that's how I think about this business is it's just a logic puzzle. It's just a logic puzzle. And in order to get away from self sabotage, you have to figure out the patterns you have to figure out, like, where does the logic flow? What's kind of what's happening here or what's the response?
Or how do I fix this thing? Or how do I make it better? There's all these different things where you're like, huh, what are the, what are the trends is telling me, like what's going on? Um, and I think the deal is that you kind of have to see it as an opportunity for growth rather than an opportunity for demise, right? Like rather than you're like, okay, this isn't gonna work. I suck at everything. I'm horrible. Whatever. Like think about it as these are all of my opportunities to grow as a writer, to grow as a business owner, to grow as someone who's trying to figure this thing out. Right. Cuz building a freelance business is a lot different than building different other types of businesses. Cause we work with so many clients and you know, a lot of us have to figure out what works for us in terms of types of clients and marketing, all that stuff.
But the deal is, is that when you have a community or when you have support or when you are able to reach out, I think that supports moving far away from self-sabotage. Okay. Um, moving on. Um, yeah, this is another good point. I think that I have talked about um, like I guess in my own, my, and maybe with my students. Yeah. With my students, I took, it took me a long time to focus on the word yet. Like for me, it's not that it hasn't happened now it's that it hasn't happened yet. And that really like gave me like, almost like an open door. Like I kept imagining, like this was my self sabotage. I kept imagining that, um, I couldn't move forward because all of these doors were shut. Right. No one would hire me. No one would answer my Lois. No one would, if they just get back to me.
Right. But it's not that they just get back to me that they just have a, yet, like they, like I said, I've had people answer me in three years, five years and five seconds. So it it's really like, you have to keep putting those irons in the fire and you have to imagine the yet part that's getting away from self-sabotage right. Self-sabotage is like, well, no one, an no one's answering me. All the doors are closed. I better just give up this. Yet idea is like, oh, there's still possibility. Right? There's still possibility in what we can do here and what, who we can work with. Um, okay. We're gonna do a quick up date after we go through what Marie said. Marie said, I recently said no to several clients and actually made more money with other clients. Yes, exactly. This is the point.
So if you had, I see you, I see you. Would you like to file a complaint? Okay. I'll give you a trio, but you have to give me a really good, solid, like quality high fives for this high five. Good job. Other one other one, you had to deal other one for a job. Right? Barry? Ready? 1, 2, 3 dogs. Oh, Barry, hold on buddy. Let me help you. You really rocketed that one. You rocketed that one way over there. All right, one more. And then we're gonna get back to what Marie said. All right, Barry. Ready? Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Oh, Barry. You getting it? Giving it the buck teeth today. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dogs. Very, very you're having a rough day buddy. It's okay. We can't all be athletes every day. Ready? Okay. Good job. Other one other one other ones. Good job. We got the double high fives.
All right. So yeah, the deal is that sometimes what ends up happening is you move away from self-sabotage and you actually make more money. You stop saying yes to everything. That's another piece of self-sabotage is that you try to say yes to everything, cuz you're so afraid that there won't be more work. So you self-sabotage by taking on too much. You take on all this stuff cuz you're panicked. Oh my gosh. There's not gonna be any more work. Uh, you know, that kind of stuff. And then what ends up happening is you're like, oh wait a minute. There's plenty of work out there for me. Number one, number two, I need like three to five clients, which is basically nothing like, right? Like all these Lois you send, you really only need three to five clients. The other thing is that you start saying to things that really aren't a fit for you.
And you end up kind of doubling down on these things that really are a fit and you end up making more money and you end up working with people who really value your content and who end up referring you or who end up keeping you when they move companies. Right? There's a lot of different things here that are really important to getting away from that idea of like, um, giving up or that idea of like trying to stop yourself before you actually get to a good point. Right? There's this like image that I have on, um, I have like a, it's not in here, but I have another laptop. Like I have my Mac, like all this stuff runs on my Mac and then I have one of those Asus, um, little laptops or like 200 bucks. And it's like waterproof or whatever, because if I take it on a trip or something, I don't wanna worry about spilling something on it or it's not waterproof, but it's water resistant, whatever.
