First of all: HAPPY NEW YEAR!
This blog post is a little bit different than what I usually post. It’s written for other flirts, as well as clients. And it’s less about sex and more about magic, and how to apply magic to working smarter!
There are a lot of self proclaimed experts in the field of sex work marketing their services right now. While I have provided consulting to new flirts upon request, I do not personally believe that career advice is a one size fits all matter. I’ve become very successful breaking a lot of the so-called “rules” for phone sex success. For example: I’ve never kept a schedule, because time is a socially constructed illusion (just kidding…sorta). The truth is, I’m a free spirit and I quit a successful 9-5 career because I hated keeping a schedule, so why would I force myself to have one now that I run my own business?
I’ve actually deliberate steered clear of other people’s “advice,” because I’ve always found, in all the jobs I’ve had, that I am most successful if I ignore the rules and follow my gut. A lot of so-called advice is actually opinions or personal anecdotes. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The one exception is when clients give me feedback. I used to not send out mass mailings because I thought they might be a turn-off for clients, until a client told me he WANTED to be notified of when I released new MP3s. The fact is that many client do ignore mass mails, but at the end of the daily, I decided that sending out occasional, well-constructed mails was actually integral to my success, even if it turned off a few people here and there. In this industry it’s expected that you send out marketing mails as a successful provider.
For this reason, the advice I give others is generally to trust your instincts and figure out a path that works for YOU rather than trying to follow someone else’s recipe for success. But there is one bit of advice I hear floating around quite a bit that I actually think has the potential to harm your career by causing rapid burnout. That advice is “hustle harder.”
Recently a meme popped up on my Twitter timeline that said “HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO GET RICH IF YOU SLEEP NINE HOURS EVERY NIGHT” and I laughed out loud, because I generally sleep 9 hours nightly, plus a nap if I need it. The idea that I should sleep less or not take time for myself is completely counter-intuitive, as far as I am concerned. Well rested Goddess= happy, productive Goddess. I need plenty of rest in order to have the focus to offer intense calls that often involve a lot of mental gymastics or deep hypnotic programming. I need time to rest and dream in order to access my creative flow, do my spiritual work, and realize my personal vision.
If I followed other people’s advice I could try to predict “what clients want” based on a spreadsheet. Or I can channel insight from the Red Goddess herself. Guess what content actually sells best? The MP3s that I was EXCITED and INSPIRED to make. Clients notice when the passion is present. I am more successful putting more time and love into a smaller amount of high quality content than constantly cranking out more, more, more when I don’t feel excited about what I am creating. Pushing too hard leads to burnout and boredom, which is not sexy, and not conducive to career success.
Capitalism is a helluva drug, y’all. But there is more to life than spending every waking minute chasing dollars. You can’t take money to the grave, and phone sex is about sensuality, pleasure, playfulness, fun, and in my case- spiritual transformation for both me and my slaves. The money just happens to be an enjoyable result of doing what I am passionate about for a living. I do this work because I am a creative person who lives within the moment, not a slave to schedules and spreadsheets!
All this said, what works for me won’t work for everyone. Nevertheless, I do think that it’s important to think about working smarter, not harder. I realize this flies in the face of everything we’ve been taught under capitalism. I remember the first time my person trainer explained the concept of HIIT to me- High Intensity Interval Training. With HIIT, you alternate spurts of maximum effort exertion with longer periods of lower intensity recovery. Your workout is over in 20 minutes. And you get more benefit from working out this way than slogging away for an hour straight. I didn’t want to believe it was possible. It seemed too easy to be effective — even though there was science to back it up. I resisted HIIT initially, almost as if I believed that exercise SHOULD be tedious in order to be effective (and I don’t!) The same principle applies to work. Of course it is necessary to exert a sincere effort to get results, but the truth is, if you are in alignment with your personal flow, it won’t feel tedious. It will feel exhilarating. And a small amount of really focused, intentional high quality effort will have a much better payoff than hours of drudgery. You should never be working harder than you need to be, unless you really get off on being bored and miserable, in which case I recommend re-assessing your outlook on life.
Continuing the exercise analogy- if I never get off the couch, I won’t get fitness gains. But I’ll get more gains for 20 minutes of HIIT four times a week than an hour of repetitive cardio daily. And I’ll also be more excited to work out if I know I can knock it off my to-do list in twenty minutes, and if I see more tangible results more quickly. And then I can spend that extra 40 minutes having sex, meditating, or taking a nap! AAAAAND- here’s the real kicker- I’ll actually get better results if I don’t do HIIT every day, because my body can’t build muscle without rest and gentler recovery days.
I’ve noticed an interesting pattern- if I try to force myself to work when I’m exhausted, I don’t get calls. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, but it’s true. I end up going to bed tired AND frustrated, when I could have just gone to bed! But if I’m in a good mood and energized, the phone rings off the hook. Pushing against the tide is being out of alignment. If you follow the natural flow of energy, do what you enjoy instead of what you think others want from you, and allow yourself to rest when you feel tired, amazing things will happen. Believe it.
Dark Blessings,
Goddess Eriko
