Category: Learning

bookmark_borderWork Shit

Posted on by savethesavages

The pros and cons of working in adult entertainment marketing, at least for me.

Pros

+ I love my job. For someone who is a weirdo and an introvert anyway, it’s actually a good fit for me.

+ I get to create animated gifs (my favorite).

+ I get to be on the internet all day.

+ I get to learn new things in the world of internet marketing, as it’s constantly changing.

+ I’ve gotten better at writing.

I wonder, would my bio dad be proud or ashamed? I have a memory of him drawing naked ladies when I was little.

Cons

– There’s a high risk of your social media accounts getting suspended. This is what happened to me on Twitter recently. Like if you use your own phone number for work AND personal, then you will risk your phone number being blacklisted. I’ve already appealed to get my Twitter accounts back so we’ll see.

– You can’t really talk about it with anyone unless they’re in the industry themselves or they’re cool AF & open minded.

– Since I create graphics, trying to get another job is pointless as you can’t show any of your work. You would have to make up some dummy, “safe for work” designs just for your portfolio which in my experience, has been a total waste of time.

– The marketing gets repetitive; meaning, there’s only so much sexy shit you can say.

– Your marketing comes off as spammy.

– Spammers and scammers are then attracted to you.

– It’s really competitive and if you’re successful, other people will just copy exactly what you’re doing and basically steal your shit.

Remember: high risk = high rewards. No matter how much the big social media companies try to suppress adult entertainment, people are always looking for it. 

About the gif animation:

I made it in Photoshop with 4 frames. So with each frame, you tweak the lips and the chin just a little to simulate movement. Maybe I will write a tutorial on this.

bookmark_borderMagick Symbols: Write On Effect

Posted on by savethesavages

I shared this on @crystalhealerla IG: me practicing how to write magical & heart symbols in the air using the Write On effect in Adobe Premiere.

The Pentacle is the name of the 5 pointed star enclosed within a circle, while the Pentagram is the name of the 5 pointed star itself.

Witches and pagans use this symbol for blessings, protection and sending light. It is not a symbol of evil.

bookmark_borderThe Out There is Right Here❤️?❤️

Posted on by savethesavages

I drew this today (Monday, November 5 2018).

I’m here, trying to just be and go with the flow. I once saw someone on Twitter tweet this out: “only dead fish go with the flow”.

So as usual, I’m conflicted.

Like, how do we just go with the flow if we are conscious beings, when we’re wired a certain way. It really takes effort to reprogram our minds and to find balance between wanting stuff to happen already versus allowing it to come to you.

I want so many things, but mostly I want to learn everything that fascinates me.

Right now I have a list of things I want to learn or make my way towards:

Light Language
Medical Intuitive
Holistic Life Coach
Quantum Healing Hypnosis
Transpersonal Psychology

I’ve also been considering going into Massage Therapy but then again I’m not sure whether I’m ready to touch people…I’m still thinking about it though.

I don’t know. I want to focus on one thing and get really good at it. But it also feels like I need to do other things too. Why? Selling minerals is cool but tbh, I’m already losing interest in it. Perhaps I was a bit naive in thinking that I was always going to make consistent sales, but not only that – selling gets boring after a while. I feel that I also made some poor decisions and spent more than I made. Lesson learned, I guess.

My intuition is leading me to a consciousness upgrade, it seems. It wants me to learn all this stuff that I’ve never even considered wanting to get into.

So here I am again, wondering where my life is going next. I honestly don’t know anymore. This is what wanted to come out today while drawing.

bookmark_borderGetting High Off My Own Supply

Posted on by savethesavages

Today is Friday 9/14/18 and I’m on fire right now, or as the kids would say: I’m LIT as fuck.? HA.

Putting things into place now that can only grow and get bigger in the future.

Yesterday in the morning, I did a crystal healing on myself again. This time, along with the other stones – I put my Pyrite with Quartz right on my solar plexus, the third chakra. Pyrite is masculine energy, manifestation, action, vitality, willpower, creativity, confidence; so I wonder if there is a direct correlation with this newfound drive and motivation I’m experiencing right now? I think so.

I’ve been working with that Pyrite with Quartz since the beginning of my business in 2017, it’s definitely doing its work. I actually did a lot of the things that I only talked or dreamed about, I even surprised myself. It’s a trip to watch yourself evolve.

Now I’m working on building my crystal healing practice, so I put up another website: crystalhealerLA.com – putting my digital marketing skills to use to build it up. I’m excited to create original content for it.

I don’t have a whole lot of clients yet, so I’ve been doing these crystal healings on myself – in order to understand what’s really happening when crystal energy is interacting with the human energy field. I want to be able to test and prove that something IS happening, even when we can’t see it. Not for the non-believers but really for myself and my future clients.

