To be a good artist / letterer / designer / guitar player it takes practice. A lot of it. More than you can even fathom when you're starting out.

Web design is something that's super technical but can be super tedious if you have to deal with asshole clients.

If you try in whatever ways you can to brighten someone's day, to be fair and respectful to everyone, and to grow your network without being "networky", you will be a rockstar. Have a plan, but be willing to deviate from it if awesome opportunities arise. While it's important to think about your future and what you want to be doing in 5 years, don't let that plan be so concrete that you ignore opportunities around you.

I always love design but the more I designed for clients, the less I liked the process of designing for them. I do lettering and illustration for money, which clients don't mess with too much and web design for fun.

When I have to critique someone else's web design, rather than write up a giant email or take a screengrab and move stuff around in Photoshop, I put together a really quick CSS doc making my changes.

The reason why many clients don't value design is because haven't had a designer prove to them the value of it. You need to prove it to clients who've hired a bunch of shitty designers and their business has not been that successful. When they hire a good designer, they see the difference.

If you are on Craigslist to get a sofa, and you see one for free. You think there’s something tragically wrong with it - maybe there are bedbugs. But if you see a sofa on there for $2,500, you think ‘oh man, that sofa must be amazing’. It’s the same thing with art - you set your own value.