S6 E66: Breaking Into Travel Journalism In 10 Steps

Get the show’s transcript

“YD: What you can already start doing is you can start researching potential ideas and potential topics that you're curious about. What I want you guys to do is I want you to start adopting this storyteller's mindset. The storyteller's mindset is really simply looking at each curiosity that crosses your mind on a daily basis, looking at any occurrence, anything you read, anything you see out there as an opportunity to create a good story. That's really what a storyteller's mindset is, right? It's having that curiosity. It's being curious, and it's thinking, "Well, can I make a story out of this?

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:41] YD: Welcome to the Travel Media Lab Podcast. I’m your host, Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer and writer, entrepreneur, community builder, and a firm believer that every one of us can go after the stories we’ve always wanted to tell with the right support, encouragement, and structure. I’m on a mission to help women storytellers everywhere break into and thrive in the travel media space.

If you’re ready to ditch your fears to the side, grow your knowledge and confidence, and publish your travel stories, you’re in the right place. Let’s go!

[EPISODE]

[00:01:19] YD: Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. Today, I'd like to share with you a series of steps that you should consider taking if you want to start creating work, whether it's writing or photography, and sharing it with travel publications, getting published, working with brands, magazines, all that good stuff. I developed this knowledge and these 10 steps over the last six years of working in this field and going through lots of trial and error, as I went through from a corporate employee, from a corporate brand manager to a published travel photographer and writer.

People asked me all the time, "How do I start, Yulia? How do I get to where you are today?" This is really what Travel Media Lab podcast is all about. In all the episodes that we're doing, and all the interviews and everything, this is really the question that we're answering. 

Today, I thought I'd take the time to go through the steps one by one and dig into what they really mean. Before we start, I'd like to say that if you're the kind of person that loves structure, loves neatly organized and well-designed PDF files. I do, I'm certainly one of these people. Then, go to travelmedialab.com/start right now as you're listening to this episode, as you're getting ready to listen, and get all these steps along with more resources and exercises that I mentioned along the way in that neatly organized PDF. Again, that website is travelmedialab.com/start. We're also going to link to it in the show notes. 

I also want to remind you that, this August, I'm running a two-day workshop series called Getting Started in NFTs. The two workshops will be on August 10th and 17th. In that time, we're going to cover all the basics you need to know to get started in the space yourself. Check out the link in our show notes to register today or go to our homepage at travelmedialab.com. As a special thank you to our podcast listeners, use code NFT10 to get 10% off your registration. That code, by the way, expires really soon. It expires on Sunday, July 31. If you're interested, and you're listening to this episode before Sunday, July 31, don't wait. Register today. You will find it at our homepage or also in the show notes to this episode. All right, let's begin.

[00:04:05]  These are the 10 steps to becoming a travel photographer and writer and to publishing your travel stories. Again, these 10 steps, if someone else you might ask will tell you, "Well, there's more than 10 steps. There is less than 10 steps." These are the 10 steps that I have developed and that I have found again and again that these are the ones that really matter and really make a difference. I'm going to share them with you today, and hopefully, they will help you in starting to think about what are some of the steps that you can take where are you along that journey? Maybe there's something that you're missing? Maybe there is something that you're not paying attention, so that's the intent behind this episode today.

The first step as you're starting on this journey, and this is a step that we start with. Everything I teach, everything I share on this topic, we always start here, because I just think this is so, so, so important. That step is to draft your mission statement. Because if you don't know why you want to do this, why do you want to tell stories, why do you want to go out there and travel, let's say, and explore and create stories that you then want to share with the world, how will you convince others why they should give you the chance to publish them? You want to really dig into your own motivations. Why do you want to do what you're planning to do? Once you dig into your motivations, the answer by the way, they might surprise you. The answer to your motivation, it can really set you off on a different path from the one that you were planning to take all along. 

