The experts used to say you needed a 3 month cash cushion, just in case you find yourself not working.

Then they said you needed a 6 month emergency fund, because that’s the average time it takes to find a new job.

Today, as I was researching this article, I saw that the advice has jumped to having 9 months to a year worth of money saved for rainy days!

Let’s stick with the “3 month” advice and do some quick math. If you make 35k a year, an emergency fund that will get you through one season comes out to $8,750. According to the Wall Street Journal, half of the American population can’t produce an extra $2000 bucks even if you gave them 30 days to conjure it up.

That means there’s at least a 50/50 chance that you also do not have anywhere close to the recommended emergency fund. And that’s not because you are a terrible person. It’s because on a 35k a year salary, by saving 5% a month, it will take you 5 years to squirrel away the money.

That’s a long time.

As a professional in the entertainment business it’s impossible for you to predict your next half decade, and it’s likely that your current job not will last that long.

You are going to need your emergency fund sooner, rather than later. So, what do you do?

I have a better suggestion for you.

Instead of wishing and hoping your life will stand still long enough for you to gather an emergency fund, why not learn how to raise money whenever you need it?

It’s called freelancing.

I first freelanced while I worked a full time job as an editor for a music magazine. I did 40 hours at the regular gig, then put in 12 hours a week moonlighting. I pulled in about 2k extra a month from freelancing (which is, ironically, the same amount that Wall Street Journal asked people about).

After I was downsized from the magazine, I told my client I had more time to work with her, so her company agreed to pay me 4k a month to consult for more hours. I did that for a few months while looking for another full time gig.

Freelancing was my emergency fund. It was just the bridge I needed while I went through a career transition.

The Modern Emergency Fund

If you work in music, television, or film you have to create stability in your career with a “side hustle”. You need one, two, or three ways to survive an emergency.

Many of us are too quick to load up debt on our credit cards, or take a soul crushing job that turns into a distraction from our ultimate career goals.

Talk to anyone with more than 10 successful years in the business. They all have ways they put their unique talents to good use to both reach their dreams and take care of their responsibilities.

I know a production manager for television who’s a wedding planner on the side.

I know a talent scout who also puts on a yearly talent competition.

I know an executive who wrote a book, sells production budget software, and gives speeches.

I know a music writer who hosts industry parties.

I know a camera man who shoots wedding. Actually, he shot my wedding . I asked him how business was going and said it’s so good that he’s switching his career to solely focus on his freelancing.

Freelancing is essential if you want to build a solid career for yourself in this business.

If you haven’t started freelancing yet, or you don’t do it enough, click here and I will show you how.

There’s a rich opportunity that comes with not having full time work.

It can be a time for growth.

It can be a time for exploring career paths that you were too focused and busy to pursue while fully employed.

It can even be a time for having fun.

Growth-exploration-fun? That’s sounds like a vacation, not unemployment, right? That sounds mixed up and crazy.

What’s really crazy is trying to search for a new job with the same situation that made you quit or got you fired from the last job. Here are four things you must do to change your situation, so you can move your career forward.

Must Do #1: Sharpen Your Skills (and Acquire New Ones)

I worked at a major music magazine that started as a dream job, but became a daily grind. I found myself writing the same stories in the same way, every day.
I mastered the writing style of my magazine, but not news writing in general. And I didn’t get to try anything new. I was stuck watching others experiment with importing their wordsmith talent to other formats and types of media, a must have skill in the new music industry.

I got laid off from that job, and the magazine itself folded. My career stalled as I tried to get hired at the same salary level using an outdated skill set.

It took me 6 months to understand that my opportunity well was dry and I needed to build on my abilities. If I was smarter back then I would have immediately started adding to my career toolbox on the day I lost my job.

So, be smarter than me. Sharpen your skills (and acquire new ones)

Old way to do this: Work on a passion project. It’s almost cliche for professionals who work in music, television, and film to jumpstart their long held quirky ideas in between their paid projects. It’s great for building new skills, but not possible if you have bills to pay and a family to look after.