It’s all an experiment really, but I really like where I’m going with all of this right now. I plan to stay creatively focused.

The biggest takeaway for wanting to do something, is to just do it. Don’t expect perfection, just dive right in; you’ll learn as you go and you’ll perfect things as you do them.

bookmark_borderAm I a Tomboy Feminist Marketer??

Posted on by savethesavages

via GIPHY

I noticed recently that I’m not really into super feminine pages on Instagram – pages that look soft, pretty and overtly feminine. Super curated and absolutely perfect. They’re great, just not for me.

Look, I’m a woman and I’m definitely soft. And I’m also straight. But I’m not super feminine and girly at all, but I really like hot pink and pretty things. Even the word ‘tomboy’ is not a fit to describe me, as looking at the definition of a tomboy – I don’t even like nor participate in sports. Who the fuck came up with these definitions anyway?

So what’s this really about then? I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m not a super feminine person; I don’t follow all the witches who worship goddesses as well as the moon. It’s sort of becoming a cliché, don’t you think? Even witchcraft is becoming a look and everyone is doing the same exact thing…

I’m down for all that stuff just not too much of it, you know?

Speaking of doing the same exact things, I’ve been following a marketing guy on Instagram who is abrasive and hard to like, but he is interesting af to me because he’s one of the very few marketing people out there who dare to be different, saying some real shit; and trust me when I say that I’ve come across a few marketing people already and have subscribed to their emails & bought their e-books. A lot of the stuff they teach is mostly the same bullshit, just packaged different.

I basically saw an ad of his – Ryan Orrico – and started following him. And trust me, I’m very hard to convince, I reject a lot of ads on IG; a lot of them are pretty bland and cookie cutter. As a matter of fact, Ryan “inspired” me (I put this in quotes because I know to him, the word ‘inspiration’ is a loaded term and he talks in depth about this in his emails) to start doing these random talking videos on my crystal shop’s Instagram page – where I talk unedited about whatever it is I want to talk about. This is actually working for me. How is it working? Let’s just say that by looking at my analytics, the talking videos are what people watch the most.

Now am I getting more sales? Not necessarily but really the whole point of these is to put yourself out there, imperfect & unedited…especially when you feel anxious and nervous about doing it, do it anyway. Because the truth is, you will never get it done if you are expecting perfection – literally spending hours editing the fuck out of a video to make it perfect or making sure your face is as beautiful and as flawless as it can be. Fuck that. This is what got me fired up to start doing these videos. Ryan literally destroys yoga people on Instagram who have these ultra cliché photos of themselves doing yoga in the jungle and basically making the rest of us feel like shit because we can’t live up to that.

I feel like the perfection part is what’s been keeping me from actually doing YouTube videos – I’ve only been talking about it. Now that I’m practicing doing these random talking videos on my IG page with a small amount of followers, I can feel more confident in doing it for a larger audience down the road.

So Ryan aka Yoga Sex Rock God if you happen to see this – thank YOU!

Anyways, what I’m trying to say about marketing and why I follow this guy is this: you have to stand out somehow. Marketing is all about getting noticed, it is NOT the same as advertising. Advertising just gives the information needed to make a purchase. It took me a while to understand this. Most people see marketing & advertising as one and the same because they can be used in that way.

Marketing is getting people to react to you or whatever it is you’re offering, whether it’s perceived as a good or a bad reaction. The fact that they even reacted means that it’s working, right? They gave you their attention. It’s works the same exact way when someone hates you – they hate you but they CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT YOU. They check your Instagram page daily, they constantly need to see what you’re up to.

This is what I’m learning right now from Ryan. New ideas and concepts cannot be created if we don’t challenge the status quo. The greatest minds of history were not liked at first, they were hated because their thoughts and ideas were different.

By the way, The Devil tarot card appeared this week yet again. I now recognize him as the antagonist, the angel who challenges God.

bookmark_borderSome Personal Notes On Doing Healings

Posted on by savethesavages

Just writing/typing this out for my personal reference.

I did a couple of crystal healings these last 2 weekends and here’s what I’ve learned:

Grounding and centering yourself first and foremost is important. I didn’t realize how important this was until you start doing more healings. If you’re not grounded then you won’t be a clear channel for spirit to come through and do it’s healing work; you’ll get carried away by the other person’s problems. This is especially important if the person coming to you for a healing is a friend. But this is good practice for me so I’m glad that when it happened, I was able to stay clear & centered during both sessions.

Meditate for at least 30 minutes before doing a healing so you can be grounded and connected to source.

Healing doesn’t happen solely from the healer; the person receiving the healing is just as integral to the process – they must be actively participating in their own healing otherwise the healing process might take longer or might not happen at all.

How can they achieve this? The person receiving the healing must start to think better thoughts, visualizing a better outcome for situations they want to change; replacing overthinking and stressful feelings with more deep breathing, being present and counting their blessings.