It's really, really important to understand what your strengths are, what your skills are, your passions, your curiosities, your interests are. So then saying those things and create a mission statement that will guide your work going forward. When you know what you want to accomplish, and why you want to accomplish it, it will do two things for you. First, it will be a really easier communication. When you start reaching out to people, reaching out to editors, reaching out to, let's say, publications or brands or anyone that he wants to work with, it will help you to communicate and to be really clear about why it is that you do what you do. That mission statement, it really lives in many, many places. 

I look at my mission statement often, and I use it at various touch points and various communications throughout my career, right? If I'm pitching somebody new, I want to introduce myself, I want to tell them who I am. I will not necessarily put the whole mission statement in that email. But the mission statement will inform what it is that I'm putting in that email, right? Because I know, I understand why I'm doing what I'm doing and that's really important. It's also on my website. I put it on my website, I put it on any sort of, let's say, bio material that I send out to people. That sort of guidance, and that Northern Star of why you want to do what you want to do, that's really, really important. 

That's why we start here. Because if we don't know what the North Star is, how can we create a plan towards it, right? How can we understand what our next steps should be if we don't know where we're trying to go? It's really important to take the time to sit down, and write down, again, what your strengths, your experiences, your values, your interests, your curiosities are, and build your mission statement upon those things.

Again, in the PDF that I mentioned, 10 steps to publishing your travel stories, we have a short exercise that takes you through how to craft your mission statement. If you're interested in that, definitely go and check it out. We'll link to it in the show notes and I mentioned it at the beginning of this episode as well.

Step number two is to keep an ideas journal. Whether you are a photographer, a writer, a concentrator or a storyteller that wants to impact your audience, whoever that audience may be. It may be an editor of a publication. It may be your social media following. I'm keeping it really broad here. But if you want to impact them by communicating your ideas, you have to understand that ideas are your currency. This is the business that we're in you guys. We are in the business of ideas, right? If we have good ideas, if we keep these ideas coming, then it makes this job of reaching out to publications, reaching out to editors and pitching them those ideas, it makes it a little bit easier. I won't say it makes it completely easy, because pitching is a process. It's definitely a process. We're going to dedicate a whole episode to pitching as well. But if you have that constant stream of ideas, it makes your life as a travel storyteller, as a photographer, writer much, much easier. Ideas are our currencies.

Inspiration can really strike us at any time. I might be flipping through a magazine, whether it's a print magazine, or whether I'm looking at their social media, or whether I'm watching a movie, or something or I'm reading something completely unrelated, that inspiration, that "Oh! What if? What if I could write about this or what about this story? This kind of interests me." That can strike at any time. It's always good to have a practice of either having a notebook, like a physical paper notebook to have that next to you. But if that's not practical, then you can also have the notes application and having like a dedicated section in that application ready and handy for when those ideas strike.

What I do is I actually have a Google Sheet, because I love Google Sheets. I absolutely love them. I can access that on my phone easily, on my drive, on my Google Drive. That's where I keep track of all the different publications that I'm interested and some topics that I want to explore more, topics that I'm either interested about, or maybe I'm an expert in those topics or I want to learn more about those topics. I just keep all of that there. Because again, like ideas come and go into our minds all the time. We have so much information entering our minds every day that sometimes something comes in and comes out if you don't catch it. If you don't write it down, if you don't put it somewhere, it might just disappear and not come back.

[00:10:50] I found throughout my career, that it's really helpful to have some sort of methods of depositing whatever ideas are coming your way, right. Again, it can be a paper notebook, it can be a Notes app on your phone, it could be a Google Sheet, whatever is easiest for you to access at the time when the ideas strikes, because you would be surprised over the years of the wealth of ideas and things that you could tap into, that will accumulate in that file. It's really, really important, because then what happens is, as your career grows, as you establish yourself, you'll start getting those emails from editors you've perhaps worked with. Or perhaps it's a call for pitches that you find on Twitter, because that's where editors oftentimes put out those calls for pitches, and you have a running list of ideas to choose from. To see if there's anything that you've ever thought about that might fit with what this particular editor or this particular call for pitches is looking for at this time. If you weren't doing this diligent work of depositing those ideas as they come, then you might have missed it, and you might have not remember what has come your way. It's really, really important. 

