I just had an interesting conversation with the owner of Nemesis Romania which happens to be a personal friend of mine. He provides me with this awesome hosting for my site.
I showed him a design that I spent an entire night working on, only to find out that the client wanted me to do spec work. Basically to show him the work and then he decides if he gives me the project.
So I was whining about it and he stopped me and said.
Dude, stop being so money hungry!
Of course I was intrigued, because I am not like that and I was just upset to have lost a few hours of good sleep. And then he continues:
I lost countless hours and did a lot of FREE work for some of the big players here. Players like Vodafone, Orange, Romtelecom, RDS etc. Now their sales staff recognize me and recommends me to other big players. Only because I gave them discounts and worked under the market for a while.
Then I realized what he was trying to infer to me.
Your time is never lost. Somehow the hours you put into some project will get back to you as experience or a bigger project later from your portfolio.
And lastly he said:
Success comes to those who are to busy to think about it.
This will be the last time (hope so) that I whine about lost time put into work.
