On Thursday, December the 1st, Harrisonamy Copywriting turns 3 years old. And I’m having a party. (More on that later, we’ve got some stuff to cover before then).

It’s moved on from the terrible twos, where all it did was ask “why?” took steps, wobbled, fell, and bumped its bum.

And that’s not to mention the crayoning on the walls and sticking food up it’s nose.

The last three years have been amazing. I don’t mean that in the sense that everything has gone right, or that I now have all the answers, but I have learned a lot and am proud of what I’ve achieved.

Working for msyself makes me feel closer to releasing the music that’s inside me.

Do you understand that feeling?

If so, I want to share my rules of this journey with you.

Avoid kissing arse

I am terrible at pretending I like people who I don’t like, to the point I can’t physically make eye contact with them. I’m never rude, I’m not mean, but I try to avoid people I don’t like because I am so bad at pretending it zaps my energy fast.

I’m also getting better at calling bullshit on myself when I hear myself say “they’re not very nice, but they’re:

• Really good at what they do
• Could get me great exposure
• Have a big list

Don’t get into those relationships. The payoff is rarely, if ever worth the trade in self-respect.

This also includes people who don’t respect your time. If they don’t respect your time, they don’t respect you. I once had a very, very wealthy and well-respected client. He was interested in working with me on a big project. It could have been lucrative for me but there was one problem.

He was late every time we agreed to speak without apology or explanation.

This was someone who had no respect for me which means working together would have been a nightmare.

I love what marketing genius Dan Kennedy says about people who impinge on his “autonomy”

“If I wake up three mornings in a row thinking about you and we’re not sleeping together and you can’t take half my assets then you’ve got to go”

Do listen to your gut

I have ignored my gut on many occasions and it always, always comes to bite my in the bum. Similar to the above, it has meant I’ve entered into relationships with people my gut didn’t like and have been heartily disappointed.

Listening to your gut is not about playing it safe though. Sometimes you get nervous about doing something, and feel like that’s your gut instinct telling you it’s a bad idea – it’s not the same thing. When I booked to go to SXSW this year I was very nervous. It was an expensive trip, I was staying in a house of people I’d never met and my gut was very nervous. I was way out of my comfort zone, but it was one of the best decisions I’ve made this year (and yes I’m going back next year – come say hi!)

Create

The best results I’ve ever had in my business is when I’ve stopped looking at other people, stepped off Twitter and created something.

And here’s why most people don’t do it: It’s flippin hard.

Especially with writing. It’s lonely, you’re racked with self-doubt, and it feels risky because you don’t know if people will like what you create.

But it’s worth it. whether it’s writing an ebook, creating a training program or researching clients I’d love to work for, the hard work pays off.

Steal and adapt

There are tons of people doing great things out there, doing them very successfully. Often we have a mentality of “oh, I can’t do that, so and so has already done it.”

Forget that.

As long as you’re not actually stealing someone’s work word for word, or copying them exactly, they’re there for your inspiration. As you probably already know I studied screenwriting where we learned that:

There are only 7 different types of stories in the world.

Well how’s that for having to steal? Everything we wrote was similar to, or some kind of version of something else.

Like someone’s promotion? Do something similar and see if it works for you. See a snazzy advert? Adapt it for yours. Someone built a big list by guest posting on big blogs? Go out there are give it a try in your business.

Do not wait to be picked

This is the biggest lesson I’ve learned in 3 years. to illustrate, let me give you a brief summary of the past 3 years:

Year one

Oh my God, I’ve just quit my job at the start of a recession. We’re having to take in foreign students and sell the bed to make the bedroom into an office. Can I even do this for a living?

Okay, I’ve got some clients, I’ll do the work they ask of me and hope that next month they want more work.

Secretly, I really hope a big client discovers me and pays me lots of money…

Year two

I hate my work. I’m firing my clients. I never want to write about the state of the mining industry in Poland ever again. Wow. Square one. Where do I start – okay I’ll start by approaching clients I’d like to work for.

Secretly I really hope a big client I like discovers me and pays me lots of money…

Year three

My clients are awesome, but I’d like to move into training and creating products. Cool, I released my first big eBook and start talking to some amazing clients.

Secretly I really hope one of my launches just takes off and I make lots of money.

Lesson

There is no “point” where everything is roses. The journey is lots and lots of little steps, and that is why (and this bit is really important) that you have to love those little steps, and NOT wait for someone to pick you out of the crowd.

I cannot stress this enough.

You have to love each little step, even the crappy ones that make you cry.

And you have to stop waiting to be discovered. Stop waiting to be talked to, to be talked about, to be featured, to be included.

You. Are. Great. Enough.

Put yourself forward, approach clients you think are too big for you, try new things and don’t worry if they fail. Be willing to fail. In fact, fail often and fail fast so you can get on to succeeding.

Out of the three years, this is the year I’ve cried the most with some of the challenges I’ve faced, but it proves to me that I’m growing, that I’m still bumping my bum.

My job never made me cry.

It never made me feel alive either.