Counting your blessings when life feels overwhelming and stressful is a good place to start because it takes you out of complaining & seeing the situation from another perspective. From there, the person can start to realize that things CAN be different.

Remember, you are the only thinker in your mind. Your life can be however you want it to be, but you have to be actively changing it and not just ‘allowing’ it to happen and feeling like a victim.

If you don’t have a lot of colored stones to work with, then Quartz crystals will do just fine as it is an all purpose healing crystal. But you still want to balance all the chakras by placing a crystal on each center, programming it with the color to balance that specific chakra.

Reiki yourself and your client during the healing session so that you don’t get tired from the healing, I find that this works well for me. I didn’t feel tired during and after the healing session.

I’m really thankful that I’m learning & gaining experience from this.

bookmark_borderA Powerful Quote from Beyoncé

Posted on by savethesavages

“If people in powerful positions continue to hire and cast only people who look like them, sound like them, come from the same neighborhoods they grew up in, they will never have a greater understanding of experiences different from their own. They will hire the same models, curate the same art, cast the same actors over and over again, and we will all lose. The beauty of social media is it’s completely democratic. Everyone has a say. Everyone’s voice counts, and everyone has a chance to paint the world from their own perspective.” – Beyoncé // Vogue, September 2018

I’m not a fan of Beyoncé but this part in her Vogue September 2018 article really spoke to me.

You can read her interview here.

bookmark_borderMore Thoughts on Selling, Marketing & Social Media

Posted on by savethesavages

I get a lot of people following/unfollowing me daily on my crystal shop’s Instagram page. The number of followers hasn’t really grown that much. But that’s alright because I still get sales.

At first, I did get hung up about it. Like why do people play the stupid ‘follow to unfollow’ game? It really annoyed the fuck outta me.

Anyways, I realized after a year that it didn’t actually matter…I still made sales.

Moral of the story? Just because you have more Instagram followers doesn’t necessarily mean you get more sales.

I’m writing this because maybe some of you are feeling discouraged or feel like you’re not gaining any traction on selling or putting yourself or your brand out there. It’s crowded, everyone’s doing the same damn thing, people steal content, I have to show my face when I don’t really want to, blah blah blah…

It’s definitely going to feel that way sometimes, especially when you’re just starting out.

But with consistency, patience and most importantly – using your own unique voice & perspective – you WILL sell and you WILL attract the right people. And all your hangups about other people doing the same thing will melt away.

Not as easy as it sounds, but if you intend for things to be a certain way – trust that it can happen.

And as cliché as it already sounds – you really HAVE to believe in yourself. You have to be your own fucking number 1 fan. Your negative self-talk will only hold you back.

You also have to stop looking at what other people are doing. I swear, as soon as I stopped doing this – my creativity came back; my writing and my art sounded like me again.

I’m a life coach now by the way. Kidding!?

I’m writing this to encourage you and myself. I have more confidence now that I’ve had the business up and running for a little over a year. So while I have some nuggets of wisdom to share, I’m also aware that I still have a long way to go.

Either way, I’m not worried about it. I intend to have fun and go at my pace.

I see a lot of people start their shop pages on Instagram but don’t really last longer than a month. Why? Because I think they run out of steam. They tend to post a lot hoping people will notice them and start buying right away, but then they burn out just as quickly as they started.

Consistency and repetition is key. But also, pace yourself so you don’t crash and burn. Self-care is just as important.

One of my mentors was telling me you should post 3 times a day on Instagram. I followed that at first, but got tired. So now I only post once or twice a day, depending on how I feel.

What most people don’t think about is that while even starting a small business can be a lot of fun, it’s also A LOT of work. You are the owner, marketer, manager, accountant and more…all rolled into one. You can easily go through a roller coaster of emotions too – from being happy and excited because you made some sales, to being scared and anxious because you spent a lot of money to make those sales, then happy and excited all over again because you paid down some of your debt. Yay!

That is the reality of a lot of small businesses & entrepreneurs – spending money to make money.

Would I do it all over again? Probably.

The secret is to only sell what you love, what you yourself would buy. I guess in some ways this is difficult because you’ll be tempted to keep a lot of the stuff you’re supposed to sell!

The other secret is to branch out and learn other skills so you can stand out from everybody else who sells the same thing as you.

Here’s a personal example: I don’t consider myself to be a seller or come anything close to being a salesperson; I am so anti-hustle. Not into it at all. But on the contrary, I AM selling, consistently.

How am I doing it? I honestly couldn’t tell you.

Either people really love the crystals that they see on my Instagram, or they like me as a person. They could be basing it off the reviews I have on Etsy.

It could be all of the above or none of the above.

Behind this human avatar, I could really be a fucking magical being – creating whatever I want to happen next. That sounds feasible to me.