Must Do #2: Grow Your Professional Network

Creative coach Mark McGuinness explained why your friend just found a gig in the entertainment industry, but you didn’t:

Partly, it was down to luck. Life is unpredictable, especially in the creative industries. But luck aside, there was one big factor that made the difference: [His] network came through for him, and yours didn’t. So if you want to get luckier, and have opportunity knock for you more often, you’ll need to do what [he] did, and build a better network.

The size of your luck = the strength of your network.

The unfortunate thing for you is most of your networking probably happened within the company you were working for. So, now that you’re unemployed, your network (and your luck) is nowhere to be found.

This makes growing a network the most critical thing you should do while you’re unemployed.

Old way to do this: Go to conferences and join professional associations. This option works for people who have outgoing, Type-A personalities. Being at the same industry event or paying dues to the same organization doesn’t guarantee that someone will take your card or remember your name. Unfortunately, it still requires you to be a good self-promoter.

Must Do #3: Build Your Reputation

Your professional reputation is your also called your personal brand. And your personal brand is the story other other people tell about you.

Your brand can take a hit while unemployed if you chose to stop doing creative work, and focus all of your time on job hunting. It’s your work that spreads the word about you, not your job hunt.

On a side note, that’s why most career advice doesn’t apply to the business of entertainment. If you are an out-of-work accountant the advice to “make looking for a job your job” solid. For you and me, job hunting for 8 hours a day, will not bring us closer to our career goals. Instead, it will stall our career by distracting us from continuing the creative work that will build our reputation and standing in the industry.

Old way to do this: Get certified or get a new degree. In the past reputation building was as easy as taking a few continuing education classes to get certified in the new tech that everyone is using in the studio. Now, that option is much too slow and education credentials don’t carry the same weight as they used to.

Must Do #4: Make Money

The most pressing need you have while unemployed is the need to make money.

You want to follow your passion, but first you have to eat. You are willing to take risks to live out your dreams, but you have responsibilites to handle.

Here’s the interesting thing. Your bills are not a barrier to your goals – they’re a barometer. Smart professionals know how to use money as a measure that they’re on the right tack in their career.

When you have your head on straight about money and the value of your work, it shields you from making common unemployment mistakes, like working for free or taking a bad job.

So, embrace your monetary needs, and reject the “starving artist” label. Use your need as a guide to get you closer to what you want.

Old way to do this: Take a temp, retail, or part-time job. We all know the production assistant who works at the Gap during off-season, or the roadie who temps in between tours. If you’ve been around a few years you’ve seen that this old way of staying afloat while you search for your next gig often lulls people out of the industry altogether. The more you rely on work outside of your career focus, the more likely your “side hustle” will become your career.

Is there a way to enhance your Skills, Network, and Reputation at the same time (and get Paid to do it)?

Yes. It’s called freelancing. It’s the opposite of doing things the old way when you’re unemployed.

Freelancers in the music, television, and film business do not needlessly spend money on passion projects, conferences, associations, and certifications.

No. By working with clients directly, freelancers get paid to do creative work that sharpens their skills, grows their network, and builds their reputations.

Click here and I will tell you how to get started.

Being in between jobs sucks.

One day you’re in a job interview and feeling hopeful about your career. The next day you feel like a talentless loser, who has no business working in the entertainment industry.

Go through those mood swings, it’s normal. But while you’re pushing through your ups and downs, don’t make these two common, career crippling mistakes.

Mistake #1: Working For Free

I love helping people, so I have a hard time with this mistake. Can you relate?

You have time on your hands, and you love flexing your talent. So, when your brother’s friend’s cousin hears that you know how to edit a video, or produce a song, or whatever creative superpower you have, you get asked for a favor.

The task is small and easy, right? It would be insulting to charge anything, right?

Wrong.

Free clients are the most demanding clients. Projects are never as small as they seem. And giving away your services never leads to paid gigs.

There are very few instances where going unpaid can help your career. But mostly you should avoid it.

Read more here: 3 Questions to Ask Before Working For Free

Mistake #2: Taking A Bad Job

Even professionals who are smart enough to never work for free have trouble taking on bad jobs.

