IAM1473 – Six-Figure Freelancing: Embracing an Entrepreneurial Mindset

In this episode on the Deliberate Freelancer podcast, Gresham shares lessons he has learned along the way toward his six-figure goal and the power of focus. He encourages business owners to follow their passions and not relent in their course of action.

One of the lessons Gresham learned along the way—as he headed toward his six-figure goal—was that he could not do everything at the same time. Brimming with ideas, he realized he needed to focus on what could make the most impact on his business.

Gresham also learned that it’s important to be able to quickly pivot and adjust to situations, like the pandemic, to be a successful business owner. It’s helpful as a business owner to be comfortable trying new things, changing up your business, and taking risks. Being resilient and having an entrepreneurial mindset is important during times of change and challenges.

Gresham struggles with one of the things he loves the most: being able to focus, when he has a lot of ideas and things he wants to develop. He handles that by taking a new big idea and breaking it down into a smaller idea that is more doable with the time and energy he has.

Gresham talks about not having a support system around him as he began to think about starting an entrepreneurial business. Sometimes loved ones won’t support your decision, and that can affect your confidence and self-worth. Connecting with an entrepreneurial community helped him realize his ideas and goals were possible.

Biz Bite: Use project management software (Basecamp, Asana)

Resources:

Gresham’s primary website (where you can find links to all of his services and resources).

Blue 16 Media

CEO Podcasts

CEO Blog Nation

You Are a Media Company

Episode Link: https://progreshion.com/2020/12/04/gresh-is-featured-on-deliberate-freelancer-podcast/

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Transcription

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00:00 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:18 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast formerly the CEO Chat podcast. So doing something a little bit different as we ease into the fall from the summer and you know, everybody's traveling a lot more. You know, life is obviously a lot different than it has been in the last 4 years, definitely since I started this, let alone the last 2 years or so. But I had a podcast called the CEO Chat Podcast, which is a lot more of a long-form podcast. I didn't really reach the 1,400-plus episodes that we did with the I AM CEO podcast. So there's a lot more long-flowing, a lot more conversational, but might be dusting off the CEO chat podcast and bringing that back out.

So with that being said, while considering that what I wanted to do is go through some of the interviews that I had that were some of my favorites and share those. It's not going to obviously be the entire interview. We're going to have links in the show notes so that you can go and listen to the full interview, but I wanted to do some snippets that you can get. You're going to hear, of course, the visibility, either the resources or the connections in each of these different snippets. So it's gonna be one of those things that are really gonna help you to hopefully learn more about the guests that are on the show, what they do, how they do, why they do it, but also get that opportunity to really learn about some resources that can make you more effective and efficient.

So sit back and enjoy this special throwback CEO chat episode. You can't do everything all at the same time. I consider myself to be really ambitious. I'm a busybody. I often use that phrase a lot, where I like to do multiple things and have multiple things going. But it really took me kind of sitting down and understanding what is the thing that can make the most impact. And a lot of times I won't say that it just became an epiphany. It was from me trying to do all of the things and realizing I didn't have the energy to do it.

And it wasn't really possible for me to do it that I really learned that. So it was that's probably the biggest thing is just to kind of focus and figure out what it is that you want to kind of double down on and to be the thing that you're kind of known for, so to speak. And then you can do other ancillary things and grow the side business or side hustle or whatever that might be or however, you might phrase it, but really be known for that one thing because it was doing that that probably allowed me to get and reach the hundred thousand dollar standpoint that I've been able to do. And largely it was just because of that.

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02:36 – Melanie Padgett Powers

I can completely relate to that. It's not so much in my business services, but all of the marketing and the networking, I want to go to all pre-pandemic, go to all the conferences, and be on every platform. I think that's a common mistake. But I would get really excited about projects like the podcast or a blog. And I think, gosh, and then all of a sudden I think, You can't spend 40 hours a week doing marketing and 10 hours a week actually doing the work for your clients and trying to find time to sleep. So that was a lesson I learned as well.

03:11 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I think that's the beauty, you know, the getting the gift and the encouragement. I think from what I've learned in business and entrepreneurship and freelancing, it's all about how, I guess, quickly you can innovate and adjust more so than anything else. Because I think so many times we have a vision of being self-employed, being a freelancer, being a business owner. And a lot of times we have to learn how to adjust based off of, oh, there's so many different networking events you can go to, especially now that they're all on Zoom, you can't do everything and nor will everything really serve you to reach your goal? So you have to kind of work backward from there.