Whatever it is, the effort is paying off – that doesn’t mean I’m done. I have to continue, because I love that I created this; and I love that people love it too.

And I also know that you can do this for yourself too.?

p.s. hope you enjoy the photo I posted with this post! My mom’s church friends already think I worship the devil anyway.???‍♀️?

bookmark_borderI Like Creating Cute Things

Posted on by savethesavages

In trying to figure out what brings me joy and pleasure in my work life and how to attract more of it, I’ve come to these conclusions:

+ I like creating cute shit.
+ I like creating cute, bright, colorful shit.
+ I like creating animated GIFs

That’s all I’ve got. I feel like I could work at a place that’s cute, fun and matches my graphic style, but for adults (and I don’t mean porn). I think there should be more places that cater to the kid inside of us. BOOM, I just gave you an idea.

Complaining about what I don’t enjoy doing doesn’t get me anywhere – I know because I just went there AGAIN recently?. It just brings me down and puts me in a stupid mood. So I need to get clear on what it is I really enjoy doing and not focus so much on the things I don’t enjoy.

Web design I don’t mind so much, just not into the heavy programming. I’ve tried for the life of me to learn Javascript and PHP, I did not go very far.

I enjoy writing if it’s something interesting & relevant to me.

I feel like motion graphics would be the next thing to learn, as I do enjoy animating and making things move.

I enjoy some aspects of marketing, a lot of it I don’t really care for.

I know I sound like a broken record, but I want to leave my comfortable job. At the same time it feels like I shouldn’t because I have a partner and a cat that depend on me.

I’m very much aware that I just put some limitations on my desires. It’s dumb, I know. I’m working on it but at the same time I’m not working on it…

I’m definitely on some kind of journey at the moment, one where I keep seeking to learn more about healing and becoming proficient at being a healer. There is no unhealthy ego attached here, this is where my intuition has been taking over and leading me to as of late. Reiki and Trans Crystal Therapy were the catalyst, now I’m being led to keep on learning more. How do I know this? It’s all I seem to want to think and read about but not in an obsessive way, just going with it and expanding my knowledge and awareness of this magnificent universe we live in and how its energy flows and manifests through us.

It’s a little bit of everything that I like – esoteric, psychology, science, energy work and metaphysical all rolled into one. There’s also a lot of art and imagination involved, as we are working as well as creating and visualizing things that can’t be seen but actually do exist.

So what about the crystal shop?

It’s there, quietly continuing to build itself. My ego helped me create that, but it’s taken a back seat. Too much ego creates competition, separation and stress so I had to take myself out of it because it simply didn’t make me feel good. And yeah, I also had to cut back on spending money since there is only 1 person in my little family that’s working: me.

So I watermarked this gif because it’s the damn internet and people like to steal.

If you’re reading this, I hope you are having a fun and relaxing summer doing what you want to do rather than doing things you have to do. Remember, you are important.✨?✨

bookmark_borderOn Some Life Purpose Shit

Posted on by savethesavages

I think I’m S L O W L Y starting to see my life purpose…and (I think) it sort of involves the fact that I’m weird with an open mind & open heart and the fact that I also work behind the scenes in the adult entertainment industry.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll probably notice that I rarely discuss my job. It’s a marketing and graphic design job so it’s nothing too exciting (unless you love sex & nudes, HA). I create lots of visual content sure, but I also look at a lot of data and some of it involves being technical.

But because of it, I’m attracting those who are weird like me that seek healing (they seek the crystals, not me btw) but can’t seem to be accepted by certain spiritual folk because it’s beyond their level of ‘weird’…

Spiritual folk who have issues with sex, sex workers and people who are on the fringe. And maybe even those who are all those things and are also POC. Those are the people who find me. People whom I accept because even though I don’t fully know what it’s like to be a sex worker, marketing for this industry allows me to understand a whole lot more than the average person.

And I have learned a lot from working here. I’m not even all that weird, really…as far as I know I’m straight and I don’t have a kinky lifestyle. I go to bed at 10pm and I get up to go to work just like everyone else, it’s just the content that’s different.

The secret’s out folks: I’m actually really boring as fuck.?

But like I said, I try to always have an open mind and an open heart. I’m learning to recognize Spirit in all things.

I mean, didn’t Jesus spend time with the lepers and the freaks?

And while I’ve worked here, I’ve delved into spirituality more and more – tarot, crystals, reiki, etc.

They’re all sort of merging into one…becoming something new.

I had a tarot reading with a good friend recently and she pulled the II of Wands from the Deviant Moon Tarot Deck and said something profound.

It went something like this:

Your two creative jobs are crossing over each other; they are becoming more fluid. There is no separation, just a flow of energy flowing in and out of one another.

I had to write this down before it slipped away.

Here are some other possible meanings for the Two of Wands.