Come on Back…

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Sylvester Stallone is the reason why I run two Envato marketplaces and a popular web development blog. Okay…maybe not really. But he did say one thing in an interview years ago which has always stuck with me. In fact, in a round-about way, this piece of advice got me my job with Envato. More on this at the end of the article.

I’ve always been intrigued with the idea of being a writer. Give me a subject that I’m not interested in, and I crash and burn. But if I enjoy the subject matter, and can have a bit of fun with it, I love writing. The act of sitting in a coffee shop – overpriced chocolately beverage in hand – and being creative is far too appealing to me. A couple years ago, I approached a site called Freelance Folder about possibly writing for them. They didn’t offer much compensation – only about $60 per article; but I enjoyed it, and was hoping to get my name out there. As with most blogs like this, I was only able to submit a couple of articles each month.

Because I was eager to write more and more, I contacted the founder of FreelanceFolder, Jon Phillips, often about a full-time writing position with his site. Unfortunately, at the time, no positions were currently available. Politely, I would always speak up and respond with something along the lines of, “Well, please do keep me in mind if something opens up.”

The Dude

One day, to my huge fortune, Jon emailed me. As I understood it, some dude named Cyan was in need of a weekly writer for a new web development blog called Nettuts. Jon is an accomplished developer/writer/musician himself, and was unfortunately unable to take the position. But thanks to my constant – and probably irritating pestering – he must have remembered that I was looking for a steady writing gig, and forwarded the email to me!

The Woman

Well as it turns out, this “Cyan” turned out to be a “she,” and a high-level contact at that (she and Collis founded Envato)! After a couple of polite emails, I was on my way to writing a weekly article for Nettuts+.

My First Three Articles for Nettuts+

  1. 15 Resources to get you started with jQuery from Scratch
  2. Solving 5 Common CSS Headaches
  3. Learn PHP from Scratch: A Training Regimen

Long Story Short

To make a long story short, I just so happened to be in the right place at the right time, and was offered the Editor position of the site a few weeks later, ThemeForest a few months after that, and finally CodeCanyon – which is scheduled to launch sometime late this year.

Now What About Sylvester Stallone

I’ve been a fan of the Rocky series ever since I was a kid. Being the nerd that I am, this meant that it was only appropriate to watch the commentary to Rocky 1. At one point during the muted movie, he made reference to how his script was finally sold. He was actually auditioning for an acting role for a movie. After meeting with the producer/director/whomever, it was decided that he wasn’t really the right fit. As he made his way to the door and was just about to exit the room, he turned around and said, “I don’t know if this means anything…but I do a bit of writing too.” In response to that, the producer said something along the lines of, “Oh really? Let’s schedule a meeting to discuss it.”

As a result of that scheduled meeting, he sold the project, became as buff as I am, the movie was a huge success, and he obviously went on to be a superstar …all because of one last effort. If he had instead chosen to keep his mouth shut as he walked towards the door, it’s quite possible that his career may never have taken off. He says that, to this day, he encourages students to always speak up – because who knows, they might just say, “Come on back!”

Looking back: if I had never come across FreelanceFolder, probably in bed during some sleepless night… If I had never pestered Jon about my desire to write more… who knows what I’d be doing right now. So the moral of this story boys and girls is: speak up! The “squeaky wheel gets the oil” idiom might be a bit cheesy, and undesirable even; but it’s 100% true, nevertheless. How can they say “come on back” if you never speak up?

Comments

  1. Richard S. said...

    Great inspiring article. I found your personal blog from the NetTuts series about CodeIgniter and I really love your other articles and video tutorials. I also agree that people should take everything they can from the opportunities. The second important thing is not to turn down yourselves after some unsuccessful attempts. :) However, motivation is a hard thing for many people, but what you know – if you try, there will not be any loss and you can get even more than you expected.

    posted on November 24, 2009

  2. Pavel said...

    Hello Jeff, I like to read your blog just because of that, that you always write in very interesting way, you speak only stuff that reader is interested about from the first paragraph. And by the way, just like you liked that Sylvesters Stallones words, I started my new page of life just founding your screencasts and blog. You showed me that everyting is possible and that there are still some persons that will always help if you need it. Thanks. As some would say ‘You are the man’ !

    posted on November 24, 2009

  3. Mohsen said...

    You are successful because you are a hard working & reliable guy. if you had never come across FreelanceFolder, you definitely could find your position somewhere else and maybe better one.

    posted on November 24, 2009

  4. IgnacioRV said...

    You’re right Jeffrey, from my personal experience, I can say constancy is really important in order to seize opportunities.
    In my case, talking to my professors and the dean regularly earned me a chance to start as an assistant professor on next year, and I wouldn’t have had that chance if I only had focused on passing the subjects.

    Totaly offtopic, but why there’s a very small smile at the bottom left of the page (called g.gif)??

    posted on November 24, 2009

  5. Pavel said...

    IgnacioRV: maybe for the stats .. ? just to load something

    posted on November 24, 2009

  6. Karthik said...

    He is one awesome guy, I followed almost every screencasts he made
    I’m in my way building my own blog kind of interface using CodeIgniter :)

    Thanks for everything Jeffrey :)

    posted on November 26, 2009

  7. Anton Ranestam said...

    Nice post. Very inspiring and made me wanna work harder and better. This post made my day! :)

    posted on November 26, 2009

  8. Giovanni said...

    Thanks for writing motivational stuff Jeff. Only wish it happened more often hehe. You really as buff as Sly?

    keep the goods comin man, you’re a good writer.

    p.s have kinda left that jwTabs issue on the sideline for a moment, but thanks for the reply.

    Peace

    posted on November 26, 2009

  9. ema said...

    Hey Jeff, really nice post… i like “squeaky wheel gets the oil” vision … give you straightaway the idea of the entire concept !!!

    Em

    posted on November 27, 2009

  10. Jarel said...

    Growing up I had a motto, “It never hurts to ask”. lol, that turned out to be slightly wrong as I managed to annoy plenty of people but it has also helped me get things like a graphic designer position without any experience – or a couple years later, a position as a reviewer. ;-)

    From this post it seems I had the right idea. Thanks Jeffrey!

    posted on December 7, 2009

  11. Alexander Freiria said...

    Hey Jeff,

    I like your style and thought process, great tutorials thus far. The Stalone reference and the reference to the adage, “…squeaky gets the oil…” Did you just come up with that while writing the article or was it something you had heard before? Keep up the good work, “Dude”.

    posted on January 9, 2010

  12. Abhilash Thekkel said...

    I’m very much inspired my your articles Jeffrey. I’m just going on reading and reading for about 4-5 hours at a stretch. I myself could not believe i was so engrossed in it. Great Articles. Keep it up :)

    posted on February 1, 2010

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