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- You know,
everyone tries to talk you out of following your passion.
They say if you do the thing that you love,
you're just gonna end up a starving artist
and you're not gonna make any real money.
My name is Roberto Blake.
I'm a creative entrepreneur, YouTuber, and public speaker,
but before all of that, I was a freelancer
doing graphic design and photography,
following my passion, doing a creative career,
and you know why I stopped listening to those people
who kept telling me I was gonna be a starving artist?
I managed to do the things that it took
to build a six-figure business,
and today, I wanna talk to you about nine creative careers
that are high-paying jobs that you can have today
and cash in on your passion.
Today's video is brought to you by my friends
at Adobe Stock.
In my business, I love when I can support other creators,
and I've actually bought thousands of dollars
worth of assets from Adobe Stock.
Things like stock photography or infographics,
or even motion graphic clips
that I use in my YouTube videos,
all made my creators just like you.
If you become an Adobe Stock contributor, who knows?
Maybe I'll end up using one of your pieces of work
in my next project,
so make sure you check it out,
link is in the description down below.
So, let's jump into these nine high-paying creative careers
that you can start today.
Number one, photography.
Believe it or not, you can still make good money
as a photographer today.
In fact, the rise of social media
has helped increase demand for photographers
and for photo editors.
Now, obviously, you're gonna have to invest money
in camera equipment,
although, I don't expect you to juggle GoPros like me,
you will have to actually have a decent camera
if you're gonna be a photographer and make a living at it.
In addition to investing in camera gear,
you're also going to need
professional photo editing software.
Obviously, I'm gonna recommend Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom
because it's what I've used for a long time,
and it's what I'm most comfortable with,
and I've actually done a ton of tutorials
here on the channel for Photoshop and Lightroom,
and I plan to do some more to help you guys out
and show you my photo editing workflow.
So, you'll definitely wanna subscribe and check that out.
There are multiple opportunities
to make money as a photographer
shooting events and doing portraits
for a high-end client,
such as people in the medical or legal profession,
or working with influencers.
You could also do photography for public speakers
and people in industries like real estate,
but there's also a great opportunity
for you to make passive income from your photography
by uploading it to Adobe Stock
and selling it as a contributor.
In another video, I'll actually cover some steps
that could help you
if you're trying to get into stock photography.
Number two, and this one's obvious 'cause I'm a YouTuber,
it's gonna be video editing.
I don't think this one came as a surprise to many of you,
with the growth of online video
and platforms like YouTube and Instagram,
and the expansion of live streaming.
I think that there's a lot of opportunity in this,
especially for freelancers,
but also if you want traditional employment.
Video editing definitely has increased in demand
and I've been doing video editing for a long time,
not only for myself,
but I used to do a lot of video editing for clients,
and I would get projects that ranged
from anywhere from a hundred dollars
to do something very simple,
or $2,000 to do something a lot more complicated.
Now obviously, you'll have to have
decent hardware and software,
but it's definitely worth it,
and you may already have something that's good enough
at least to do basic video editing
for a local business.
So, it's something you should be thinking about.
Number three, graphic design.
Those of you watching, who are more familiar with me,
remember that I got my start in corporate
as a graphic designer,
and later I would go on to work for an ad agency,
and I still think that graphic design is a great profession
that can lend itself well to give you some form
of creative outlet while making money at it.
There are a lot of people who are skeptical about
graphic design, especially in the freelance community,
but ultimately, I think that it comes down to
marketing yourself well, building a great portfolio of work,
and also, understanding where your strengths lie
as a designer.
Maybe it's logo design,
maybe it's print production and layout,
or maybe it's doing high-end posters and digital art work.
Just figure out where you best fit,
and what clients are available for you,
or what employers are available for you in this field,
and again, you'll need software.
The usual industry standard for this
is Adobe InDesign for print layout,
Adobe Illustrator for vector artwork and logos,
and of course,
Photoshop for photo manipulation and graphics.
Also, consider selling your graphic design work
through templates.
I actually sold mine directly to my audience
and made tens of thousands of dollars,
but I'll say the benefit of building a platform
and an audience over a course of over five or six years.
You may not have that kind of time
to develop an audience of your own,
so I'd recommend uploading to Adobe Stock,
so that you can benefit from their traffic
as one of the largest websites
for stock photography and graphics in the world.
I'm a big fan of making passive income online.
It's something I talk about quite a bit actually,
and this is just one opportunity for creatives
to take advantage of that.
Number four, become a social media manager.
Earlier, I talked about the idea of growing an audience,
and guess what, being a social media manager
is mostly about that.
It's an emerging field, it's a little competitive right now,
but I think if you have a diverse skill set,
you'll be alright.
It has a lot of growth potential.
Actually, most work as a social media manager
can be done remotely.
For those of you who wanna work at home
and spend more time with your family,
this is a great opportunity,
and for those of you who might need
to do an at home position
because of either an illness or a disability,
this is a great opportunity to have a high-paying career.
As a social media manager,
you might have to do some content creation,
a little bit of graphic design work,
or at least photo editing.
Often, you'll have to do content curation,
and come up with a social media strategy
to grow an audience within different platforms.
I think this could be a really good job for you
if you're someone who actually really enjoys social media,
and likes the idea of maybe doing community management,
and supporting that group that rallies around a brand,
or an influencer.
The other great thing about this particular job
is you don't really need to be a specialist.
This is something that is very suited to a jack or jill
of all trades.
Number five, film making and video production.