Some of these jobs are dead ends disguising themselves as entry level or supportive positions at a record label, film studio, or television network.

Some of these bad jobs are complete detours from the industry. You convince yourself that 6 months as a real estate agent or a few weeks as a temp is just the cash cushion you need to keep pursuing your dreams.

The sad truth is you are most likely to quit the business altogether and make your bad jobs your main job. I’ve seen that story play out over and over again.

Read more here: Are These Six Job Monsters Killing Your Career?

So, What Should You Do While Unemployed?

Have you considered freelancing?

Every successful professional I know in entertainment does work “on the side”. If you don’t have services you offer on your own, you need to correct that immediately.

Click here and I will tell you how to get started.

Get off Facebook.

That’s how you find time to work on your career goals.

Stop playing with apps, stop chatting, and stop posting status updates about how bad your day was.

Instead, do the work that will get you closer to your dreams.

Stop checking Facebook on your phone. Stop going to sleep with Facebook. Stop waking up to Facebook.

Instead, use those quiet or dull moments to brainstorm creative ways for you to land your next gig in television, music, or film

“But Hashim, I need Facebook to network with my peers”

No, you don’t.

Anyone who is doing serious work in our business has no time for Facebook. And if a VIP you want to meet is active on Facebook, she sure doesn’t want to be contacted by you through Facebook.

So, what should you do in place of aimless Facebook surfing?

1. Do awesome work that shows how creative you are.

2. Put it out there for the world to see.

3. Get people talking about you.

There’s a word that sums up those three steps. Blogging.

If video production is your art, then do video blogging. If music is your art, then do a podcast (audio blogging). If costume design is your art, then you need a photo blog.

Shut down Facebook. And start a blog. It’s the best way to build an audience of like minded professionals in your field.

It’s a proven way to stand out, build your reputation, and get hired (if you do it right).

You don’t have to delete your Facebook profile like I did 3 years ago. However, if you do, you’ll find that you have tons more time to be focused on creating, rather than consuming.

You’ll have the energy you need to launch a world class blog that attracts opportunities to you, rather than you having to hunt for them.

That’s what happened to me. My blog brings me a stream of offers from people who discovered my work on the web. Facebook never did that for me.

What if you took my advice for 6 weeks?

You deserve to have the world know how talented you are. So, what if, for 6 weeks I showed you how to build a blog that puts your personal brand on display?

I’m doing just that, starting soon. I’m teaching an online class about Personal Brand Blogging, and I want you to register. I’m teaching what to write about, how to set up your blog, and how to make social media work for you.

Get this – if you’re one of the first to register, I’ll set up your blog for you, for free.

Click here to get all of the details.

Make sure to scroll down and download your copy of an interview I did on this topic!

Are you searching for work right now in music, television, or film and coming up empty? It’s frustrating, right?

You know that even the most qualified and connected in our industry face stretches of unemployment. It’s just the nature of the business.

But that’s no comfort to your spouse, your kids, or your own nagging self doubt.

I get questions all the time from job seekers who are having a difficult time landing their first gig, or a new one.

They come to me, wondering if they suck, or if their profession sucks.

I say it’s neither. The #1 reason you don’t have the job in entertainment that you want right now is because you’re working against the hiring seasons.

Tax accounts know the ins-and-outs of their hiring season, and they plan accordingly. You should too.

Let’s say you’re a production assistant. There are specific times of the year when television shows are staffing up. It’s a good time to get a job then.

But if the hiring season is out, your chances of getting a position are slim. It doesn’t matter how amazing your skills are or how high up your mentor is. It’s famine time for your job search.

Now, there are nuances and exceptions to the rule that you need to get smart about.

So, I invited a bright and generous industry professional to help you get deeper in to the subject of hiring seasons.

Her name is Rachel Marks, and I discovered her entertainment career blog while researching this subject. When I saw how much help Rachel is giving to people in our business, I just knew she would be a great person to interview about this subject.

Rachel has worked on several reality shows like So You Think You Can Dance, The Jersey Shore, The Real World and The Biggest Loser. Along with reality shows she has worked on several live productions, like The Super Bowl XLIV Halftime Show and The Golden Globes.

