12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 2: Two Private One-on-One Coaching Sessions
Today’s holiday trivia: Continuing our look at holiday traditions around the world, we travel east for a very different type of holiday. As a secular, communist country, North Korea has a different take on holidays than many societies. Its 71 official holidays include Sundays, for instance, and many holidays are based on birthdays of the party leaders and founders. Today North Korea celebrates its Constitution Day, for which the state provides rations explicitly for the holiday feasts.
When we surveyed you guys to see what you’d most like to see in our holiday specials, one of the things that came up again and again was opportunities for one-on-one coaching!
Since I’ve finished my coaching certification this year–which was a very eye-opening experience that I wish more people who offer business “coaching” would do–I’m even more excited than ever to work with you one-on-one to move your career forward.
Welcome to our 12 Days of Holiday Specials! Spread the Holiday Cheer
Today’s holiday trivia: A secular holiday, December 26 is celebrated as Boxing Day in a number of countries that previously formed part of the British Empire. For the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Trinidad and Tobago, Boxing Day is primarily known as a shopping holiday similar to Black Friday in the U.S.–the perfect start to our holiday specials!
In Ireland, however, the holiday combines both the religious feast of St. Stephen and an older pagan tradition of a purge day into something called Wren Day, when bands of young men dress in cloaks of straw and parade through the town “hunting” a (usually fake and stuffed these days) wren bird atop a decorative pole, stopping in at homes along the way in a trick-or-treating fashion with coins rather than candy as the treats.
If you’ve been itching for an opportunity to pop off questions to me when you need help–our new program will give you a way to do that too!
It includes the opportunity to have small-group calls with me to get your questions answered live nearly every week, include exclusive live access to all of our new webinars and a members-only monthly ask-me-anything call.
You’ll also have access to every question and answer we’ve ever handled for other clients, so you can find even what you need on the spot.
Why We’re Adding a Weekly Special $5 Freelance Travel Writing Webinar Set
I’ll never forget when the gentleman who runs the program in which I got certified as a business coach yelled at me about my pricing.
If you’ve every had a writing gig where you’re writing blog posts for $20 or $50 and spending several hours on each, you’ve probably had a similar conversation with me, a friend, or a significant other.
In that case, you may have heard that you are undervaluing yourself or your work, or maybe that you’re making things harder for all writers by creating unrealistic expectations with clients, or that you’ll never meet your income goals if you persist in spending that long on work that pays those rates.
At Dream of Travel Writing, the situation is a little different.
I don’t take any salary from running the company, and this was actually never my goal.
Want to Hit Your Travel Writing Goals Next Year? Start With Your Values
When I talk for the first time to a travel writer in the process of building their career—whether they’re just starting or they’ve been at it for decades but have never felt that ‘click’ of sustainability where they know they can do this and make the money they want for as long as they want—an eerily similar thing typically happens.
It takes a lot of guises though.
These writers are typically asking me a very specific, tactical question about how to do one specific thing: write pitches more quickly, make sure their ideas fit a magazine, find the right place to pitch a specific piece, or get started with those lucrative content marketing gigs.
And as I’m explaining the answer, the odd thing happens.
Help Us Choose What Special Deep Discounts You’ll Have in Our 12 Days of Travel Writing Holiday Specials This Year!
Small disclaimer: Absolutely no Dachshunds will be sent through the postal service as part of our travel writing holiday specials!
But, puppies aside, we want to know what you would like to see this year.
Each winter, we put together a riff on the 12 Days of Christmas between December 26 and January 6, 2019, with advance access to products we’re not launching until next year and deep, deep discounts on many of our offerings.
I Want to Stop the Scope Creep Hate that’s Making You Secretly Despise Your Travel Writing Clients
On a coaching call yesterday afternoon, I had a conversation that I have much more often than I would like.
This freelancer had a client that had landed themselves with a cold email–the first of the kind for this writer–and landing the gig filled her with so much pride and positivity.
At first. (There must be a but coming, right?)
The bumps started small. Her client insisted on providing her all of the blog post ideas, but would only give them one at a time. And not always on-time.
This left the freelancer constantly having to rush to complete the blog posts assigned, often dropping other things to do so. We talked about how to move the client into giving her batches of post ideas at once, and that helped. For a while.
Learn How to Get Work Done When You’re on the Road for Just $5 This Week
When I first left my job to be a travel writer ten years ago, travel blogging wasn’t really a thing, in terms of a developed business opportunity.
The term “location independent” was still new, and there were just a few sites really dedicated to how, exactly, to build an online creative (i.e. writing, design, etc.) business while working from wherever. And they were almost 100% dedicated to practical matters.
We Know It’s Early, But We Have Gifts for You! (Because You Are What We’re Thankful for This Year)
I had a coaching call today with someone that I met at a really preeminent writers’ conference who recently joined our Full Coaching Program, and had to take a moment.
As we wove through her vision for her future, goals, and past writing experiences over the course of the hour, I was touched by the depth of her intellect and ability to articulate the intangible.
And I just thought how incredibly lucky I felt to be sharing our resources and vision for what the life of a travel writer can be with this kind of writers.
In the two years since this business began, I have been so honored that so many of you have shared your experiences with us to empower me to have the perspective of what travel writing life is like not just for myself, but for the multitudes of you out there who are succeeding in this career or on your way.
Get Ready: Our 12 Days of Christmas Specials is Returning this Winter!
When traveling for work or leisure, I’ve often found one of the most beautiful and revelatory parts of new cultures centers around their religions. Italy’s transcendent cathedral architecture and Renaissance paintings. Bali’s towering stone temples and daily flower-filled offerings lining the streets. India’s multi-day, technicolor wedding festivities.
As my husband is Indian and a scientist and I am Irish Catholic but a child of two scientists, our family’s take on the holidays has always been a bit like our approach to our Indian wedding: a la carte.
We love to give people gifts, so each holiday season sees us putting a lot of time and care into handcrafting candies, chocolates, jams, and other gifts for our friends and families each year.
This year, as part of my deep gratitude to all of you who have chosen to allow us to help you reach your goals and read our newsletters, watch our webinars, attend our retreats, and sign up for coaching and the database, I wanted to extend that holiday tradition in your direction.
Grab a Webinar from Our Library (Usually $19 each) On Us for Thanksgiving!
Every week, we offer a free, live, one-hour travel writing class.
But, since we’ve been at it for a year, there might be some that you’ve missed!
Want to get your hands on one of our past webinars…for FREE?
Fill in a quick, five-minute survey, and get a free package from our webinar library, where you can get each webinar as:
- steamable and downloadable video
- streamable and downloadable MP3 audio
- full slide deck as image gallery or PDF download
- full transcript viewable on-screen with infinite scroll or plain text
- downloadable PDF transcript