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Freelancing Fundamentals
When I started freelancing, I was in survival mode. I’d gotten laid off, and I had $486 in my bank account because I was money stupid and hadn’t saved much.
To make matters worse, I hadn’t worked at the agency long enough to get any sort of severance package, and I also didn’t qualify for unemployment.
Only six months earlier, my dad and I had a come-to-Jesus talk. He told me that he and my mom had to stop supporting me financially. The last thing I was going to do was call my parents and ask them for money. “Hey, can you write me a check? After all, I am still your offspring.”
As a brand new freelancer, I had no clue what to do next. My bank account embarrassed me. I had a B.A. in English, an M.A. in Literature, and credit card debt from overspending during grad school.
Yet, in that season of uncertainty, when anxious thoughts flocked and cried like seagulls, a new mind-altering truth came into focus: Nobody owes me anything.
I won’t presume to speak for everyone, but in my mid-twenties I had a sense of entitlement. Entitlement assumes that somebody — God, the universe, a past employer, spouse, friend, roommate, parent — owes you something.
Another party’s supposed obligation can lead to inertia, stasis, stagnation. While you wait for someone else to give you your due, you cede control. You’re at their mercy, and it’s tempting to grumble rather than take action.
On the other hand, if no one owes you anything and if you cannot reasonably expect a windfall or preferential treatment, then you have one path ahead of you: to work hard.
The early years of freelancing taught me to work hard.
Each morning, once I rolled out of bed, I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for something to happen. I had to try to make something happen.
In the freelance world you eat what you kill.
You may come to agree with this insight from the brilliant Anonymous (a quote often misattributed to Thomas Jefferson): “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
If no one owes you anything, then you’re not waiting on anyone. And if you’re not waiting on anyone, then get started now. Get started today.
Do you want to be one of the first to know about my Freelancing Fundamentals course?
I’m finalizing the details with my team, and we plan to launch a beta version of the course with 100 freelancers.
If you’re wanting to level up your freelance business, then this course is for you. Click on this link to share your name and email address, and I’ll be sure you get first right of refusal.