Download the MP3 of the Rachel Marks call below.

Rachel Marks on Staffing Seasons in Television

Rachel and I discuss:

• How to handle the stress of not finding a job
• Getting hired on a reality show vs a scripted show
• Why you should run toward companies that just had layoffs.

Even if you work in music, and not television or film, the concept of a hiring season still applies to you! Give the call a listen, and pass it on to your friends who may also need help.

I forgot how to ride a bike.

The people who say you “never forget” have never met me. I haven’t peddled a bike since I was a pre-teen. So, by age 31 I forgot how to balance myself on two wheels.

But my wife loves to ride her bike. And last summer she was feeling bummed about not being able to easily retrieve her bike out of storage, for carefree trips through the park.

So, being the wonderful and thoughtful (and foolish) husband that I am, I surprised my wife one day with a trip to a bike rental shop near Central Park. She was excited, and I was excited too. That is, until I fell off my bike while trying to make a maneuver down a slight hill.

That afternoon my bike riding included a lot of wobbling and sudden stops. But eventually I learned how to ride again.

The secret is simple – you have to create momentum on the bike, then work with that momentum. Anything less makes riding difficult and dangerous.

The same is true for your career, especially since you work in music, television, or film.

Unless you create “career momentum” for yourself you will get stuck fighting for every inch of opportunity. Nothing will come easy.

Without momentum your security in the business will stay wobbly. Full dedication to your craft will be risky – just like it was for me when I rode my bike without momentum.

Career momentum in this business happens when no longer have to promote yourself or skills, and others start spreading the good word for you. Momentum is created when opportunities come to you, rather than you having to hunt, and pitch, and beg for every big big break.

There’s a simple sentence that will teach you how to capture career momentum.

Here it is: “The best job leads to the next job”.

There are several types of gigs you should turn down. I identified 6 of the worst.

But how do you know which offers to take? How do you know which companies, positions, and projects to pursue?

The answer is simple – the best job to have right now is the one that naturally leads you to a better job in the future. That’s career momentum.

3 Questions To Ask Before Taking Any New Job

Some jobs create momentum. Others stall it. These questions will help you tell the difference.

#1. Will this opportunity give me the NETWORK I need to snag a better opportunity?

This is why interns will work for free. The position gets them immediately connected. It’s their first chance to get their career momentum rolling.

#2. Will this opportunity give me the MONEY I need to snag a better opportunity?

I left a job I loved for a boring position that almost doubled my salary. The extra cash gave me the ability to work on other creative projects, outside of work.

That money, and those projects are what allowed me to have career momentum.

#3. Will this opportunity give me the SKILLS I need to snag a better opportunity?

This is why a mentor of mine left a high profile position in television to start her own production company. She felt stagnated as an executive, and knew that learning how to start her own thing from the ground up would give her the career momentum she needed.

This is why a “dream job” is a myth in the entertainment business.

A dream job is for people who can predict where their life and industry will be in the next 5 years.

As a creative professional, you don’t have that luxury.

Instead, aim for momentum.

Aim to glide your bike through the journey of your career.

Aim to live out these 8 words – the best job leads to the next job.

Imagine this:

There’s a hot record label looking for a graphic designer.

And you just happen to be an amazing graphic designer looking to work with a record label.

With that setup in mind, how would you react to these three scenarios?

Scenario #1: The record label posts a job listing for a graphic design gig. It involves interesting work at a great salary.

Would you apply?

If yes, then congrats – you’re what is called a “Professional.”

And, as a fellow professional, I’m happy to have you as a reader of Career Green Light.

Scenario #2: The record label posts an internship program for graphic designers. For three months you’ll work without pay, in exchange for experience and connections. Would you apply?

If yes, then congrats – you’re an aspiring professional – an “Amateur”.

I did amateur work for years, without pay, before finally landing a great gig as the editor of a music magazine. As a former amateur, I hope what I share on Career Green Light empowers your journey in the entertainment industry as you work to become a full fledged professional.

Scenario #3: The record label posts a contest where fans submit graphic design concepts for use on an upcoming project. The winner gets credit and exposure, but doesn’t get paid. Would you apply?

