Believe & Receive! Attract & Allow!

Welcome to your Magnificent Monday! Great exposure. No pay. Surprising how many of us do this, have asked for this and offered this as a value of our time and energies. "You'll get exposure to a whole new demographic that you've never had before! It'll be EPIC!" If they're not even likely to be your demographic, why do we get sucked into the "Oh I have to do this and give my craft away without charging! I might sell one more widget for $10!" Forgetting, the $20 in gas to get to and from, the actual monetary value OF your time (we all have an hourly rate - sleeping, reading this, working or spending time with your family and friends).

I was chatting with a friend of mine who does oil painting as a side hustle. She's gifted, creative and makes beautiful works for her clients. She was sharing recently about someone who wanted to haggle with her over her, arguably, already discounted rate to create a work featuring the clients pets. The client didn't want to put down a standard 50% downpayment to secure his commitment. And, eager to never turn down a job, my friend went ahead and completed the work. The client then ghosted her and vanished into thin air. Her time creating this work "wasted" when she could have spent her time doing, well, anything else of value in her life. I've been guilty of accepting non-paying exposure opportunities. 99.9% of them I accepted because they were super fun. I went in knowing whatever "great exposure" baloney was being sandwiched into a 14 hour non-paid work day would be offset by potential craft services and making some new friends. Going into any non-paid gig I've had to accept or reject the offer, depending on how interested I am in spending what little free time I have on said project. The creative in me wants to always rush in and volunteer. It's fun being around other creatives with a vision. Plain and simple. It also helps fuel my creativity for other work. But believing this world-class opportunity is anything more than you donating your time for their benefit is one of the great mysteries of the universe.

Will I ever accept a non-paying gig again? Sure! It just needs to be the right one which pays me in other ways than expecting I'll end up selling 100,000 widgets in the process.