It doesn't matter. It's ruggedized. So on that theater, I have this image and I'm sure you've seen it. It's all over the internet. It's these two guys digging and one guy is digging and digging. Um, and it shows this guy like on top, just digging right. And on the right side, there's a bunch of diamonds. This other guy who looks really weary and tired gives up right before he gets to the diamonds. Right? Like he, he gives up cuz he is like, oh, this isn't working. But right before he got to the diamonds he gave up. Right. That's the idea I keep in my mind all the time is like, you never really know where the diamonds are. You have to keep focusing on how much you're moving forward, how much you're digging, how much effort you're putting in because you never really know yet.
Right. You really never know of when those diamonds will show up. Um, I bet I could probably like pull it up on here somehow. But um, you can just like, it's this image. Um, I bet I could actually hold on. I'm gonna do that. Oh, you know what? I can't because I don't have my thing up cuz it's not running. Okay. I'll try it later. But basically like Google, like these two guys digging towards these diamonds, one guy looks really haggled and he gives up like he's, he's like one scoop away from getting to the diamonds and this other guy's like going at it feverishly, but he's far away. And the deal is like, you have to keep going. You really know, never know when it's gonna go out when it's gonna work out. And if you start like going out, right, like you start being like, eh, it's not gonna work and you start self-sabotaging, you're never really gonna get to the diamonds.
And you're never gonna get to this point where it's like, you're actually making more money with better clients who you actually like working with. All right. Um, oh this is a good idea too. So Maurice says I have a really nice job that every time I send an LOI, I put a penny in it jar and the jar grows and grows and grows is a nice visual putting coins, um, in the bed. On your, yeah. The bed on your self machine. Yeah. So this, this is like the physical representation of what I was saying. Right? Try that. Um, we have a jar here at our house, which, um, we put pieces of paper in. We have a jar in our house. We haven't been good about recently, but we have a jar where like every time something good happens, we put it in the jar.
So we see a physical representation of all the good things that happen in our lives. Cuz we have this jar full of paper, right? It says like here's all the good stuff. This is the same thing. Every time something happens, put a penny in a jar or put something in a jar and you can see how much it's growing, how much effort you're putting in and how many things are going forward. That can be a motivator to move away from trying to sabotage yourself from moving forward. I love that. I think that's great. Wendy says, hi Wendy. Welcome to.
Then Wendy says, how did you get your first client also? How did you survive financially when getting started? Yeah. This is a great question. Um, oh my gosh. We have a lot of comments I gotta catch up. Okay. Um, I guess we kind of went through a lot of the things I was gonna cover anyways. Yeah. Okay. So Wendy, I'm gonna give a, a version of he, of this cuz it's a long story. So when I first started, I started on OES, which is now Upwork and I started on OES and Elans which now combined into Upwork, which I do not recommend do not get on the platforms. I don't think that's good idea for many different reasons. Most of which are two reasons. One, you're not actually building your business because if those platforms disappear overnight, which is two, then you don't have a business and you don't know how to actually market or set yourself up for success or write your LinkedIn page.
Like you don't have the skills, you have some, but you don't have enough. That's one. So I got started working on, uh, OES and that was like 10 years ago. And um, then I made enough money to basically replace my full-time salary. So, um, a year and a half later I quit my full-time job and started freelancing full-time. Then I had to rebuild my business in 2015. Then I had to rebuild my business in 2018. And then, um, I dealt with burnout and now, um, I finally hit my six figure. So there's that? That's how I got my first client to where I am now. Two. How did I survive financially? When getting started, stop being a grandma muffin. Come here. I'm gonna squeeze you. Come here. I'm gonna squeeze you. You just love to make noise while I'm trying to answer people's questions. That's your favorite activity? Come here.
Come here. I'm gonna squeeze you
Here. Okay. Here we go. Yes. I love your Tailwag and you're the cutest. Okay. So when we were surviving financially, don't lick her. All right. So basically what I did was I saved $20,000 before I left my full-time job. So all of the money, well, most of the money that I made from oops, now I got some fuzz on me from freelancing, went into a savings account and I had my full-time salary. So for me, I had to make money. Right. So I, um, I had my full-time salary and then I saved basically all the money that I made from freelancing. And then that gave me a ramp to get started. So like that gave me space and this is something I recommend for everybody is like build your business. If you have a full-time job, build your business on the side, figure out the functional stuff.