If yes, then you and I need to have a serious talk. You’re most likely not a career professional or an amateur. You’re stuck in the middle. You’re a “hobbyist”.

And since you read Career Green Light, you’ve either deluded yourself into thinking you’re an amateur who hasn’t got a shot yet, or that you’re a professional looking for a way into the system.

And that’s the problem with hobbyists. Because they can’t clearly see where they stand, they are not willing to do what it takes to have a real career in the entertainment industry.

Let’s clear up the difference between professionals and hobbyists.

Entertainment Professionals get paid to use their creative talents in music, television, and film.

Hobbyist are willing to pay to just hang around the business. Sometimes, by accident, they do land a gig. And when they do, you will often hear them saying, “I can’t believe I get paid to do this!”

Professionals are talented and do awesome work.

Hobbyists can also be talented and do awesome work.

But Professionals know their talent is not enough to make it in the business, so they continually develop their skills and grow their networks.

Hobbyists dismiss networking as self-promotion and hate “playing politics”. They hope the industry will shine a light on them, and finally recognize their talent.

Professionals network with other professionals. And they mentor amateurs.

Hobbyists latch on to the one connected professional they know. And they wish someone would mentor them.

Professionals trade favors.

Hobbyists beg for favors.

Professionals guard their reputation, as they build their personal brand.

Hobbyists ask others to risk their reputations on them, and they name drop other people’s personal brands.

3 Steps To Transforming Your Hobby Into a Career

Did you just realize you are a hobbyist? Do you want to make the professional leap, and create a career for yourself in the entertainment industry?

Then follow these 3 steps:

1. Get a job!
2. Get a job, again!
3. Keep getting jobs!

Simple, right?

Hobbyists make the mistake of trying to go from 0-60, too fast. They hope to catch a big break that will suddenly jump start their career.

Hobbyists get stuck harboring a grand idea for a blockbuster movie or hit TV show or a superstar band. They let years go by without doing real work in the industry, because they have such blind faith in their ideas.

Professionals have big ideas too. Hundreds of them every year. But we go from gig to gig, making at least some of those creative sparks a fiery reality.

And along the way, we’re building our network, deepening our creative abilities, and strengthening our personal brands. That’s what it means to have a career. And that’s what it takes to be a professional.

Let’s Get You a Real Career in Entertainment

If you are an amateur, or even a hobbyist, fill out the form below and let me know what your dream job would be in this business.

Also, let me know what’s your biggest hurdle to climb in order to make your dream a reality.

I have a series of articles and a seminar coming up, aimed at helping you get your first gig (or your second and third gig in entertainment). Your private response below will let me know exactly how to help you reach your goals.

If you read the trade magazines in the entertainment industry – publications like Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, and Variety – you’ll spot upcoming trends in our business before everyone else is taken by “surprise”.

Knowing which way the wind is blowing is critical to planning your career.

If you’re a make-up artist who specializes in horror films, wouldn’t it be great to know if Hollywood has warmed back up to scary movies? Or, if you’re a tour manager for Hip-Hop acts, isn’t it important to know how open Europe will be to rap concerts in the next 12 months?

I read the trades for my own benefit, to make my own career decisions. However, I noticed three trends that will affect my job stability and yours, whether you work in music, film, or television. Here are my predictions:

Prediction for Music Careers

The music business is cratering, and will continue to fall apart in 2012.

The latest bad news is that the major labels are losing their ability to break new artists on the radio. Without that power of promotion, the labels will become obsolete. All functions and responsibilities of the traditional label will shift to the individual artist.

This means that in order to work in music, you will need to know a major artist, or know someone who currently works with an artist.

Key Fact
Warner/Reprise laid off their entire promotional department. Source: Lefsetz Letter

My Recommendation
If you currently work in music, leave! If you aspire to work in music, consider another career!

Until the leaders at the top of the business figure out how to make money, there will be severe instability for everyone else.

Personally, I have pivoted my focus from Music Journalism to Web Production for Television because I don’t see a long career for myself in music. Keep reading; I explain more of my thoughts on that below.

