How to Create for Brands and Athletes
I’ll give you a heads up right now. This is not the answer that you are looking for. If you’re looking for some sort of short cut or secret to getting on with a brand or athlete, this isn’t for you. If you’re looking for my genuine answer and something that I have found to work for me, please, keep reading lol.
One of the questions that I am asked almost on a daily basis now is how I am able to shoot for big brands and professional athletes and what advice I can give for someone who wants to take their career to the next level. The journey is definitely not an easy one, but my answer is simple: work hard, love what you do and be a good person. Again, there is no secret or short cut. That’s the answer that I have found to be true thus far.
1. Work Hard.
You’ve heard the saying. “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.”
In my eyes, hard work triumphs talent. Talent may have the advantage at first, but talent isn’t really anything except wasted potential without putting the work in. I just started a book called Grit by Angela Duckworth. I’m not very far into the book just yet, but one of the things she talks about is effort in the equations of skill and achievement. Her equations are:
Talent x Effort = Skill
Skill x Effort = Achievement
As you can tell, effort is the constant in the two equations. In Angela’s words, “Talent is how quickly your skills improve when you invest effort. Achievement is what happens when you take your acquired skills and use them.”
Hard work is the force that allows for your growth and when I say work hard, REALLY work hard. A lot of the time, we think that we are working hard, but there is so much more that we can do in comparison to the work that we are currently doing. This includes being aware of our habits and being intentional about the things that we do. Imagine how much more we could get done in a day if we took off even just one hour of aimlessly scrolling through social media. Now, imagine if you did that for all seven days of the week. That’s seven more hours of productivity and, in my eyes, that’s seven hours closer to where you want to be. This is the part of the grind that requires so much sacrifice. You don’t get to go out every time with the homies. You don’t get to watch all of the newest TV shows. But what you do get, that’s what makes the hard work worth it.
2. Love What You Do.
I’m not sure that you can truly work hard unless you love what you do. There are different levels of working hard and the one that I am talking about is the hard work related to obsession. The kind of love for the game that keeps you up at night while the ideas are flowing, the love that allows you to work for 12 hours straight without even realizing how much time has passed, the love that gets you out of bed in the morning.
Don’t ever force this love. If it’s not something that you truly love, go and find what you do love. One way that I have thought about it is this: “If you were the last person in the world, would you still do it?” For me, that’s photography and basketball. I may physically hoop as much as I used to, but I’m around it every single day, still soaking in as much knowledge as I can and still euro stepping ever chair in the house. Basketball was my first love. Photography is what came next. Photography came to me after I wasn’t able to hoop anymore and at a time in my life where I needed it the most. Photography saved my life. So if I was the last person on earth, I would still do both. This isn’t for anyone else to see or for any attention. It’s purely out of the love for the game(s).
Do more of what you love. Life is too short to not do the things that you want. One might argue and say that doing what they love is not sustainable or practical but, to be real, if you really love what you do, you’ll find a way. No matter how long it takes, no matter what you may have to go through to get to your dreams, if you really love what you do, you’ll find a way. It’s not about only falling in love with what you do, it’s about staying in love with it as well.
3. Be a Good Person.
It costs absolutely NOTHING to be a good person. Be nice to everyone that you cross paths with. I believe that every single person that we meet in our life is for some sort of reason, whether that reason is big or small. Some people give us good conversations, some people change our lives. Regardless of the reason, I also believe that we are incredibly lucky to cross paths with the people that we meet. I’m not sure what the odds are that we meet one particular person in our lives, but there are so many people in the world that it is crazy to think that we were blessed enough to meet one special person who helps us get through this journey of life. Whether that’s a romantic partner, a mentor, a best friend, or even someone as simple as the nice person who held the door open for you. I understand that not everyone is nice. Actually, there are so many ass holes in this world lol, but that doesn’t mean that we have to be one. There’s really nothing else to this point. Just be a good person. It’s not hard. AT ALL.
You can control each and every one of these. There isn’t much in life that you can control but you can control your conscious decisions to work hard, do more of what you love, and be a good person. Going back to the question of how to create for brands and athletes, if you don’t see it by now, let me lay it out. Don’t focus on getting to the big brands and the big athletes. Focus on honing your craft and focus on the side of being human. With all of the noise with social media, it’s so easy to forget that we are dealing with people and relationships in REAL life. Certainly write down your goals of who you want to work with and what companies you want to create for. That’s important. But, personally, I believe that if you’re true to the game and just a genuine human being, those opportunities will come your way.
To Live and Prosper.
-JSquared