S8 E92: Why Aren’t You Published Yet?

Get the show’s transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] YD: Hello. Hello everyone. So I am back here in this co-working space in Valencia, Spain, and today I want to talk to you about the reason why you are not published yet. If you have. Aspirations to travel, to tell stories, whether these stories are through writing, photography, or social media. If you have aspirations to work with publications and tourism boards.

[00:00:26] This message today is for you. My name is Yulia Denisyuk. I'm an award-winning travel photographer, writer, storyteller, community builder, podcaster, and entrepreneur, working with various publications like National Geographic Traveler, the New York Times Afar, lonely Planet, and more. Traveling to all these interesting places around the world and producing stories that I'm really, really excited about.

[00:00:54] And Travel Media Lab is our platform for helping you break into the travel media space where we share insights, tips, advice, and stories from people working in the industry.

[EPISODE]

So why aren't you published yet? you know, over the years of working in the travel media industry and now, Also working with other people and guiding them into the industry.

[00:01:21] I really see five reasons for why you might not be seeing the results, you are hoping to see. So today I wanna cover those five reasons with you. First of all. Reason number one, you have gap. In knowledge very simply, you have gaps in knowledge and, the question arises, where do you even start? Right?

[00:01:45] There are so many questions, and I remember that as well when I was starting in the industry. I remember having all these questions as well. How do you work with publications? Where should you pitch and what should even be included in the pitch? how do you work with tourism board? What does going on assignment mean?

[00:02:04] Do you. Work out an arrangement with the tourism board before or after your trip, and how does publications fit into that? Right? There's just so many questions and oftentimes when you don't know where to start, you might, really feel overwhelmed and you might feel like, okay, I, I don't really know with, what's happening here, so I'm not even going to try.

[00:02:28] And what I want to say to that is that there is a way to, overcome these gaps of knowledge many different ways. One of them is that you can start being more active in the industry very simply by going to events, by attending various conferences, by listening to podcasts and videos like this one.

[00:02:51] Right? And by the way, good job on taking that first step if you're here. If you're listening to this today, that means you're already, doing that first step of researching, of trying to understand how, the industry works. How would, how could you carve out your own space in this industry and what does that even mean?

[00:03:10] Right? But there's a lot of gaps in knowledge that you have, so, understandably. Those gaps in knowledge can prevent you from, taking that first step and, and, and, and, and reach out and start crafting your own pitches and start, publishing your stories in, in various magazines out there. So if that's you, if you have gaps in knowledge, just know that these gap.

[00:03:36] it's possible to cover these gaps. And by the way, this is what Travel Media Lab is here for, right? That's, that's why we exist. That's one of the reasons that we exist, is to help you fill those gaps and knowledge. Now, the second reason for why, you haven't yet seen the results that you wanna see in this industry is that quite simply, you have no structure.

[00:04:01] You have no structure and therefore you are not really committing to acting consistently on this effort every single day. We talk about this a lot, inside our membership insider, our programs inside the individual mentorship that just wrapped up that. You have to have a structure, right? This is not a one time thing.

[00:04:24] you can't expect to sit down once to perhaps, you know, create a pitch and create a story and reach out to somebody with that story once. And immediately, you know, have all the results, have all the accolades, have all the acknowledgements right away, right? It doesn't work like that probably. You're gonna have to do it many, many times.

[00:04:46] You're gonna have to reach out to many different people. You're gonna have to write many different pitches and, and really dig into this effort if you want it, right? If you want. If that is your passion, if this is what you want to do, you're gonna have to dig in. There is no way around that. But for that, to do that consistently over time, you need structure, right?

[00:05:08] You, you can't just say, oh, I'll do it tomorrow and then the next time I'll come back to, this is two weeks from now. that's not a structure that's just kind of haphazardly doing this, every once in a while, but, You need a structure in order to be, consistent because consistency is what's gonna give you the results that you are looking for.

[00:05:28] You know, there's, there's a saying that I heard and I, I don't remember where I saw it or where I read it, but it really resonated with me. and it's said that what separates a professional, creative person. From a person who aspires to be creative is that a professional, creative person shows up every day and treats us as a job, and that's really it.