Prediction for Film Careers

If you thought Hollywood was insular before, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Studios are finding great success with sequels and established franchises. That’s great news for the creative teams involved. They get to work on a guaranteed hit, and can leverage the residual aura and relationships to cherry pick smaller projects.

However, it’s a bad time for new ideas and new talent, even at the production level. Unless you’re already established in one of the few circles that’s been actively working the past 3 years, don’t expect your 2012 to be any easier.

Key Fact
13 of the top 20 flicks in 2011 were sequels. This trend is working and will continue. Source: Box Office Mojo, and NY Times

My Recommendation
Transition your career into television. You’ll find that your experience working long hours on short term projects is especially well suited for variety shows and reality television.

Prediction for Television Careers

The demand for television content is increasing.

Companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu are driving up the post-air value of shows.

Social media companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google are competing to become the de facto place audiences gather to talk about a show, giving networks huge free promotional partners.

Most importantly, because media is so fragmented, television has become the last place a major advertiser can get in front of over a million people at one time.

As each network shifts its business model to capture the increasing value of television, new types of jobs are being created every week.

Key Fact
The growth of television ad spending is increasing, despite uncertainty in ratings. Source: Variety, Nielsen, and NY Times

My Recommendation
If you have passion and creativity, 2012 is a great time to plant a professional foot in TV land. If you already work in television, I suggest learning about the fastest growing segment of the business, called Social TV.

Right now, most functions of Social TV are being handled by the Creative Services or Digital department at networks. However, I don’t expect those silos to continue. Social TV will be something everyone will need to understand, from the writing staff to the Art Director.

Do you want to work in television? I stumbled from music to television by accident (long story), and since then I’ve had to figure out how to land gigs without relying on luck. Soon, I will be hosting an online seminar on how to break into television, even if you have no experience or connections. Sign up below to get notified when the seminar gets scheduled.

“Hashim, I want to pitch you a great idea.”

I was his mentor and he was a young photographer, new to the entertainment industry. We sat down for lunch in the gray cafeteria of the CBS Broadcast Studios, in between tapings of the variety show I worked for.

What the young man said next involved traveling the world, working with a legend in music, and getting paid to live out his childhood dream. All he needed from me was a simple meeting with the senior president of my television network so he could pitch his “great idea” upstream.

I clearly explained that his plan couldn’t work, and I wouldn’t help him.

It wasn’t that his aspirations were too lofty. No. Nothing is worse than a creative professional who works in a magical field like music, television, or film yet boxes up his dreams to fit a false standard of reality. We work here to defy reality, both in our work, and in our careers.

So, the size of the dream wasn’t the problem.

The real issue was that the young man I mentored had only one dream in mind – his own. His plan was to ask me, and at least two other people to risk our own reputations to build his career.

He wanted us to sacrifice for his dream, with no regard to what we may receive, or more importantly, what we may lose.

Nobody Cares About Your Dreams, And That’s A Good Thing

Rule #1 of having a career in showbiz is to not expect anyone else to be concerned about your goals, unless that person is your mother.

Scratch that. Even your mom just wants you to succeed so she has something to brag about. And she’d be just as happy if you quit this risky business and switched to nursing.

So, that leaves you as the only person with a true concern for how your entertainment career goes.

Here’s the thing – in this business we don’t do favors, we trade favors.

And that’s good news for you.

It means that whatever you want for your career can be achieved by being an enabler of the hopes of other people. You don’t have to rely on personal relationships and the kindness of strangers to get ahead. Instead, your ability to make others famous, wealthy, and fulfilled is directed tied to the frequency and size of the opportunities you will have to do achieve the same.

Far too often, both aspiring professionals and industry veterans approach the business as if they are owed a spotlight for their unique talents and amazing ideas. If that spotlight never comes, they blame tasteless executives, a stupid audience, and the unfair universe.

It would be better for you to dump the needy mindset, and adopt a giving outlook. Like DJ Beverly Bond did.

The Generosity Paradox

Beverly Bond started as a model, switched to being a DJ, and became the hottest name in the club scene.

