An Evening With David Heredia, Freelance Entrepreneur

Photo credit: Jacqueline Iannacone (BFA 2012 Photography)

On Jan 13th I received an email about an event being held at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) featuring David Heredia. I was immediately interested because of the event graphic (post below) and because he was a Black alum, similar to myself. 

David “is an animator, educator, and founder of Heroes of Color, an educational company that works to promote inclusiveness and empower people of color by providing cultural and professional development through the arts.” as listed on the event page (https://sva.edu/events/an-evening-with-david-heredia-freelance-entrepreneurr) 

Two weeks later, after work, I hustled downtown to the SVA Theatre for this presentation. One thing I found to be very admirable about David’s journey is that it was very similar to mine. His career journey filled with working odd jobs, starting over, reinventing himself, getting the dream job, leaving the dream job and more. 

He spoke a bit about being envious of his peers while working at Disney as a designer because they were being promoted quickly and he was in the same position.  He learned from this that he did not have the right relationships and needed to work on networking and building proper relationships. He thought that because he was talented that he'd get recognized and be promoted but that wasn’t the case. 

He also expressed the importance of letting people know what your interests are, what you want to do and what you are doing because you never know who they may know or what opportunities they may be able to share with you. 

I know that social media and just the internet, in general, has us counting likes, clicks, streams, plays and it becomes very easy to be discouraged if your numbers are not where you’d want them to be. David says “it doesn't matter how many followers you have, you are still an influencer because you can create original content”

You can learn more about David by visiting his website https://www.heroesofcolor.com/

Keep up with him on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/_heroesofcolor/

Check out his latest book The Freelance Hustle   https://www.thefreelancehustle.co/#/

Lastly, share the image below of Davids tips for artists and tag me! (@simplyrobotix). Which ones are you doing right now?