Like I didn't know how to send an LOI or a pitch or how to do anything that I, that I knew how to do that. I know how to do now. Um, at all, like until basically like 20 15, 20 16, I didn't learn how to run my business. Um, hi buddy. I can't pick you up. You're too big and old and crunchy. Um, well I can pick you up, but like I don't like to cuz he's 15 and a half and it's not super great for your back and joints. Okay. So I always recommend having money, like at least six months or more saved up. So, um, at the time I had money saved, I had a business going on. Like I had work coming in. I had enough money. Um, and so for me, when I jumped from my full-time job, I was just jumping to my other full-time job, which was freelance writing.
Then what happened was in 2015, I had to rebuild my whole business and actually learn how to run a freelance business. So I actually had to learn how to do everything. And then when I was learning about Lois, this was the period where I was sending these long Lois and I wasn't getting that much work and I had to start over. Um, eventually what ended up happening was I did too much magazine work. So I made a, a bunch of like the majority of my money from working with magazines, which made me burn out. So I had to start over again. Um, and for me thinking financially, that's when I started coming up with the cake and icing method was like, when I burned out in 2018, I was like, no, the magazines have to be icing. They they're, it's too much pitching. It's too much running around.
Like I gotta, that has to be icing. And cake has to be my content marketing work. That has to be the stuff that I work on, these bigger projects. And I work on things that bring in more money and the magazines or icing that's when I started realizing financially you have to have cake and icing, plus you have cake and icing to like work on things that are fun. And then every once in a while you get to, you know, like for me, there's like a few things that I write about like, you know, things that like dogs or pets that are like fun, um, that are in my icing category. Right. So that kind of helps balance finances and also balance like things I like to write about. Um, okay. And then basically since then, I've just been building, like sending my Lois, figuring out where I wanna, um, what types of clients I wanna work with adding content strategy and more content marketing, work, paying attention to bigger projects, learning more about running my business in a way that works for me.
So I always, like I said, like whenever you're starting out, I always think you need savings because you never know what's gonna happen. I think it's good to learn all the fundamentals and how to run your business this before you jump off a full-time job. Um, and then I think the platforms are not great. I do not recommend the platforms. Cool. Um, Marie says I'm so grateful to Mandy for all. She's helped me move forward with, and I know there's way more to do, but I don't have that twisted gut feeling. I know. I can just ask her. Thank you, Marie. Marie. I feel like, like you're like, you know, making me blush today, you're saying all these nice things. Um, that's the other thing is I think we can avoid more like self sabotage if we have support. Right. It's not that Marie can always ask me.
Right. It's also that she can ask other people in the community that she trusts or other wealth lab students, or, uh, there's a bunch of different things that are moving away from the idea of just like giving up or being like, you know, tarnishing all of your efforts and kind of being like, all right. If I take a baby step forward, it's still a step forward business said so true, Marie, I feel the same way I talk to Mandy. Oh yeah. This is something that Vesna and I talked about where it's like, um, sometimes you have this like extra voice in your head and you talk to it about like, okay, what would this person do? Or like, what would that person do? And sometimes it's, you know, someone who has, you've done like a course with if like Vesna did my, um, finance writer, wealth lab course.
And sometimes it's like, just somebody else in your head, like, well, what would future Mandy do? Right? Like that's, that was mine. I'd be like, what would future Mandy do? Or how would this help future Mandy or, um, sometimes what ends up happening is like, when I'm tired, I'm just like, that's future Mandy's problem. But some times we have like a future version in our head that we talk to to be like, all right, what would they do if they were really confident if they weren't self sabotaging, if they weren't, you know, feeling a lot of self-doubt and imposter syndrome, if they weren't like comparing themselves, what would they do? Right. Uh, Susanna. So nice to see you Susanna actually got featured on for us. So if you guys wanna go check that out, Susanna has a video that got published on Sephora's, um, Instagram, and then I think on their website too.