Again, in the PDF that I mentioned earlier, I also included some links to common calls for pitches that editors put out on Twitter. When you download that PDF document, you will see those links, and you will see what I'm talking about when I talk about editors putting out calls for pitches on Twitter. 

Step number three is to research before you start, research before you start. Now, that can seem a little vague, like, "What do you mean by that, Yulia?" I'll tell you that right now, the idea that you can get your stories published may seem impossible, may seem completely out of reach, it may seem like, "Well, I don't really think that it can be a possibility for me, which by the way, I will digress for a second, but it can absolutely be possible for you. We have many students in the Travel Media Lab community who have started from zero and are now absolutely rocking it and being published in all kinds of great publications. That's definitely not true that it's impossible to do it. But even if you feel like, well, I don't really know when or how I can make it happen. What you can already start doing is you can start researching potential ideas and potential topics that you're curious about. 

What I want you guys to do is I want you to start adopting this storyteller's mindset. The storyteller's mindset is really simply looking at each curiosity that crosses your mind on a daily basis, looking at any occurrence, anything you read, anything you see out there as an opportunity to create a good story. That's really what a storyteller's mindset is, right? It's having that curiosity. It's being curious, and it's thinking, "Well, can I make a story out of this? There's a subtle shift in mindset that happens when you start approaching everything that you come across this way. In addition to looking at anything that crosses your mind, or anything that you see on social media, or maybe you read about something, or you hear about something on a podcast somewhere.

In addition to that, you can also start researching the topics that interest you to see what potential stories or ideas you might have uncovered there. If you're passionate about wildlife photography, for example, we'll start looking more into that subject, right? Start following wildlife magazines on Instagram, subscribe to their newsletters, start being in the know, start developing your expertise in that field, in that topic. Because again, going back to our mission statement, the very first step, one of the things that we want to look at there is what are your skills, what is your expertise. We want to start building that expertise, right? Because even though you maybe haven't been published, or maybe your portfolio is low in the moment, you are an expert in something, or you can start becoming an expert in something when you research, when you start developing your understanding of that field. That's really important, and that can help you really, when you're starting answering the travel media space, it can be really useful for you to start developing that niche and that expertise.

[00:15:34] Then, related to that, step number four is to start building your storytelling muscle. What you want to start doing here is you want to start reading and viewing stories, other people's stories, other people's work through the lens of a media professional. When you read that article in Conde Nast Traveler, or National Geographic or New York Times, an article that has impacted you, that you've absolutely loved, that you've read several times perhaps, maybe even shared it on your own social media. What made that article compelling? What visual elements helped this photographer tell this beautiful story, this beautiful photo essay. If you find the story that you are particularly inspired by, save it and take notes of some of the things like, which part of the magazine has the story been published in? Where on the website does that story live? 

It's really important to start sort of deconstructing some of these stories, because that's how you're also building your storytelling muscle. That's one of the best ways to start building that muscle. The material is available for you. It's almost endless the supply of material. There are so many great stories out there, right, in different publications. 

When you come across those stories, don't just simply read them for pleasure, although, of course, it's wonderful to read them for pleasure, but read them with that critical eye. What has made this article good? What is the main idea that they're saying here? What is the hook? How did they hook the reader in? What does the introduction look like? What does the closing paragraph look like? How did they develop the arch, the storytelling arch in the story? Again, if it's a photography work, how did they advance that story through the photography? How many photos have they published? How do the photos support the idea that they're trying to communicate here?

When you do that more and more, you will learn that you will become better and better at seeing that's some of the best stories, they all have those same elements repeating again, and again and again. That's really important you guys, because again, that's how you're going to learn, and that's how you're going to build your storytelling muscle and become a better storyteller. That will also give you confidence to start creating your own work and start reaching out to people which is, at the end of the day, this is what we want. 

