Category: Riffs

The Trap of Seeking Perfection – The Story of Writing My First Book

Travis L. Scottby Travis L. Scott

In June 2020, I had decided to write a book. Not just any book, but my first book. It was a little intimidating. I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about at first. Then a couple of things happened that sparked an idea for the topic. The first thing that happened was that I read Cal Newport’s book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You. That book completely changed my perspective on a lot of things including, the myth of trying to match your passion with your career and, most importantly for me, the idea of “career capital.” “Career …

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The Two Most Important Things You Can Do to Market Your Career

Travis L. Scottby Travis L. Scott

Whether you’re focused on building or strengthening your “personal brand” or want to land a new role with a new company that fits the next logical step in your career, understanding two things – what you do and who you do it for – is essential. Both of these things represent the primary pillars of marketing. Without a specific answer to both, you’re just flailing, which leads to failing. The most common trap that marketers fall into is that they try to be everything to everyone. That’s impossible. Not to mention expensive for you and confusing for your customers. When …

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A Side Project to Make Extra Money? Nah. More Like Leveling Up Your Career

Travis L. Scottby Travis L. Scott

Employment in the U.S. has been one-sided for a very long time. A company hires you, and you only focus on that company, no outside projects bringing in additional income for you and your family. They’ll pay you as little as they possibly can, expect you to be grateful and loyal, then fire you the minute the economy turns bad. Unfortunately, this still holds true for many companies, but things have changed massively over the past decade-plus. The cost of living in some cities has far outpaced the 2%-3% “cost of living” income increases companies have doled out to their …

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Why it Might Be Time to Kiss Some Traditions Good-Bye

Travis L. Scottby Travis L. Scott

Tradition. The word itself is a story. People are drawn to tradition because it’s a story about our past or someone else’s past that we want to be a part of. Tradition is nostalgia. Tradition is a sense of belonging. Tradition is doing something the way it has always been done. Tradition is a way of making a connection; a way of bonding family and friends. For all of the benefits tradition can bring, it can also be blinding. Especially from a business or professional standpoint. Because it’s doing things the way they’ve always been done. Sometimes that’s not the …

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All Great Things Take Time – and the Outcomes are Sometimes Surprising

Travis L. Scottby Travis L. Scott

You’ve probably heard people say something to the effect that “Rome wasn’t built in a day” or that “all great things take time.” There’s a reason they say that – because it’s true. When it comes to our careers, you have to be willing to play the long game. You have to be interested in the journey, not the destination. After all, what is the destination of someone’s career? Retirement? Death? I don’t plan to retire in the traditional sense, so, for me, it will probably be death and, I don’t know about you, but that’s not a destination I’m …

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How Podcasting and Clubhouse Have Made Me Better at My Job

Travis L. Scottby Travis L. Scott

Context: My Podcasting Story Back in 2019, I started a podcast called The Winding Road. I didn’t really have a clear idea of what it would be about or who would listen to it. I mainly wanted to see what all of the podcasting hype was about. Since I learn better by immersing myself in something, I decided to spin it up and see what happened. The First Version Will Always Suck I haven’t listened to my first episodes and may never do that. I already know they won’t be as good as the last one I did, and that’s …

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You’re a Marketer. Why Are You Still Writing Your Resume Like It’s 1959?

Travis L. Scottby Travis L. Scott

Recently, I was helping someone with their resume. They’re a budding, talented marketing copywriter ready to make the jump into a role that will allow them to leverage their talent. Knowing this person and their work, then seeing their resume, I was surprised at the disconnect. His resume was stiff, formal, robotic—nothing like how he usually writes or talks. How did this kind of writing pervade resumes and CVs? How is it that even talented writers are falling into this trap of crappy, impersonal resume writing? It’s also surprising how the ancient myth of keeping your resume to one page …

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How to Turn AI, Competitors, and Alternatives into Your Professional Advantage

Travis L. Scottby Travis L. Scott

If you begin to think about what you offer to an employer or client, depending on the career path you’ve chosen, there are always alternatives and competition. There will always be alternatives. One alternative is that your client could do the work themselves instead of paying you to do it. For some apps or software platforms, a free Google spreadsheet is an alternative. If you make money providing a product or service to your clients, there will always be competition. For some, the threat of artificial intelligence, or AI, is already here and impacting how you work. What does this …

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Is Your Commitment Phobia Preventing You From Being a Successful Solopreneur?

Travis L. Scottby Travis L. Scott

“Look at that stack of books by the bed and tell me that you’re the kind of person who can be happy focusing on just one niche?,” said my wife as we were talking about my career when I told her I need to narrow my focus when it comes to marketing. I’ve never been a niche guy with anything. My music taste is eclectic as hell. Take last Friday evening for example. We started listening to 40’s music (one of my favorite genres), then moved to the ’80s, then the band America, then the band ELO. It ended with …

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Want to Build a Personal Brand? First, Slow Your Roll

Travis L. Scottby Travis L. Scott

Everybody seems to be talking about building their personal brand these days. It’s becoming such an overused term that it’s bordering on cringe-worthy when someone mentions it. Personal brands aren’t new. They’ve been around since humans have. In pre-hypermarketing times, about 20 years ago, it was known as your reputation. The only difference is now we can influence, at scale, others’ perception of our reputation through a nauseating choice of social media platforms and other chest-thumping forms of communication. We live in a time of scale and reach unlike any other. The barriers to getting your message out to hundreds …

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