DEAR READERS,

In this issue of Freelancing.hk-News, we present to you our current research on the ever-increasing number of co-working spaces in Hong Kong.

In addition, one of our readers questioned our previous article about how to improve one’s self every day, and our popular guest writer has penned a piece about the barriers that prevent you from living a successful life.

Later on, we will share some tips on how an already successful coaching process can be enhanced and perfected, and lastly, a little freelancer joke to round us off. Any thoughts on what a successful manager and a cemetery gardener have in common?

I wish you a lot of fun reading and, as always, good business!

Johannes Hummel

Day by day, more people are becoming interested in co-working spaces. According to Hong Kong Business, we have 202 co-working spaces in our country (compared to 330 in New York City and 1,136 in London). When most people think of “co-working”, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and digital nomads generally come to mind. However, the co-working space is a growing market, not just for freelancers but also for an increasing number of small businesses.

The concept of co-working was first introduced by an iconic programmer called Brad Neuberg. He launched his first co-working space in San Francisco to replace the less productive home offices of “small businesses”. In Hong Kong, co-working offices have become a real trend over the last few years and the co-working market has grown exponentially since its inception. Now, there are over a hundred co-working spaces in Hong Kong. According to Savills, a global real estate company, co-working space operators currently occupy about 2.16 million square feet across the city and have doubled in size since the end of 2017”. In Hong Kong, the demand for co-working spaces led to the rapid establishment of many co-working space operators such as The Hive, The Desk, Servcorp and more. However, this rapid expansion has, in turn, led to a crowded and highly competitive market, with industry analysts predicting that some operators will eventually withdraw from the business.

Many freelancers working from home sometimes find it difficult to concentrate due to external interference, like construction work or having children running around. The availability of co-working spaces helps to overcome these home-workplace frustrations and also acts as a creativity boost.

Co-working offices tend to unite entrepreneurs so they can operate and interact as a community. They share WiFi, servers, boardrooms, bathrooms and cafes. This soon extends to sharing ideas, advice and even business networks.

Inevitably, this trend has strengthened the connection between people using the co-working spaces and helped them to expand their networks. You never know who you are going to meet in these co-working hubs. If you are a freelancer working from home, it is maybe time to join the trend!

Last month we reported on the iconic speech entitled ' The One-Percent Solution' by bestselling author Alan Weiss, in which he encourages his audience to aim to be better by simply improving their activities by just one percent every day. From a mathematical standpoint, your abilities would improve by 100% every 70 days. Imagine if you could build such a fast-acting advantage in your business. One of our readers, Mr. Rolshoven, shares his opinion about this solution:
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Maybe you shouldn´t take the '1% approach' too literally. If someone was able to double their own abilities after 70 days they would have improved by 32-fold after one year. After two years they would have improved by 1,000-fold, and after four years their abilities would have improved by one million...

As wonderful as fairytales may be - perhaps you should simply take some time every day to become a little bit better in a certain area. For example, it is good to plan at least ten minutes for improving a certain ability every day.
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From Amor Dhaouadi

Every success story starts with a thought or an idea. In order to achieve the hoped-for success, the idea needs to be followed by action, inspiration, enthusiasm, passion, sacrifice or devotion.

I recently read an inspiring speech that I recommend to anyone who has set themselves special life goals. This speech titled, “The Man in the Arena”, is over 100 years old and was given by Theodore Roosevelt in Paris. An excerpt from the speech says:

'It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.'

For those of you looking to create a better life for yourself, I advise you to read this text again and again, every day if you have to. You might find that there are numerous parallels between The Man in the Arena and anyone who paves their own path.

I am especially interested in this speech from the freelancer´s point of view. They have to fight their way through every day - dealing with difficult customers, challenging working conditions, an increasing number of competitors and new technologies. Despite all this, a freelancer´s biggest battle is against his inner critics, which prevents him from developing and testing new and better methods.

If you want to achieve something special, you have to work harder than anyone else in your field. Even if you don´t have a lot of talent, resources, or relationships, the most important part of finding the path to success is to go where others don´t dare to. You will certainly suffer through failures, but that is also a part of your journey to success. Setbacks help you to learn what does not work so you can refine your skills, expertise and working methods. However, it is important not to doubt yourself and to get up again and continue fighting.

I highly admire top athletes and would like to share an example from the field of sports for comparison. One of my favourite athletes is the gifted and brilliant Cristiano Ronaldo. If he had not spent thousands of hours in the gym, practiced his free kicks over and over again or tried out thousands of dribbling techniques, he would not have become the football player of the year.

Only through perseverance, hard work and failure can you achieve top results. You simply have to build up the courage to go your own way against all odds.

Registered service providers can showcase their skillset with a short article in the Freelancing.hk-News, In this issue, we present a multiple-book author with a doctorate who has had almost 20 years of first and second level management and leadership experience in medium-sized corporations.
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Coaching is a clarification process aimed at reviewing existing activities, behaviours and assessments in the client´s field of work. If adaptations of existing activities are necessary or completely new activities emerge, these are identified in the coaching interview and it is then found out together how this can best be done. In principle, the various components of the situation and its implementation should, therefore, be analysed, evaluated and solved.

The to-do lists summarise the coaching session and contain a future picture of the activities and the expected results. A to-do list is designed in such a way that future situations can be dealt with successfully and the client can go into his reality in a stabilised way. The to-do list also includes the objective in the sense of a personal agreement on objectives, the description of the strategies/measures for achieving the objective, the persons involved and the underlying business or action processes.
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What does a dreaded top manager have in common with a cemetery gardener?

– Both have thousands of people under them and none of these people complain.