Right. Um, where she had like a really cool, um, like, like profile basically about her, which I think is really neat. So Susan says I met someone recently and knew they were not a good connection. It was hard to stay focused when I was ready to leave. Yeah. So it seems like Susan's moving away from self-sabotage right. Instead of like connecting with them and being like, it's fine that they have red flags reds, my favorite color. Right. Instead of that, you're just like, Nope, I'm out here. I'm not self-sabotaging I'm done. Um, definitely go check out her video. Suzanne's video on Sephora. It's really cool. Um, oh my gosh. We have a lot of comments I'm really far behind. Uh, okay. I'm gonna go quick. Like I know we're like way over time. Um, yeah, this is the other thing Annie says that helped me a lot in my personal life too, and bring it to her business life.
So I have to say no to what doesn't work for me to make room for. What does, yeah. That's a big and important lesson that took me many, many years to figure out. So I hope that everybody kind of takes that away as a good lesson here is like, you have to say no to move towards a yes. You have to say no. Like you have to say no to the opportunities that aren't a fit for you. And then you also have to deal with a lot of no's or silence, right. From people who aren't answering your Lois or aren't answering your pitches, but you have to kind of give yourself space to make room for what does fit and make room for the clients who are, you know, a good fit for you. I think it takes a while, but well, for me it took a long time.
Okay. Um, okay. So Marie says, I'm trying to, I'm trying to catch up. I swear. Um, I've had one content manager that I sent in LOI and each company that she moved to for the past two years, she always did me a quick high and stays in touch that, um, and was so touched. I followed her Marie, let's talk about this for a second. So this is like really a great example of moving away from self sabotage. Marie could have been like, she moved on to another company. She probably hates me. She never wants to work with me again, whatever, but she didn't. She followed her and Marie, this is how I've gotten work. Many, many times is I stay connected with people and I, them congrats on your new job. I ask them how it's going. I follow up with them. This is how I get work. It's like, you're building connections cuz you're like, wow, that's cool. Like what are you doing now? That's really interesting. Like being interested and curious about people. Oh my gosh. You just like in the song, your people today, look at this, look at you. You just look like a sad Panda. Hold on.
Sad Panda. Oh you know why? Because the light's in the wrong place. You know why you look weird
Charlotte? Cause the light's in the wrong place. Now we can actually maybe see you a little bit better, including your little shadow of your funny little ears.
Go. You go, bud.
Barry just likes to sit on her some sometimes to annoy her. Yeah. So this is the deal. This can help you get a lot of work. This is building the framework. This is really important. So if you, if you're like, if you feel like when people move companies that you lose opportunities that self-sabotage, you actually gain opportunities. As they move companies, marketing budgets are different. Content goals are different. Um, their projections and what they're doing in their business are different. So I feel like that's like for me, that's been one of the smartest things I'm I've done. So I'm glad Marie's doing it too. But like building relationships with people, congratulating them on their jobs, asking how things are going. Um, that's really actually I have a client right now who I did the same thing. I follow up with her or for year, for like a couple years and I just loved their company and now I work with them.
Um, and I love it. We, I, it's one of my favorite things that I do. Um, one of my favorite, um, pieces of content that I turn in every month, so, oh, can we see this? Like I see that you found it, but I don't think, I think I can do this, but I don't. Here's the image, but I can't, if I start up my browser, everything's gonna melt down anyways. Here's the, the image. If you wanna copy paste this, maybe I'll put the link to this in the description below and you can see this image. This is the diamonds where people are digging towards the diamonds. This is the, this is the thing. All right. Um, okay, cool. Oh yeah. If you bought it, made it a dollar per LOI, you could buy something. Nice. Oh, Tracy said you started on OES in eons.
Yeah. Sometimes you start on the platforms and then you're like, oh my God, this is a show I gotta get outta here. This is what I did. Um, or sometimes, you know, you get scammed on those platforms, which is also what happened to me. Um, yeah. I feel like, hi Virginia. Welcome in. Cool. Um, Virginia's also one of my students actually. I think Virginia got a big win recently. Didn't you with your clients, right? Um, yeah. I feel like the pennies are better than dollars too. Cuz like pennies are smaller and dollars. Take up more space. So like when you send, when the pennies really grow, you're like, wow, I'm really doing a good job. Um, yeah. The case get icing thing. Yeah. Marie for me too. So the cake and icing mindset, I have a video for that. You can look for it in my channel where it talks all about the cake and icing mindset.
