I learned this in the early days of my business, and I know without-a-fucking-doubt it’s helped me in a huge way in getting to where I am now.

Call it ignorance, call it naivety, call it whatever you want — but full commitment to doing your own thing will help you carve the shit out of your own path. Stop worrying so much about what the rest of your industry is doing, and focus on how you’re gonna do shit differently, in only the way that YOU can.

You have a chance to make people pay attention.

With your words, with design, with your strategies — with any of that shit, there’s always an opportunity to make a statement. *Not* just for the sake of it, but because you’re here to keep it real and be who you are — and if you do that, you’re gonna command attention in ways only YOU can. And don’t apologise for it. EVER.

There’s more to life than just our work.

Maybe it’s my inner kiwi spirit, but I don’t live to work. Yes, I absolutely love what I do and I can’t imagine doing anything else — but the time spent away from my laptop on road trips & out in nature is massively important to me (which is why you see so much of this vibe in my photography). I think one of the major reasons a lot of us become self-employed is because we want time-freedom to do what we want, when we want to, but somewhere along the way we forget that sometimes, and we can’t detach from the work.

Creativity is allowed to feel easy. It doesn’t always have to feel like a struggle-fest.

There are absolutely times when it takes a lot to get to the finish line of a project… But not always. When you’ve done your time, and put in the work — it can be really fucking incredible, fun, easy, if you’re open to it. And while you’re at it, get the fuck outta here with the myth of the starving artist, too.