Step number five is to aim high, but to start low. Aim high, but start low. It's funny, and you've probably heard me say this before, if you've been listening to the podcast already before that the number one question that people ask me all the time is how do you get published in National Geographic? That's what everybody wants to know. That's like a big goal for many people, many creators. Again, understandably, right, it's a great brand. But the question really should be is, how do I start building my portfolio so that eventually, at some point, I can work with National Geographic. Before you approach National Geographic, what I recommend is that you practice your pitch and your storytelling muscle that we talked about, and your ideas on publications that are not as difficult to start working with as National Geographic.

Now, don't get me wrong, you can absolutely place a story in National Geographic as your first ever pitch, and your first ever story. I know for a fact that that has happened. It hasn't happened to me. You know my story by now, probably, that my first ever pitch was to National Geographic, I never heard back from them. But then when I approached them again sometime later, they eventually accepted my work. But we had a guest on the podcast this season, travel writer, Jessica Poitevien, we're going to link to her episode now as well in the show notes here, but that was her story, right? She had written something on her own blog, and National Geographic had reached out to her, because they were looking for this specific story, this particular story from this particular region. She had written about it already on her blog. They reached out to her and the rest, so to speak, is history, right?

[00:20:00] That experience is not, I would say it's not as common as you would think, right? As I always say, you can wait to be discovered, and you can wait for somebody to come across your blog and to approach you. Or you can start approaching people yourself, and make that probability and that likelihood of somebody noticing you and discovering you much higher. This is what I'm talking about here. 

But the point here is that, before you start reaching out to National Geographic, especially if you're just starting out, if you don't have any guidance, if you don't have any experience, you just have this dream, practice that. Practice your pitch, practice your ideas, practice the whole mechanics, the nerve-wracking mechanics of reaching out to somebody on some of the publications and brands that are maybe not as intimidating as National Geographic. That will give you the experience that you need and the confidence that you will need to go after some of those big brands like National Geographic.

This is really an approach that works not only in this industry, but in many industries. We start step by step, we learn, we start small, we learn, we progress, and then eventually we go out and we start taking on bigger and bigger projects, start working with bigger and bigger brands, etc. It's pretty normal. Isn't that groundbreaking what I'm talking about here? But for some reason, everybody always wants to start with National Geographic. Again, kudos to you if that's what you want to do. But then you have to have the backing, you have to have the strategy to back this up, right? If you're going to reach out to National Geographic as your first ever pitch and idea, then you have to have to do some work. You have to have a good pitch, and a good idea, something that is really going to resonate with them. This is a way to build that skill, and to build that experience by doing that with other publications.

In the guide, again, I will mention that PDF guide, I also lay out something that I call the three tiers approach. That approach has worked well with me in my own journey. If you want to see what that approach is, go to that link that I mentioned at the top of the episode. It's also in the show notes and download the guide.

Step number six is to get structured. Get structured, you guys. That is so, so, so important. As freelancers, as somebody who works for themselves, as somebody who doesn't have a boss, or a nine to five schedule that tells us, "This is your plan for the week or for the month. This is what you need to do." We sort of set that schedule for ourselves. We set that direction for ourselves. It's really, really important to get that structure into our every day and every week. How do we get that structure? We do it by blocking time on our calendar to start creating pitches in that time. Even if it's 30 minutes a day to work on a story idea, or to make some progress towards the stream that you have, as laid out in your mission statement that we started this conversation with. Dedicate 30 minutes a day to work on that. By the end of the week, you will make some significant progress. You might even be able to develop that one good pitch to send to a potential publication. But structure is really important you guys, because let me tell you what happens if you don't get that structure into your day and into your week.

What happens is that some other more urgent priorities are going to take over and they always do. Trust me, they always do. It's not just me saying this. It's many people that I've talked to in travel writing and photography world, editors, even people in our community, our students, our members. Everybody's struggling with this, because we always tend to postpone things that are important, but not urgent. We tend to always put out fires that are urgent. For some reason, that's how we tend to operate most of us. Unless we create that structure in our day, and unless we say, "This is what I'm going to prioritize today, these 30 minutes." By the way, those 30 minutes to an hour, it should be the time of day when you feel at your best. You know yourself. If you're an early morning person, then maybe it's the eight o'clock time that you need to dedicate to this. If you're a night owl, maybe it's the 10:00 PM time that you need to sit down and do some work.

[00:24:36] The important point is that, unless you create a structure for yourself, well, no one else is going to create that for you. No one else is going to come in and say, "Hey, Yulia. I know this is important to you. I know this is your dream and this is what you want, so please let me clear your schedule, let me take care of everything else that's going on, and you just sit down and work." No one is going to do that. In fact, they're going to come in and say exactly the opposite. Hey, Yulia. I need your help with this, or this needs to happen now, or what about this thing that still hasn't happened. We all know what I'm talking about here. No one else is going to prioritize this time for you except for yourself. If you want to make stuff happen, if you want to make progress on the storytelling career, on pitching, on working with publications, on writing, on publishing your photography work, you have to create some structure to get this work done. I know it's a struggle, you guys. 

I talked about the freelancing part of it, but many of our listeners and people in our membership and in our in our program, they are not freelancers. They have full time jobs, which is an even harder situation. Because in the freelancing side of things, the hard part is that you have to motivate yourself, you have to give yourself direction, you have to create your own priorities and set your own schedule. That's difficult. For many people, that's difficult. But in a full-time job world where you're trying to fit this in on the outskirts of your full- time job, or even a part time job. The difficulty is different, right? The difficulty there is, how do I fit this in when I already have this full schedule? If you don't make this a priority, the main point here is that if you don't make this a priority, no one else will for you. 

To make this a priority, you need to create some structure around it. Even if it's one hour a week, you guys. All that time adds up. You might be listening to me right now and saying, "Well, I don't know, Yulia. I don't really have 30 minutes a day every day to dedicate to this." Okay, sure. That's fine. One hour a week. What about one hour a week? What about one hour this weekend. One hour this weekend instead of Netflix maybe, or instead of scrolling on Instagram? One hour a week, that's a lot of time. I'm sure we can all find one hour a week, if we again, prioritize this over something else, because it comes back to priority. What is important to you?

If you create that structure, whatever that structure is for your own schedule, you might think that it's not a lot of time. But trust me, weeks are flying by, days are flying by, weeks are flying by, months are flying by. In two, three months, if you do this, if you do this on a regular basis, you will see progress, because you've committed that one hour a week to work on something that's important to you. That's why the step is here, you guys. This step is really, really important.

Step number seven in our 10 steps becoming a travel creator, travel writer, photographer, storyteller with published work is to prepare to love rejection. We have to love rejection. I talk about rejection a lot on this podcast. It shows up in almost every episode, because rejection is a very big, and very normal part of this industry and of this process. When you pitch magazines, your ideas, you will get rejections, 100%. I guarantee you. I guarantee you that you will get rejections. The key to understand here that that is absolutely okay, that is absolutely normal and it's part of the process. Even the best most brilliance of us get rejections. We all get rejections. Because the important thing to understand here is that rejection doesn't mean that there is something wrong with you or with your idea. Most of the time when you get a rejection, it means that perhaps, the timing isn't right, perhaps the fit isn't quite there, perhaps there is no budget, perhaps they've already covered something similar, and you have no idea that they did, right? There are so many factors that go into figuring out if the idea that you've pitched, and that you proposed somebody is going to be accepted or not. 

This applies beyond travel media, way, way, way beyond. It applies to any part of our lives, where we are pitching something to somebody. The key there is really not to take it personally, and to learn to love rejections, or at least if not love – maybe love is a big word. Stop fearing them. Stop fearing them so that you can pitch more, and you can increase your chances of getting accepted. Because in some case, in some way, this is really a game of numbers, right? The more you pitch, the more opportunity you have for your ideas to be accepted. It's just as simple as that. If you send one pitch a year, the likelihood of you being accepted somewhere is very small. But if you send even 12 pitches a year, make it easy calculation, you have increased your chances. It's very simple actually.

I also have this little trick that I use when I want to boost myself up with rejections, because you know, I get rejections too. In fact, I just got rejection yesterday from a really big magazine that I was really hoping to put that story there, because I thought it was just such a great fit. They said, it's not a good fit, but please pitch us more. I get rejections all the time, even now, and even before and even in the future, I will continue. Because again, that's part of it. But I have this little trick that I use, and I've included that trick in the guide, in that PDF guide that I mentioned throughout this episode, as well.

Step number eight. Step number eight is to institute a practice of relentless follow up, relentless follow up. Follow up is the key to getting more work. I kid you not you guys, follow up is key to getting more work. Because you have to understand the environment in which we're all operating. How do we communicate with people nowadays? If it's for work, I don't mean with our friends, or for fun, I don't mean social media. I mean, for work, how do we communicate? It's email, right? Email is the primary means of communicating. Now, imagine that you're an editor at let's say, Conde Nast Traveler who gets 200 or more emails a day. Many of those emails are unread, because you just came back from vacation, and the next issue is coming up, and you have to put it together and the deadline is tomorrow. You have to go through so many emails to clear your inbox, and sometimes it's a mess. By the way, this is all again, I'm not making this up. These are conversations that I've heard and have been a part of for some time. 

[00:31:50] Imagine in that environment, you're sending somebody, you're sending that editor at Conde Nast Traveler an email. You've worked so hard on this page, and you've developed it, and you feel so proud, and you send it off and you never hear from them again. What do you? You think, well, they hate me or that pitch sucks, or I have no business in being here, right? That's immediately where we go, unfortunately. But the reality is that 90% of the time, they probably haven't even read the email. They probably haven't even read the email, because they haven't gotten through their 200 emails a day inbox yet. Now, it's just this big snowball of emails to go through. That's why follow up becomes incredibly important, you guys. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten stories assigned, not on the first email that I send them. But on the follow up, second, third, sometimes even fourth follow up if I want that story there so badly.

Editors are really busy. They're really busy people, and they will so appreciate you following up with them. They've told me so themselves. They're like, "Yulia, thank you so much for following up. I'm so glad I didn't miss it." Start having some empathy if you don't already have empathy and understanding towards this environment in which this occurs, and the editors who are on the receiving end of all of our pitches. I really have huge empathy to editors. I don't know if I could do their job. I think it would be too difficult for me, because there's just so much that they have to go through every day, and that feels very intense for me. Following up is really, really important, you guys.

I also have another tip on what I do for following up including some of the tools that I use, like this little nifty plugin called Boomerang. Boomerang is really cool, you guys. I recommend all of our community members to get it and it's free. But there are some other tips in that PDF guide. Again, if you want sort of all of those steps that we're going through today, if you want them neatly laid out with some images, and with some resources, and links, etc, and some exercises, then definitely check it out at the link in the show notes. 

Step number nine. We are almost at the end, you guys. We're almost done the end of these steps. I'm just so glad that we're taking the time to cover this today. Because again, this is something that people ask me all the time. Step number nine is to use your resources. Use your resources. I thought when I was starting out in this industry that I have to do everything on my own. This is my own sort of upbringing that has impacted this. I've been raised that way, that asking for help is not good. But really, there are so many resources that exist. There are professional organizations in your area, or in your country that exist with the whole purpose of helping people supporting people in this industry. You can very simply Google Travel Media professional organization in my area and see what happens. Because most of the time, there are many, many professional organizations that exist. Some of them have more strict accreditation requirements, others are more accessible. For some of them, you will need to have a sort of a bigger portfolio to answer those organizations. For others, you don't need to have a big portfolio. It all really depends. 

[00:35:29] There are lots of organizations that are doing events, that are doing conferences. You can start attending those events, and conferences way before you even publish your first story. That's really key, you guys. That's actually going to lead me up very well to our last step, which is all about mindset. Because before you even ever publish your first story, you have to start believing yourself that you belong here, that you have what it takes, that you have that storytelling muscle, that you can develop that storytelling muscle that I mentioned earlier. One of the ways to do that is by putting yourself in the midst of this industry, start attending events, start going to conferences, start developing your expertise, which is another step that I mentioned here in a particular subject or a topic that you're interested in.

All of these steps, you can do before you ever publish your first story. That's a really important foundation to have. There are several relevant organizations that I mentioned. Again, in the PDF guide. I'll mention two here. There are more. One of them is SATW, Society of American Travel Writers, Adventure Travel Trade Organization is another one. There are several more, but again, you'd be surprised how many organizations are out there, how many resources, free resources are out there. Start looking, start Googling, start seeing what's happening in your area, and start participating, and start building your network and your community that way.

We are now coming to our final step in this 10-step series of things to do and steps to take if you want to get started in this career path. The first in this 10th step is probably the most important one. If we all had the right mindset to approaching this career, and to approaching our dreams, none of us would have any difficulty reaching them. I 100% believe that. But unfortunately, many of us, myself included, we have been really holding a lot of different barriers in our heads, in our minds that prevent us to go out there and start doing some of these things, right? We are afraid or maybe it's inertia, maybe we don't believe that we have what it takes. Maybe we believe that it's too late for us or whatever else. Insert your own thoughts in here that is stopping you. It's really important to start recognizing that and doing that internal work of questioning and of interrogating some of these thoughts and saying, "Well, who is this saying? Is it really me or is this maybe some conditioning, some messaging that I've heard from society over the years that says that it's too late?" That if you're 45 or if you're 65, then it's too late? 

This is also, by the way, its own episode, I think. There's a lot to unpack here, but what I want to say here today is that, approaching your dream, and approaching your vision and that mission that you've wrote out, and that mission statement in the first step, approaching it from a place of abundance, rather than a place of scarcity will make it so much easier for you to go through with this and to keep going on this path. The difference is that, abundance means believing that there are enough opportunities for everyone here, while scarcity believes that there are only limited opportunities, limited resources, limited time, limited everything, right? I know abundance versus scarcity. It's becoming one of those buzzwords that are losing their meaning nowadays, because everybody's talking about them. But everybody's talking about it, because it's really, really important. 

When you practice abundance, you will approach editors, opportunities, magazines, brands with more confidence because you'll be excited to work on the story ideas together, and you have these strong beliefs that you belong here. It's not too late for you, you have what it takes. You've done your due diligence, you've researched, you've built up your storytelling muscle, all of those things. And you have more confidence, and excitement to start reaching out to these editors. Abundance mindset really helps us view opportunities that enter our lives as limitless. Limitless, you guys. I really love that word. It's a real shift in the way we approach situations, the way we approach obstacles, challenges, even people, right? 

An example here, you are going to approach editors with these thoughts already thinking that, "Oh my God! It's going to be so difficult to get into this publication, they have limited budget, how will they ever accept the story? There are so many freelancers that pitch them every day and how will I stand out?” That's textbook scarcity mindset, right? The opportunities are scarce, and there isn't enough here for everyone. But the key thing to understand and to really internalize is that, that realization that you have a gift, you have a gift, and that gift is storytelling. That gift is curiosity. That gift is desire to share something special with the world. By the way, accepting and honoring your gifts is another example of how we can practice that abundance, because it's like any skills, it's a muscle that we can keep building and keep practicing.

[00:41:07] When you have that shift, and when you start realizing that you have this gift, this gift of storytelling, then when you get that idea, you understand, you realize that it's a cherished event. It's a special occasion, and you approach editors with this gift, with this special occasion that entered your life. This idea that entered your life, and you're approaching these editors with an opportunity to work together to turn this idea that just entered your life into a beautiful story. 