[00:05:53] You know, you, you have to show up every day to your pitches, to your following up to your building relations ships with editors to your. Looking at opportunities to your writing, the actual stories to your working with tourism boards, right? You have to show up to this effort every day because that's what professionals do.

[00:06:16] If you are only doing it every once in a while, then You're maybe just inspiring and, and maybe that's okay, right? Maybe that's where you want to be. But if you have other goals for yourself, if you wanna be professional in this industry, then you have to be consistent and you have to apply yourself to this effort consistently.

[00:06:34] And that means creating structure. Structure is very important. So how do you do that? Well, many different ways. And again, we talk about this a lot inside our programs, inside Travel Media Lab. First of all, what you have to do is you have to learn what kind of structure works for you because we are all different and not, you know, we're not gonna be one size fits all, kind of situation when it comes to your structure.

[00:07:02] Some people needs solid, let's say four or five hours a. Some people work best early in the morning. Other people know that they can't sit for two hours straight, straight. They need to work in 15 minute increments and perhaps, you know, they work their best hours, late at night, right? You have to. the key here is that you don't wanna change yourself, right?

[00:07:30] You don't wanna change the patterns that you already have. The key is that you want to work within the patterns that you have, so you have to identify what those patterns are. How do you work? What's happening in your life, right? What other obligations? Perhaps do you have, do you have a full-time job, nine to five, that's kind of, you know, dictating everything.

[00:07:50] are you maybe, you know, raising kids and maybe their schedule's dictating everything, right? What's happening in your life? So you have to learn your patterns, and then work, a structure within those patterns. And by the way, we help with that as well. in our programs, we talk about that a lot and.

[00:08:10] Program is actually one of the ways for you to start building some of that structure and accountability. Because the other piece to having a structure is having accountability, is having somebody, let's say like me, who's gonna say, Hey, Christine, have you done, have you done the pitch that you wanted to do?

[00:08:29] Do you like, send it to me, let me see it. Right. because it's, it's interesting that, we are often more. Accountable to other people than we are, we are more accountable to other people than we are to ourselves, right? If someone else asks us to do something, we have a easier time doing it than if we just wanna do it for ourselves.

[00:08:49] So that accountability piece is also really important, and we have, we provide that in our programs too. Okay. Reason number three that you haven't, seen the results that you, that you want to see in this industry, that, that you haven't been published, you haven't worked with editors or tourism boards, you haven't really gone on assignments even though you really want to.

[00:09:12] So reason number three is that you have no system of support. You have no system of support. That is so important to have that system of support. It, it gets lonely. Right. This industry can get really lonely, not only this one, not only travel media. There is many industries that are like that, especially in, in today's time, right?

[00:09:36] When we are so fragmented in how we work. Like I'm right now in a co-working space in Valencia, Spain. You know, there's a whole bunch of people around me who are probably just like me, who are freelancing or, you know, traveling and, and, and doing all this stuff. And there isn't really a community, right? It takes time to build a community too, by the way.

[00:09:58] It's not something that, you know, I, I can't expect to just show up in this coworking space in Valencia and all of a sudden have a community here. Right? It takes time to build that. But having that community is so important and I think, you know, we talk about community all the time. It's a word that kind of gets overused, I think, and kind of lose losing its meaning right now.

[00:10:20] but it's so important for success and for being able to thrive, and even for being able to make progress. You know, if you have no one to ask questions, even the tiniest question, like for example, Hey Yulia, what should be the subject line of an email I'm sending to the editor? You can get stuck so fast, you know, you can get stuck and overwhelmed, and that's not what we want, right?

[00:10:43] We want you to keep moving. We want you to keep, to keep taking action. We want you to keep sending your pitches out and building those relationships with editors, which our students inside our program are doing. And I'm so proud of them because, they're, they're making great progress. So, What you need to do here, with this challenge is you need to find your people.