She took her status as a celebrity DJ as far as it would go, doing parties for icons such as Prince and Sean “Diddy” Combs.

For a period of time, DJ Beverly Bond lost a fair amount of buzz, as famous females like Erykah Badu and Solange also took up DJing.

When club promoters overlooked Bond and did deals with the lastest celebrity DJs, do you think they cared about her life dreams, her car note, her cool new ideas, or past accomplishments?

No! They only cared about a packing their club. And they were willing to go with anyone who could make that dream come true.

However, today Bond is even more famous, and much more powerful, and it has little to do with being a DJ. She is the producer of the most unique award show on television, Black Girls Rock, and the founder of a charity by the same name.

Bond started Black Girls rock to help young women learn about personal leadership through the arts. The innovative, New York based empowerment program is the smart way Bond has chosen to give back to her community and the music industry at large.

Because of her generosity, expressed through her unique talent, Bond is achieving new heights of fame and success. And I bet that she once again has offers to DJ around the world.

Give To The Industry, And The Industry Will Give To You

Bond’s story is not rare. Choose anyone who has consistently done great things for themselves in music, television, or film. You’ll find that as they walked their own path of success, they’ve helped many others walk with them.

They’ve shared their knowledge at conferences and trade shows. They’ve participated in “the union” and mentored college students.

They’ve written books, given quotes to reporters, and started their own blogs.

They’ve started charities, volunteered at charities, and given money to charities.

Here’s the paradox – successful people are the most generous with others who are generous.

So, it’s not the needy, with big dreams that get attention from givers. It’s others who set their mind on giving who get the most help from others!

To paraphrase a president, don’t ask what the entertainment industry can do for you. Ask what you can do for the entertainment industry.

If you commit yourself to service, I promise our business will commit itself to you.

This weekend I surveyed dozens of blogs run by professionals in the music, television and film business to find material for my online course on Personal Brand Blogging.

I saw some blogs being used as living portfolios of work, and attracting a vibrant community of readers. I was even encouraged to see a “I got a job!” announcement on one blog by a recent college graduate who studied animation.

However, over 90% of the blogs I stumbled upon are making one or more critical mistakes, and it’s kneecapping the effectiveness of those sites. I’m sure these creative people are just running these blogs for the the fun of it, but it pains me to know that just a few simple tweaks could make blogging an important part of their career success.

Are you making one of these mistakes with your blogging? See my list below, and use the quick and videos I recorded to make the simple changes you need.

Mistake #1: Not Having Your Own Website, Domain and Email Address

Building a blog though Tumblr and Blogspot is simple and easy. But it also limits your ability to build a reputation through your blog.

If you do the work to make your blog amazing, then you end up promoting the blog service you use more than your own personal brand.

Same goes for having an email address through Gmail, Yahoo, or AOL. If you run email through your own domain, like Hashim@CareerGreenLight.com, your credibility goes through the roof.

Watch the short video below and you’ll see that snagging your own domain name is actually quicker than starting a website on any free service:

Mistake #2: Not Building The Right Audience For Your Blog

The second mistake I saw is from blogs that have absolutely no visitors.

No traffic is a symptom of a blogger failing to create a starter set of “superfans” who will spread the word about the site on their own.

I explain how to find those very important set of fans here:

Mistake #3: Not Having A Career Strategy For Your Blog

The last mistake I saw is from entertainment professionals who obviously lack any cohesive career plan for their blog.

The site is more of a neglected hobby than a true Personal Brand Blog.

In my experience, the low effort is due to the owner having no expectation that the blog will win any job or business leads.

The easy way to correct this mistake is to learn how to use blogging to leap over gatekeepers and connect with anyone you want. From there, you’ll have the motivation you need to sharpen your blog efforts, because it has become a major way you create new opportunities in your career.

I explain more in this video:

(Don’t take the strategy I shared lightly! I was able to cold call a major business in our industry and get them to co-promote one of my webinars using the plan I shared above. It worked for me, and it’ll work for you!)

Want to learn more about Personal Brand Blogging? I’m teaching an online class on how to use a blog in the entertainment industry to become the go-to guy in your field. Click here to learn more.