We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Danny Adelman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Danny below.

Hi Danny, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.

I would change a lot about the educational system as it currently exists. I feel that finding a person’s purpose in life is one of the most important things they can do and the educational system should support that as early on as possible. I think as early as middle school, kids need to be encouraged to do what they feel attracted to and passionate about. They also need to be exposed to entrepreneurship earlier so they can grasp the difference between that and just getting a job and or career later in life. Ideally, this should be done in conjunction with fundamental education of reading, writing, math, science, etc. With adult education in college, I think the number one thing is we need to make things a lot more affordable for people. You shouldn’t have to be in massive debt just to get a job. I didn’t want to do that, and I found alternate paths and I believe there are even more now than when I was in college.

With the advent of the internet, education has also expanded to many different avenues. If a person is motivated and dedicated enough, they can educate themselves solely on YouTube tutorials. I’ve told some graduates and college students who aren’t sure where they should turn for college in terms of art and design schools to look for alternate paths online. You can pay mentors a fraction of the cost of what it takes to do a normal 4-year University degree and if you’re hungry enough and apply yourself 100%, you can learn far more and far faster from a 1-on-1 mentorship from someone with real-life experience. That said, I also think that community, in regards to education and bouncing things you learn from off of other students and teachers, is still an important part of being educated, being exposed to new ideas, and critical thinking as well.

Overall, I think a hybrid of internet education from qualified sources as well as the typical, but revamped, institutional education could be a winning ticket for students in the future.

Danny, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m an award-winning motion graphic designer, art director, and founder of a small business, Litening. I’ve worked primarily in broadcast TV and the video production world for most of my career, however, I have a lot of foundational skills placed in graphic design and web design as well.

Litening was created to help network with creatives and clients alike, scaling to meet the needs for all sizes of companies and individuals who need creative visual work done for their marketing goals. We focus on a few key areas such as web design and development, brand identity creation, 3D renders, motion graphics, and live-action video production. We can handle pretty much all forms of visual creative work and I help manage client relationships as well as help direct a project from start to finish.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

In 2020, I was laid off. Covid was slamming the job market and jobs were almost non-existent in the design space, and almost everywhere I looked, everyone was on a hiring freeze or paying really low because of the uncertain future. In this scenario, without the proper guides, mentors, and business training, the old me would’ve easily caved into a “scarcity mindset”. But, I did the exact opposite. Even with the bad news, the world in turmoil, and the job freezes — all that negativity, I decided to double down on my freelance business to survive.

I adopted an abundance mindset vs. scarcity mindset. In sales and business, and almost anything else in life, I really believe this is one of the keys to helping you become successful. The world was in fear mode and a scarcity mindset comes with that. Something that I learned in an online business class that I thought wasn’t that important at the time was the abundance mentality. It enabled me to stay firm on my worth as an art director and designer and charge what I needed to not just survive, but thrive, despite the horrible outlook from Covid. I charged the largest amount for a website I ever have (and most profitable) during this time and was afraid of not getting the proposal accepted, but it did get accepted! When that happened, it just bolstered my resolve to stick to that mindset and control what I can control.

I did some other risky investment things that paid off as well. All in all, the year worked out to be one of the best working years of my career and taught me invaluable lessons that continue to help me succeed today.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice

I think NFTs will be a part of the future, just like crypto before it, and Facebook before that, and the internet and email before that. I’m a pretty avid gamer and NFTs have already sort of been a part of gaming culture in the form of paid skins or pay-to-play game services. While they haven’t been “true” NFTs in a sense where they’re tied to the blockchain for verification of ownership of something, the ” digital collection” principle that NFTs are currently known for, is very similar.

I also think NFTs are so new that there are many applications other than just what we see now with digital art. I really enjoy the aspect that digital artists can now have a space and avenue to list their work and get paid for it, I plan on trying it out for myself this year just to dabble and experiment. If nothing else, I would encourage other people to do the same and try and educate themselves on the foundational things and possibilities NFTs could offer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dannyadelman.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/dka_ig
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dannyadelman/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannyadelman/