You attract what you are

This is a photo of my dorm, where I first started my business in 2009.

I struggled to find my first clients. And, boy, did I try everything: cold outreach, responding to random gigs on Craigslist, offering free work, etc. I know this approach works for some people, but for me, it was largely unsuccessful.

The constant rejection made it feel like I didn’t have anything valuable to offer. Instead, I invested my time in a few personal projects I had been dreaming about. Then, I shared this work in my portfolio. At the time, there really wasn’t any 'strategy' behind this; I was just having fun.

It turns out that these passion projects were true expressions of who I was. They positioned me to be discovered by actual paying clients who wanted to achieve something similar—clients who were aligned with who I really was, not who I thought I needed to be.

This taught me a valuable lesson: You attract what you are, not what you want. If you are struggling to attract the right people, or if something just feels 'off,' it might be because what you think you want right now doesn't actually align with who you really are.

– Charles