Uh, you know what, maybe I'll put a link to that below too as the cake and icing thing. So if you go to the description below this, there'll be a link to my cake and icing mindset video, which tells you how I started splitting things in my business and how it really like helps you figure out like, what are the things I'm gonna write for my soul? What are the things I'm gonna write for fun? And what are the things that make money that are all so fun and, and capitalize on my knowledge and my expertise. All right. Yay. I got to the end of the comments. Cool. Okay, cool. Um, if you feel like this has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like wanna learn more about building a hiring and fun freelance ride business subscribe. We're gonna do AUP date because I finally got to the end of the comment and I put the light kind of in the right place that I didn't before lost trio. We've got a lost trio. Okay.
Barry, can you go back to your little ha hole? Sure. We'll get your thing over there. There
We go.
All right, Charlotte. Ready? Yeah. Good job. Other one other one. Oh, okay. Back up. Good girl. All
Right, Bo. Let's see if you can catch it now. Ready?
1, 2, 3 dog.
Oh, we got it. We did it.
Yeah. I know. You're like all about the high fives now because you like, you like know other ones, other one. Good job.
All right. Okay. So we actually have a question too. Like I have a question that, um, popped in anonymously that I wanna make sure we go over before we hop off here. Oh, here's the link to the cake and icing video. I'll put it in the description, but here's the link to the cake and icing mindset video. So this is how I organize my business after I burned out and I made a lot of mistakes and I was like, oh, I actually have to do this. And it made a lot of sense to me because I magazines are always my first love or any type of content that is like magazine, like reported articles or research content or stuff like that is always my first love. And it, it really allowed to see content in a different way and see my niches in a different way.
Um, I know a lot of writers sometimes get frustrated cause they're like, I don't wanna write for the money. I wanna do this thing. Or, um, they're like wanting to not just pick niches just because they make money or just because of this, like this cake and icing mindset is how you meet all of those things. Like you meet the things you wanna write about the things you have experience in and you get to balance all the different parts of being a writer. Okay. So hold on. Um, Wendy says, where do I start? If not the platforms, Wendy, great question. The deal is that that's why I have this YouTube channel. Um, I have a bunch of videos in here that are talking about how to get started. So if you're gonna get started, there's a few things. So you have to learn about setting up your LinkedIn profile in your website so that they attract the right clients.
So that's number one. I have video on that in the channel. Um, I will put that below. Um, and then also you wanna learn how to do your marketing. So you wanna learn how to send those Lois and pitches, which I have video for it in here in the, in my thing. And I also have, hold on, I also have this. So if you go to manilas.com/bundle, these are all my LOI templates, all of my marketing templates, all of my contract templates. This is how I set up all the stuff in my business. And it's what I use now. So if you go here, it'll help you set up all the marketing things you need for your us. Um, and then hold on. So what you're really gonna do is set up the inbound stuff. The inbound stuff is your website and your LinkedIn inbound basically just means people find you and send you an email and wanna contact you.
The outbound stuff is your Lois and pitches, which is what the mans.com/bundle is for, which is all the marketing things. There's another video on this channel that talks about, um, finding the right prospects, right? So that means you need to figure out what niches you wanna write in and then you need to figure out, um, and that's based on your experience and your knowledge, what you like writing about, um, and then where there's money. So that means you need to figure out if there are hundreds of thousands of companies that make at least 5 million to 50 million, or if there's startups, they need to make 3 million. So the deal is that when you're looking at these niches, some niches spend wildly on marketing. So they only need 5 million cuz they spend most of their budget on marketing, some niches, they need to be well established before they really start on marketing, which why the, the range is all the way up to 50 million.
Cause I've had companies where they made 30 million and they're like, we don't spend any money on marketing. And I'm like, okay, so five to 50 million. Um, and then gosh, basically there's a bunch of different things, but figure out the website in LinkedIn, I have a video on that. I'll link below, figure out your, um, out marketing, which is your Lois and pitches, which is what the bundle is for. Plus I have video for that and I'll link that blow, um, make sure that you understand who you're targeting. So the niches that you wanna work in, there's like a jillion. And if you're confused about niches, one of my favorite activities is just to go to like Google other freelance writers in your area, in your state, um, in niches you wanna write for and look at who they're working for, who are their clients? How do they talk about their work?
