If you want to be an expert, you must think about constant improvement, constantly learning constantly looking what every single competitor is doing. When I started in this business, why did my first media training and public speaking training back in 1984, a long time ago, and I was a volunteer doing it for free in my hometown, not a lot of competition, especially since I'm willing to do it for free. I did it for many years, and a very haphazard way on the side when doing other projects and starting new businesses, and wasn't particularly serious about it. But I really had no other competition other than people in the town, where I was living at the time, whether it was Miami or some other town. Even when I started this business really seriously, back in 2001. Most of my company was just other people based in New York City or Washington DC.
These days, it's completely different. These days, one of my best competitors, frankly, lives in Tanzania, of all places. Guess what, when it comes to people going to Amazon and I have a choice between my books and his books, he often wins out. He's written a tremendous number of great books on public speaking and presentation skills. He has airplanes access, like I do, he can fly anywhere in the world to do a training flight Asia, as well, frankly, easier than I can fly to Asia. So we're all facing massive competition from markets all over the world, who not that long ago, were not connected to us.
We didn't have to compete with them. We do now. So my competitor is not necessarily the woman or the man I meet at the local public relations society meeting in Midtown and And anymore. It can be someone who was 510 thousand miles away. And my competitors these days frankly, are better than me in some ways. They often speak five languages I speak one, they may have a greater multicultural experience because they're constantly working in cultures other than their own.
So if you want to be an expert, and you want to have longevity in your freelance career, I urge you constantly educate yourself constantly look for improvement, constantly look for refinements, constantly figure out how can you get better and better and better at helping your clients