03:49 – Melanie Padgett Powers

And that ability to adjust, I have found, I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur until I started my own business. And then I really like you, you, I can tell you have that spirit and I didn't realize I did until I started. And I think that ability to be able to adjust and change your business and try new things and get rid of old things, if you enjoy that part of it, I think you'll really be able to have a business for the long term because if that part scares you and you never do it and you don't pivot, I mean, people are finding that out in the pandemic. A lot of us had to really change things up. And I've enjoyed being able to do that.

04:27 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad you know what you said about the pandemic because I think that is a reminder to us all. Cause I've always felt like even if you didn't own your own business, so to speak, even if you were an entrepreneur, so to speak, those entrepreneurial skills are going to be so important today and in the future to be able to know how to do multiple things, to be able to look at what has happened and be able to kind of rebuild those kind of things you're going to need in a business, you're going to need if you're working for somebody, You're going to need if you're raising your children.

All those things have happened during this pandemic where everything we thought was normal is being completely flipped around, shaken around, and turned and tossed and everything we can think of. So you have to be resilient. You have to be quote-unquote entrepreneurial in some form, shape, or fashion.

05:19 – Melanie Padgett Powers

And along the way, has there been bad advice that you got or do you see advice that other entrepreneurs or freelancers are given that you think that's just not great advice or that didn't work for you?

05:32 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest thing, kind of going back to that entrepreneurial mindset, is I think so many times we can get caught in the either or. It's a balance between understanding where you want to go and sometimes how to create something that's new. You always want to listen to people that have quote-unquote been successful and you want to measure that, you wanna pay attention to that, But you don't necessarily have to do that. And often that advice that you might get might be from a person who did it 10 years ago or potentially isn't in the same industry.

So I think so many times we get caught up in seeing somebody that's being successful and saying, we have to do the exact same way. For me, I think I really saw that journalism entrepreneurship, and business were kind of coming together to some degree. And I heard it from other people who were way smarter than me as well, too, which helped me to kind of validate that idea. So I think when someone says you can't have a podcast and have digital marketing because you have to do one or the other. Now, we're in a time where not every business, but a lot of businesses have podcasts because they see it as a marketing platform.

So the reason I bring all that up is that a lot of times the things that you might be interested in, the things that you might be passionate about, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to spend 40, 50 hours a week doing them. But maybe there might be a way if you put on your entrepreneurial cap, you can merge that into what you're doing so that you can continue to grow your business by being passionate about it. And that's what I've been able to kind of do for my business. But I didn't definitely didn't understand that on day 1. But it was just me having that desire, having that passion, having that interest in saying, I can't really turn that off. So I'm just going to put it on the back burner, so to speak, for a little bit and see how maybe I can mold this into something that's new and maybe somewhat different.

08:36 – Melanie Padgett Powers

And with your success, there's always, or with anyone's success, there's always things that we struggle with. What do you struggle with in your business?

08:46 – Gresham Harkless

No question. The thing that I said that I enjoy probably the most is the thing that is my Achilles heel, which is focusing. I think I always want to do all of the things that the exact same time. And that's something that I still struggle with, and probably always will struggle with to some degree. I think that the way that I've been able to balance it a little bit better is like I said, not saying I want to do that. Just say I want to do another podcast. It's not to say I have to do another daily podcast, not to say I have to do another weekly podcast on day one, but how can I maybe mold that in or how can I have a different guess or do a special episode?

How can I start smaller so that it doesn't completely take over everything that I've done? But that's without a doubt been my Achilles heel is just being able to kind of focus a little bit more on the task at hand. And I think too, maybe on a deeper level when I started my business and started to do freelancing, I didn't really, I didn't feel like I had the environment that would allow me to be successful. And it was sometimes only by, I guess, chance or by God's grace really that I've been able to kind of be sometimes in the right place at the right time because I didn't necessarily, I wasn't necessarily pushed by everybody around me to do entrepreneurship, to start a business. I was actually pushed to do the exact opposite.

So it can really affect your confidence. It can really affect your self-worth to some degree when you hear that so and so, you know, can build a business. And as soon as you tell somebody that you love and you care about, maybe they don't appreciate that as much. So that was something that I really had to kind of work through. And a lot of it was just being in a different environment. It's been the podcasts and the interviews because I get the opportunity to see my vision and my goal be real to somebody. So I know it can happen despite what sometimes the ones that are closest to us and maybe love us and don't want us to fail might kind of sometimes hold us back from the greatness that we have within.

10:59 – Melanie Padgett Powers

I'm glad you brought that up. I've been very fortunate to have not experienced that with my immediate loved ones, but I know that's an issue, especially I hear with freelancers now that are starting out. And I think sometimes too when they're younger and you know, they're in their twenties and they tell their parents or whoever that they're going to quit that quote-unquote steady job to go be a writer, a graphic designer. I highly encourage that, but a lot of people don't. Was it a lot of just sort of emotions and mental, you know, work that you kind of had to get through and really believe in yourself? Or were there tips to sort of do it anyway, even though you might not have been getting all of that support?