Um, what are the types of things that you find interesting and then kind of work around that. So look at all the potential opportunities like maybe FinTech isn't for you, but uh, hospitality tech is, or maybe insurance is for you and health. Isn't right, Google around. Then you wanna start making lists of companies and those companies, if they're startups, they have to make at least 3 million. And if they're regular companies, they have to make five to 50 million. They have to have the market budget because that's where we live. That's where content is created in the marketing area. Um, and then we start kind of wiggling around from there. Cake and icing is good as a video too, but that'll be linked below. So I hope that was kind of a general overview of how you get started. But I have, that's why I created this channel.
Like I'm glad Wendy asked this because I felt like a lot of people think of freelance writing, red buddy, 1, 2, 3 dogs. Good job. I think a lot of people think of freelance writing as sort of, kind of like finding a full time job. They're like, I just go to a platform and they tell me who's looking for writers. No, no most, no. All of my work that I have now is because I crew created it. So I went out and sent an LOI. I reached out to them. I asked if they needed help or what ended up happening was I set up all my inbound, right? Like I set up my website in LinkedIn. So people read it and they're like, yes, I need help with that. Let me reach out to Mandy, that kind of stuff. Okay. I hope that was helpful. All right.
Um, do, do, do do, okay. Anne Maurice says she wrote an article on a platform for $15 and a year later wrote the same article and changed a considerable amount and made 300. Yeah, exactly. I have a good example of this too. When I wrote for the platforms, I wrote, um, 1500 word articles for $25 and that is, I like, for me, that's just abysmal, right? Like for anybody that's abysmal. Right? And so 1500 words for $25. Um, and that's part of the problem with the platforms is like they're looking for most of the time, it's like budget friendly stuff or it's people who are wanting a hundred writers to compete for the lowest price. It's not what you want. Cool. Okay. The last thing we're gonna get to is the question. I had a question come in. I think it's a really good one that we wanna talk about.
Um, so this is also ironically a self sabotaged question. So I, it just happened to come in and it's actually a perfect fit for what we're talking about today. So I have older clips in my portfolio, but I just realized that a big chunk are from one site. That's no longer online. That was my main freelance client. What do I do now? If I remove all those blog posts, I won't have a full portfolio and I do have other clips, but not a lot. Okay. So this is self sabotage of like, oh my gosh, like everything's terrible, right? Like this is very much like if I remove all these things, I'll have nothing. Right. You have clips, number one, you have clips, that's it. So, number one, anytime you just have clips you've written for somebody else you've proved you can work with a company. That's number one, number two. It doesn't matter how old your clips are. Number three, anytime something gets removed from being online. You can usually find it. Um, by going to that time machine thing, um, the, oh my gosh. I just blanked on it. The um, um, oh my gosh. There's like this thing that you can go look at, that's like the time machine. Um, um, oh my gosh. I was just thinking about it. It's like, um, hold on. Let's see if I can look it up. It's the, um,
One second, the way back machine. That's what it's called the way back machine. Right? So, um, right. Yes. The way back machine. Yeah. So it's um, the link is archive.org/web. So if you go to archive.org/web, that's the machine, the way back machine where you can find old clips. So the deal is yes. I'm glad everybody knew that I, that I didn't. Yes. So I'm glad remembered the deal is if you ever have anything taken off the internet, you can use the way back machine to go find it and then take a screenshot and then you have the clip, but here's what you should always do. Every time I get a clip, I do this, um, it's called full page screen capture. There's another tool. There's like other tools that you can use. I use full page screen capture. So every time my clips are published online, I do full page screen capture. It takes a picture of the whole thing. I save it as a PDF and a JPEG. And so anytime something's taken offline, it doesn't matter. I have the clip and I can still post that on my website. So if you go back to the way back machine, and for some reason
Back to your, have a hole, I'm gonna pick you up and pick you up and put you on
Screen. So if you go back to the way back machine and your clips, aren't showing up then, um, the deal is that, um, they should, if it, they you've had them for a while, but if they don't show up, you know, sometimes that means they're lost. If you don't have copies, right? Like if you don't have copies of them being published, so you can still post your stuff as PDFs. I used to do this when my, when I didn't know about full page screen capture and my stuff got taken offline because it was like baby websites that came up and died really quickly. You can put the PDF on your site. So like on, I have Squarespace. So just make the, like, make the word doc or the Google doc into a PDF, upload the PDF and put that on your website. And then it has a link.