The power of online video
has pretty much become undeniable,
especially with the rise of social media,
and with that in mind,
there's a lot more opportunity than there used to be
for anyone who's in video production or film making
because anyone who has a product or service to sell,
understands that they can use video
to market themselves more effectively,
and to close more sales, grow their business exponentially.
This goes beyond platforms like YouTube,
and I would encourage you
to learn more about live streaming
since the ability to do broadcasts in real time
is something that's available to a lot more people
and you should really learn how you can develop
technical skills around that,
and be valuable to people in the event marketing space,
as well as, other local businesses
that might have a need for that.
A lot of service-based industries
are also doing video advertising.
So, there's an opportunity for you to do production
for them as well.
There are also passive income opportunities with video.
Obviously, I make passive income through YouTube videos,
but you could also license your video production
through Adobe Stock
in the form of selling things like time lapses,
or slow motion video, or drone shots,
if you happen to have access to that kind of equipment.
There's a great opportunity for passive income
when it comes to stock video footage
if you can either produce great time lapses,
slow motion videos, or you can get aerial drone footage.
I would highly recommend that you take advantage of this
because anything that you do that's high-end like this,
especially if it's in 4K video,
is gonna have a high demand
and a high price point around it,
and it's not as competitive as you would think
because few people have access to it.
Number six, audio editing and podcasting.
Audio is one of those really challenging things to learn,
but if you do, it's something that is very valuable
and is in high demand by clients, even me.
In fact, I just outsourced all the audio editing
from my podcast and I'm happy to take that off my plate
and put it in the hands of people
who are much more skilled at it than myself.
Being able to do audio mastering,
or if you happen to have a studio space
where people can record for their audiobooks
or for their podcast can be very lucrative for you,
and it's something that I think a lot more people
should look into.
It's a very fast, emerging market
with people getting into podcast and voice,
and even music.
I think that being able to create background music and audio
for people like myself, who are content creators,
could be something that could
produce a lot of passive income for you
if you do it right.
Number seven, web design and development.
There are a lot of people who don't believe
there's anymore money to be had in web design
with all these content management systems,
and automations, AI software, et cetera,
but at the end of the day, if you are creative enough
and have diverse skill sets,
you can create something
that a machine simply can't compete with.
I learned HTML code when I was 13-years-old
back in the days of AOL and the dial up internet,
and then, later in college,
I would be introduced to Dreamweaver,
and while I don't like to code myself today that often,
I usually outsource that to freelancers.
The thing is, every now and again,
I like to jump back into it,
and something that I still think is important
is that human touch,
the ability to hire somebody
that you know is going to take perfect care with this,
and I don't think that just
turning that completely over to machines
is something that a lot of people are comfortable with.
So, I think there's still a lot of opportunity
when it comes to web design development
if you find clients that value attention to detail,
and a personal relationship with somebody
who can manage this for them.
Besides, not everyone's gonna wanna do it themselves.
They just wanna take it off their plate
so they can focus on their business,
at least that's how I think about it.
Number eight, animation and motion graphics.
You know, when I was a kid,
I actually dreamed of being an animator,
but because of the technology of my time
and how cost-prohibitive it was,
that dream eventually went away,
but today, I think that animation,
and the ability to do it well,
is more accessible than ever.
I feel that with programs like Adobe After Effects,
and the Adobe Creative Cloud,
and Adobe Character Animate,
more people can pursue the dream of being an animator,
and it's actually really affordable,
and with the advancements we've made in hardware,
it's also more affordable and accessible
to make sure you have a good computer that can handle this.
It's not gonna be a break-the-bank style investment
for the most part.
Sometimes, when I'm editing these YouTube videos,
I like to break things up by using motion graphics,
or inlays, or stock video footage,
and a lot of times,
this is something that I'll go to Adobe Stock for,
and if you are creating this type of content,
there's an opportunity for you to make money from it.
This could be as simple as transitions,
or lower-thirds, or rollovers, any number of assets,
and as somebody who actually
uses Adobe Stock pretty regularly,
I found that there are a lot of these available in there,
even for free.
So, if you're a content creator and you're watching this,
maybe you'll wanna pick those up to get a feel for it,
and if you're somebody
who wants to make these kind of animations,
you'll see what's in demand in the market
if you check it out.
Number nine, I couldn't leave this one out of my list,
becoming a content creator.
Whether you're gonna do a YouTube channel,
Instagram, Twitch, or any other content platform,
there's a lot of opportunity if you decide
to create content for yourself
that other people might enjoy,
and you can find ways to monetize it,
something I've talked about a lot
here on this YouTube channel.
For me, being a content creator has been amazing,
but it's also given me the opportunity
to hire other artists and freelancers,
and allow them the opportunity to create what they love,
and cash in on their passion,
and it's something that I'm very proud of to this day
that I've been able to help give people that opportunity,
and give them their first opportunity in many cases.
At the end of the day,
there's nothing like doing the thing you love,
and knowing that it can support you.
I wanna thank my friends over at Adobe Stock
for supporting this video,
but also thank Adobe
for just supporting creatives like me,
and helping us to do the things that we love
so that we can cash in on our passion,
and not be starving artists.
Question of the day, what is your creative passion?
And have you figured out how to cash in on it yet?
Why or why not?
Let me know in the comment section.
We'd love to hear from you.
That's it for this video, I hope you guys enjoyed it.
Like this video if you like it.
Don't forget to subscribe
and check out the other awesome stuff here on the channel,
and as always, you guys,
thanks so very much for watching,
and don't forget,
go out there and create something awesome today.
Take care.
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