11:44 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I mean, I really for me, I really prayed on it. I felt like it was something that wasn't anything that I necessarily selected to do. I felt like it was kind of given to me. So that helped me out to some degree, you know, during definitely those frustrating times. But I always felt like and I think it goes back to, you know, what did, you know, a hundred thousand dollars mean to me. It was a validation of this wasn't just something that I was trying. This was something that a lot of other people saw me as being able to do. So it was trying to really celebrate those wins, celebrate those things that I was able to get success for. But it was also me, honestly, just really buckling down and being by myself. I started my business, the digital marketing business, at least about 8 years ago.

So it was a time where I did, you know, do the interviews and all of those things. But I really spent a lot of time just saying, I'm just going to tune everything out. And I don't know that that's necessarily the best thing to do. But that's what I did because I didn't really understand. And I was always kind of guarded about sharing my vision and my goals with other people. Not sure if they would, you know, step on them or because it happened a lot in the beginning. So it kind of made me a little bit less open to just saying this is, you know, shout from the rooftops, this is exactly what I want to do.

So for me, I just try to really surround myself as much as possible with people that were running businesses and being successful and understand that a lot of times those who love you, may not support you in that very specific way of your business, but they may support you in other ways. So me, you know, being able to, like I actually was laid off. So I also experienced all those things. So I felt like you can't tell me that this is the right way and I've been laid off and I was gonna get laid off again. So I felt as if it was life pushing me and telling me to go a different path. And I feel like I had that to kind of showcase that this was maybe not the best decision, but it was a decision that was better than what it seemed like I was doing.

So that's what, you know, kind of happened for me. But I can't say it enough. There's a tremendous amount of community and opportunity, especially in this day and age to kind of lean on and just hopefully help people to know that their dreams and the things that they have that are on their heart, can come to fruition.

14:31 – Melanie Padgett Powers

Yeah. Kudos to you for believing in yourself just being stubborn and doing what you felt. That might be a better way to put it. I'm all for being stubborn. And I like what you said about finding the community because there is a community out there that will say, yeah, you can do this. I've done it here. All these other people have done it, too. And this is how you do it. And when you find those people, then you can it is sort of a validation as you get started on that journey.

15:01 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely.

15:02 – Melanie Padgett Powers

So switching gears a bit, I wanted to ask you how you structure your day.

15:07 – Gresham Harkless

As I've, you know, definitely transitioned and gotten older, I guess that's the best way to say it is I become a little bit more of a morning person. I basically structure my day. Now I have my dog who's 5. So I'll usually wake up. I'll do some type of movement. While I meditate, I'll do some type of movement. So whether that's burpees or some type of movement just to get my blood kind of flowing. When she was younger, I actually used to jog with her about a mile or so in the morning for her walk. And then, or now I'll take her to the dog park, but the whole idea is to move and then to, you know, take her out to do her walk.

And then from there, I'll come back, I'll get breakfast and then I'll do some type of journaling or writing just to kind of clear my mind of anything that I need to kind of do throughout the day or even just to kind of have that creativity because I still love to write as a whole, just to clear out my thoughts. Then I usually spend about an hour and a half to 2 hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday doing some type of lead generation. So that could be everything from looking at Facebook groups. It could be everything from looking for guests to be on the podcast or looking for obviously clients as well too. So I'll do that in some form, shape, or fashion and really dedicate that hour and a half to 2 hours related to that. And then I have kind of block time or basically usually 10.30 to about 04:00 to really have client meetings. In between that, I usually have like 30-minute kind of check-ins for emails and things like that. And then I usually kind of close out my day at about 5 or 06:00. And pre-pandemic, I always would go to the gym.

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and the CEO Chat podcast. And I hope you enjoyed this special episode. Gave us an opportunity to kind of take some of the snippets from some of the longer-form podcasts that we have and repurpose them here. And we might be dusting off the CEO Chat podcast and talking a little bit more about some of those longer form episodes and hopefully some of the people that have been on the I AM CEO podcast on the Long Reform episodes. But I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you enjoyed this little snapshot. Of course, you can go to ceochat.co and have the opportunity to listen to the full, complete version of the episode. But also you can maybe see that it's very important to create content but also to be able to listen to and take in the hacks, the nuggets, the stories, just all the things that make these interviews so unique and so special.

So I hope you enjoy this episode and be sure to follow up with the guests, follow up with the CEO Chat podcast, and hear about all the awesome things we're working on.

17:55 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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