So you can it'll live on your website. You still have the clip. You don't wanna remove clips. Um, hold on one second. You don't wanna remove clips from your portfolio just because something doesn't exist anymore. You still wrote for them and they still are clips of yours. So you can U like I have stuff that actually, I need to go back and fix. So I have clips that just went down. Like I had, um, clips that I had on a website, but the website no longer runs, but I, I have the PDFs from full page screen capture. So what I'm gonna do is put those, excuse me, PDFs up on my site. Just because their website doesn't exist. Doesn't mean all the work I put in got erased, right? So you can use those clips. You can use the way back machine come here. I'm gonna squeeze
You. Come here, come here.
She's growling at me. And, and being a treat monster, come here,
Here.
You wanna grow at me, but then you're like all over the place. So use the way back machine. If it's not working ready, 1, 2, 3 dogs. Oh buddy.
If you can't find it with the way back machine and you don't have full page, screen capture images of them, use the, take your word doc, or take your Google doc, make it into a PDF upload that the deal is that we keep our clips regardless of if something exists anymore. So like, for example, sometimes I have people who have old newspaper clips that are like 20, 30 years old. I have clips that are 10 years old. Um, and they just ready once two, three dog, oh buddy, you're close. Um, and you know, those newspapers don't exist anymore, but they have the actual picture of it. Or, um, they have the original file. You can still use that. Um, I just, yeah, the deal is that you don't wanna remove things from your portfolio. You wanna be able to keep them. So like, if you don't have full page, screen capture, put that PDF up there.
Um, and, um, yeah. And do what do what Vicky says. Like every single time you get a clip, use the full page screen capture and do the PDF. Like you can always, um, when you do that can always like print the page too, which is what she's saying. So like, you can go into Google Chrome or your browser and say print, but you can save it as a PDF. So you can do that too, but always do that for all your clips going forward. Um, so yeah, like the way back machine. Okay. Just summarize. I know we're a little add today. So I'm a little all over the place. Um, so way back machine, don't get rid of clips, just because a website or a newspaper or a magazine folded, um, you can always upload a PDF of your original like word doc that you have just make it into a PDF, upload it onto your website.
Don't get rid of things. If it was your main freelance client. And then it doesn't matter how old things are. If it shows how good your writing is, that's what really counts. That's people are attracted to the good writing. I don't think people actually red dates that often anymore, either. I think with everything being on the internet, I don't think people go back and they're like, this is from, you know, 2001. Like, I don't think, I think people more read the content than anything. So I hope that was helpful. All right. Shera says, thank you so much, Mandy, on the pops, we really know that that these guys are like, Charlotte's over here bothering me on this side. Charlotte, go back your, have a hole
Ready by 1, 2, 3 dog. Oh buddy. You're giving it all
Teeth today. You're just giving it all teeth. All right,
Chuck ready? Other one other one other one. Good job.
Um, yeah, so, uh, we all know that the dogs really run the livestream and they're
Ready by. Can you go get that one over there?
There you go. Good job. Um, they're really the ones who run, run the live stream. Okay. Tracy says, how do you do a full web CA? Yeah. So it's a tool. The tool Tracy is called full page screen capture. It's a Google Chrome extension. You can also have an in as an extension for other things, but basically it's just like a little tool that lives in your Google Chrome toolbar. And you just push the button and it takes this, you know, the screenshot of the page. And then it asks you if you wanna download it as a PDF or a JPEG, and you can do that. There's other tools. There's lots of tools that let you do it. But it's called like one I use is called full page screen capture. It's just a Google Chrome extension. So if you Google that, it'll pop up.