[00:11:07] Quite simply. You need to find your people. And I made a pause there because somebody just went, went, went by me with a huge luggage and, it was so loud. but yeah, you need to find your people, friends because. that's how you're going to be able to keep going when it becomes really difficult, you know?

[00:11:28] And when it seems like nobody's responding to you or all you hear is no, no, no, no, no. When you want to keep going and there is no one there to say, to tell you, Hey, Yuli, I keep going. You've got this. It's really, it's really difficult and you know, the. Part. the, the other aspect of why community is important is that oftentimes you can see other people having.

[00:11:54] Similar challenges to what you're going through, and that's actually validating your experience, right? It's kind of boosting you and saying, Hey, nothing's wrong with me. Look, she's having the same challenge over here too, and we're kind of all in this together. So it's, it's just so important for our psyche, for a human psyche to feel like we're surrounded.

[00:12:17] by people who are on the same path as we are, you know? So you need to find your people, and I'm very proud to say that our programs inside our community in Travel Media Lab, they attract just the most aligned and like-minded souls. And, it's been really wonderful to work with them and to be surrounded by them and, and, and to see them progress.

[00:12:40] so my, my. You here is to find a community like that. You know, it's, it's really, I can't, I can't stress how important that is. Okay. Reason number four for why you haven't seen the results that you wanna see, why you haven't been published yet, is that you have beliefs that are holding you back. And not propelling you forward.

[00:13:05] What kind of beliefs you might ask? Well, oh my God, so many. So many of these beliefs that I've seen over the last two years of working with people who wanna enter this industry. Right? So I'm too old. I'm not talented enough who would even care? Who would, who would want to listen to what I have to say?

[00:13:25] I don't have anything published. I'm not qualified enough, you know, and, and just this, this whole, this whole snowball of, of thoughts like that. And first thing that we need to do here is we need to recognize this, that this internal monologue is even happening. This is a very, very important first step, right?

[00:13:47] Recognize that, hey, there is some internal monologues that are preventing me from taking action and from seeing what I can do with this, seeing what I can do with this desire, with this yearning that I have of telling stories of. Perhaps, supporting different communities and sharing, you know, sharing their voices, sharing their stories.

[00:14:11] if you have that internal monologue, it's gonna prevent you from doing anything. And that's really, that's really why this challenge is so difficult to overcome, because we oftentimes, we don't even recognize that we have that internal monologue. So start paying attention, right? Every time you think, oh, you know, Again, I'm too old, or this is not for me, or this is not a real job.

[00:14:35] You know, who would even believe me? Those kind of, those kind of thoughts. Just pay attention to that and recognize, oh, hold on a second. I remember Yuli saying that this is an internal monologue that I should be paying attention to and ze start paying, paying attention to it. And then the second thing that you have to do is get back to that system of support.

[00:14:57] Remember the system of support that I. That I talked about just now, community, get back to them because when those, thoughts are happening, when that internal monologue is happening, it's that system of support who's gonna show you. That you can actually do great things because sometimes we forget, right?

[00:15:16] We can, we, we forget or we don't cultivate that inside ourselves, right? And when we turn that community to that system of support, that is when they can remind us and they can show us, Hey, you can actually do great things. And they will encourage us to do those things. and this has also been one of the most,rewarding.

[00:15:41] Things for me about building travel media lab is, is, is encouraging people and seeing how their voices unfold, how their stories unfold. Then of course, seeing those stories published is the most rewarding thing, but just the whole process even of seeing how they come from believing that they're too old or that no one would care, or that they don't have what it takes or that they're not qualified.

[00:16:08] So starting to believe that they can do great things, you know, and it's just such an amazing feeling to, to see that and to be a part of that. And, I wish that for all, all of you as well. So again, here, the first step is to recognize that you have that internal monologue that's happening. And then the second step here is to find that system of support who can show you, you can do great.

[00:16:33] All right. Reason number five for why you still haven't seen the results that you were, wanting to see why you still haven't been published, or maybe your pitches are not being accepted or not being responded, or you are not making as much progress as you wanna be making in this industry. Probably the most important reason of them all is that you don't believe that you.