Now, do you see the difference in those two approaches? Approaching editors thinking, "Oh! They will say no. Oh! There isn't enough opportunities to go around here." Or approaching them with this, "Hey! I have this gift. I would love for us to work together to turn this, to develop this gift further." 

It takes real practice, you guys, and it takes a real intent and intention to start approaching your work this way. But it is one of the most important things that you can do for yourself, for your career, for your business, for your brands, for your creativity, for everything, really everything that's related to creative careers and dreams, is to start viewing your work, and your motivations and your dreams as a gift. You have a gift, and it's time for you to do something with that gift.

Well, I hope these 10 steps have sparked some ideas, sparked some action perhaps, sparked some curiosities in you. I hope it was useful for you today. I also want to say that these 10 steps are not really a checklist that you can knock out of the door over the course of the next 10 days, right? It's not really one of those checklists. Instead, these 10 steps that I walked you through today, they're deliberate, consistent actions that you must start taking consistently. Again, emphasis on the word consistency here. To start seeing results over a period of time. I'm not promising you overnight success here. I'm not promising you, do these 10 steps in the next 10 days, and you will be published in the New York Times. No, absolutely not, right?

Anything that has to do with a creative career, creative fields, it takes time. But actually, in any field really, to build a business, it takes time, to develop in your career, it takes time. You have to have that patience here as well. As I always say, the only thing that separates our dreams from our current reality is taking action. Taking action and doing that consistently over time. There really isn't a magic formula to get to that publishing success overnight. But there is a method to this madness. There certainly is a method. Today, in this episode and in the PDF guide that I mentioned, I've shared with you, I'm sharing with you this method, the method that has worked for me. 

Finally, I want to say that you also don't have to figure all this out alone. That's why we're working so hard between all the other projects that I have, between all the other work that I have. That's why I'm working so hard and our members in our community, we are building that Travel Media Lab community where we are supporting each other, inspiring each other, sharing tips, sharing advice. We have many tools to do that, and there's many ways in which you can be connected to us, and you can start becoming a member of our community as well.

We have a weekly newsletter where we share our news. When you get this PDF that I mentioned at the top of the episode, you will start receiving that newsletter as well. Of course, we have this podcast where I share a lot of these thoughts and topics. We have events, we have our travel journalism program that we enroll to twice a year. We have a membership called the circle where you can join at any time. There's lots of different things, of course, social media. You can follow us on Instagram, on YouTube. We have a YouTube channel, by the way, as well. So, you don't have to do this alone. That's the key thing. You don't have to do this alone. There are lots of resources that exist and there are lots of opportunities for you to get involved. But the most important thing, and I hope, again, I hope that today's episode has inspired you for that. The most important thing is to take action, is to start doing things because if you don't start doing things, nothing will happen. Nothing will happen. In order for something to happen, you need to start doing things. Thank you so much and I hope you enjoy today's episode. 

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[00:46:03] LD: Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you enjoyed me going through these 10 steps and going into the details of these 10 steps with you. If you did, I want to ask you to please take a minute now to support our show. You can do that by leaving us a rating or review on the Apple podcast app or by sharing this episode with your friends, loved ones, on social media. It really, really helps us to get discovered by more listeners that would find our show helpful and it means so much to me. I've read every single review that we get, and I take them very seriously, because I want to create a great show for you. If you've been inspired by something you heard today, or in any other episodes of our show, please take just one minute right now to support it by leaving us your rating or review. That is one of the best ways you can help us out. 

Again, I want to remind you that if you want to get the PDF version of these 10 steps that I covered today on the podcast, go to travelmedialab.com/start to get your PDF, where you'll also find some more resources, links, and exercises as well. Finally, this August, I'm going to run that two-day workshop called Getting Started in NFTs on August 10 and 17th. You will find the link to register for that workshop in the show notes. You can also go to our homepage at travelmedialab.com. If you're listening to this episode before Sunday, July 31, you can use code NFT10 to get 10% off your registration as a special thank you to our dear podcast listeners. So if you're interested, don't wait. Go to the link and register today. All right. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast today and I will see you next week.

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