Um, Getty says, this is a great sec session. Um, big, thanks to Mandy and all team members, participants. Yeah. It's nice. It's nice to have everybody here hanging out and asking questions. I feel like, like I said, um, for me, I feel like this is, is a topic. Oh, hold on now. I lost it. There it goes. I feel like this is a topic that we don't talk about enough. Right? We've been on here talking about it for an hour. Right. We've been talking about this for an hour because it's a really important thing. Like there's a lot of ways we self-sabotage, right. Like that question is, self-sabotage like, oh, I should just to lead all my clips. Cause the website doesn't exist anymore. No, no, don't, don't don't tank your ship. You already put in all the work and effort into those clips. You get to keep the clips.
And in the future, every time you get something full page, screen capture, and then you always have the original version. But the deal is that it is nice to like talk about self Sabo and the things that we do, you know, to hold ourselves back. Cuz I don't feel like it's talked about enough. Like we talk about other things, but not this. Um, yeah, this is yeah. So Tracy, this is it. If you go to this link, you can get, um, go full page, screen capture. Oh it's called go full page. Now that's where it got messed up. So it used to be called full page screen capture. Now it's called go full page. So you just download it, put it in your Google chrono extension. You can also use fire shot. This is another one that people uses called fire shot and it does the same thing.
It just takes a screenshot of the whole webpage. Um, and then, uh, you can save it as a PDF or JPEG. I always save it as both just in case. Cool. Um, she has light shot. Yeah. Okay. I don't know what light shot is, but I yeah. Fire shot or go full page. Those are the ones I like. All right. Peeps. I think that's good. I think we're good. If this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you wanna learn more about, um, building a hiring slash fun Lance writing business, make sure to subscribe. If you have anything and any tips and tricks that you feel like are helpful for beating self sabotage or ways that you've overcome self sabotage, feel free to share 'em in the comments below. I'm always interested to hear about that stuff because it's a complex topic or right. Self sabotage is different for every single writer. We have things in common that we do to hold ourselves back. But there are interesting things that every single writer, like every single writer has their quirks. And I'm always interested to hear if someone's like, oh yeah, I used to sell sabotage in this way. And now I did this. So feel free to share in the comments below. All right, we're gonna do one more puff date and then we're gonna hop off. All right, Barry, have you left the building? Hello? All right, Barry.
No, try not to do your teeth. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog.
That was a bad throw. Sorry, Barry. Barry. It's by your arm. Let's see if he can find it. You did it. Good
Job. Right, Charlie
Ready? Hi. Five other one other, one other one. Gentle do it nicely. There we go. Ah. You climbing good
Girl.
Okay. Sometimes she likes to go in with the claw, you know like in liar, liar. She likes to do the claw. Right? Ready
Buddy? 1, 2, 3 dog. Oh, so close.
Ready? Other one. Good job.
All right. Cool. Okay. So I think we're gonna hop off. Thank you so much for joining me. This was really fun. I had a really good time. I hope everybody had a good time too. I feel like we talked about a lot. We talked about a lot of different things, especially self-sabotage but um, it was fun. So thank you so much for joining live and for hanging out. I hope everybody joins. Um, I'm here every Friday at noon central. I feel like it's kind of a nice time cuz it's like lunchtime on the central and east coast or yeah, central and east coast and then like earliest morning on the west coast. So yeah. Cool. All right. So hope you join next week or when I ever you find another topic. Oh, if you ever have a question. So we had a question that got submitted, but if you have a question or a topic that you want me to cover, pop it into mans.com/question, you can do it anonymously like today, someone submitted anonymously.
Um, so if you ever have a question, you can pop it in there. All right. Peeps. Um, Maurice says as always, thank you, Manny and everyone else. Awesome to see you. Um, even if it's virtually. Yeah. I feel like it's nice to virtually chat with other writers too. Like it's different than other platforms where you make a comment and then you come back later. Everybody's kind of hanging out at the same time and it's nice to have a little like live community. Raquel says thank you. Your live streams are so helpful. I hope everyone has a great weekend. That's so sweet. Yeah. I hope everybody else has a good weekend too. I'm glad that we we've, uh, I'm glad that these live streams are helpful and um, people get to ask questions and we get to talk about different things. And I think it's fun. I think it's fun. And we get to do pop dates. All right. So I will see you next Friday. Hope everybody has a good weekend and thank you so much for hanging out. Bye.
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