[00:17:00] You don't believe that you belong here and this reason needs immediate attention. Immediate attention. Because the fact of the matter is that you do, you do belong here. I'm a very, very strong believer in that, and here is why. Let me show you why. Think about why you want to do this, right? What is your motivation?

[00:17:26] If you're an aspiring travel writer or a travel photographer, or a storyteller or a blogger or a content creator who wants to build their life around travel and selling stories, think about why you want to do this. Are you inspired by the people that you meet when you travel? Do you perhaps care deeply about some of the most important issues our world faces right now in our time?

[00:17:54] Are you feeling your best self? Perhaps when you do creative work? If you answered yes to any of these, questions, and if you have a yearning inside of you, this deep yearning. Tells you, I want this. I want to do something like this. Then it's really simple. You belong. It's really simple. You belong. You have a voice.

[00:18:18] You have a desire to tell stories, and that is enough. That is enough. Please remember that. Start shifting away from a mindset that says, I'm a beginner. I'm an imposter to a mindset that says I'm a storyteller who has things to say and I belong here. Because believe me, when you start thinking I belong here, so many amazing things, things will start to happen.

[00:18:49] You will start reaching out to people. You will start asking for help. You will start sharing your ideas with other people. You will start looking for opportunities because you belong, because you believe you have a seat at the table until you believe you have a seat at the table. You're not gonna be doing any of those things, right?

[00:19:11] So it's just so important to recognize that because you have a, that yearning because you want to do these things because you have that motivation that's reason enough to say that you belong. It's just as simple as that. So please start shifting away from, that frame of reference that's holding us.

[00:19:33] That says that we don't belong here and start really, inhabiting that space that says, no, I belong. I'm a storyteller. I have things to say and I belong here. And of course, how can you start doing that is again, going back to that, system of support, going back to structure, right? Showing up, showing up for your work because this is your work.

[00:19:56] This is what you want to do, and you belong. And, you know, start, feel starting to fill some of these gaps of knowledge that you have in the industry. That also helps us, feel like w we belong when we attend events, when we connect with other people, that helps us feel like we belong, right? All of those things are, really, culminating in solidifying that belief that, yes, I belong here.

[00:20:25] And I'm part of this and I wanna, I wanna continue making progress in this. Okay? So to summarize, the five reasons why you are not seeing as much progress as you wanna be seeing, why you haven't maybe, been published yet is that you have gaps in knowledge. You have no structure and therefore, you're not able to, act consistently.

[00:20:47] You have no system of support. That community. You have beliefs that are holding you back, many different beliefs that are holding you back. And finally, you actually don't think that you belong here, which I again want to just re, Reinforce here that you do, you absolutely belong. And I believe this a hundred percent.

[00:21:06] And that's again, the reason why I even started trouble media a lot because I, I believe that we all have voices that are, that need to be heard and that our motivation to do things is reason enough for us, to belong. Okay. So with that, I just wanna tell you that, if you are someone who is interested in this career path, in this industry in learning how to work, With publications, how to work with tourism boards.

[00:21:35] If you wanna start sending your own pitches out, if you want to build your life around this lifestyle, this lifestyle of traveling and of telling stories, then just pay attention that take note that we are opening enrollment to our group program. Which is called Intro to Travel Journalism. This May and, this May is the only opportunity in 2023 to join us.

[00:22:05] I used to run this program twice a year. Now I'm only running it once a year. It's enrolling in May. because of my schedule, I'm unable to do this more than once a year. So, You know, if you've been thinking about it, pay attention because this is the only time this year you will be able to join. And we are going to be opening applications and enrollment for this program soon.

[00:22:29] And, we will only be sending those notifications to people on our wait list. So if you are interested, if you're, if you wanna know more about this program and what it in entail, then you gotta sign up to the wait list because the, the only people who will be, notified, when the program opens are those on the wait list.

[00:22:49] And you can do so, by going to travelmedialab.com/class. And sign up for that wait list so I can send you all that information. All right. so thank you so much for tuning in today. I really appreciate you and I will see you very, very soon. Bye.