FR#2: Freelancing, Video Games & Challenging Your Feelings with Shawnie Fortune

Shawnie Fortune is a freelance graphic designer based in Portland, Oregon. Her work is aimed for an even balance between functionality and beauty. She loves being able to be a part of helping others get further in their dreams.

In this episode, we go into depth talking about making the leap from her first career in massage to becoming a freelance professional, while still hustling with other side-gigs. We talk about overcoming fears, having a servant mindset toward clients, unexpected opportunities, embracing your nerdiness (ultimately your true self), and much more in this awesome conversation.

A few key highlights:

At what point do you become a professional, and what solidifies that confidence?
Raising your rates and getting clients to feel comfortable sharing their budget with you.
Challenging your feelings when you’re down, isolated, or defeated.
How video games and comics inspire Shawnie and help her be more creative.

So get ready to dig in with my good friend, Shawnie, as she shares with a sweet and genuine heart how to be true to yourself and be happy while you’re still in the process.

Some of Shawnie's Design Work:

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Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:

1:50 - How Shawnie decided to reboot her profession from the ground up

5:00 - How being open to take freelance jobs while working at a coffee shop helped jump start her career as a designer.
7:45 - How learning to communicate with your bosses at your job can teach you how to work with clients.
9:26 - Why design hinges on your ability to communicate well and understand people.
11:58 - At what point did you begin to feel like a professional?
14:00 - How to get past the intimidation of talking about money with clients.
17:27 - Why you need to approach talking about money with confidence and a genuine heart to serve your clients’ best interests.
18:15 - How have you gone about raising your rates over the years?
21:50 - Why laying down your artistic ego will make you a more successful creative professional.
25:20 - What have been your biggest fears and obstacles since starting your career?
28:00 - Why you have to continue educating yourself in order to stay relevant.
30:10 - Why it’s important to challenge your feelings of doubt and insecurity in order to build confidence, feel capable, and value yourself.
32:40 - Dealing with isolation or aloneness in your work
34:40 - Providing yourself with healthy balance in life and work.
35:17 - The importance of having a support system of people who know you well enough to have your back, even when you have to be deep in your work.
36:25 - How Shawnie got into video games and comics as a kid.
41:10 - Why embracing your nerdiness can help you be more creative.
41:55 - How a side project based on Final Fantasy led to a client project.
44:00 - When you create the work you love, that’s the kind of work that will come to you.
44:18 - Being your true self is rare. Why the time she’s spent doing what she loved makes her feel more like herself and how that makes it easier to create.
45:30 - Being inspired by the creativity that other people are expressing (in comics and video games).
48:05 - Is there a project that she is most proud of? How trying a completely new discipline has been fueling her creatively.
50:20 - What’s next for Shawnie?