First things first: tonight (Thursday, June 13), I’m sitting on a panel at the Freelancers Hub called The Future of Freelance.
Freelance vets will talk about our journeys, you’ll hear a bit about the upcoming launch of Trupo (think: the “HR department for freelancers”) from CEO Sara Horowitz, followed by a happy hour.
6:30 pm at 30 John Street in Brooklyn.
I hope to see you there!
Speaking of freelancing, not too long ago, I found myself chatting with another freelance writer about our journeys.
“Oh, I had a full plan in place before I went freelance,” she said, and I struggled not to roll my eyes so far back into my head that they popped out of my butt.
Needless to say, I did not have any plan in place when I, along with maybe 15 other book editors, were pulled into our supervisors’ offices, informed that our publishing division was shutting down, handed a box of tissues, and told that we would need to vacate the premises within an hour.
(That lay-offs in book publishing are so corporate baffles me to this day. What could a relatively low-level senior editor possibly have done if given a few more hours in her office? Emailed a large group of people without bcc-ing? Taken some… books? Actually, maybe that’s a valid concern. If I’d had as many swanky bags as Jay Fielden did when he walked out of the offices of the Hearst Building, I would have filled them up with as many 35 dollar hardcovers as they would carry.)
My point is: when I went off on my own, I soooo did not have a plan. But I very quickly was able to identify three clear goals:
I wanted control over the projects I worked on and the clients I worked with.
I wanted flexibility in terms of how I worked and where I lived.
I wanted time to work on my own creative projects.
Since I began freelancing 10 years ago, my three big goals have not changed. As a result, even though financially I’m right where I was a decade ago, I have a list of books I’m proud of, a good sense of my strengths and weaknesses, and an understanding of how much work I can handle at any given moment.
Even though I didn’t see any of that as “planning,” I was gaining important data about what works for me and what doesn’t, data that I will now use to plan for the next ten years.
Oh, and about financially breaking even? That’s all I really wanted for 10 years so I don’t see it as a failure! For the entirety of my 30’s, I used any extra time I had to work on small creative projects that brought me joy, expanding my knowledge of comedy and yogic philosophy, and honing my craft as a writer.
But I’m a little older and maybe even a little wiser, and so the next ten years I want more than a paycheck-to-paycheck existence. Which means I have one more big goal to add to my list:
Get that lanai money! If I need to retire like a Golden Girl, you can bet that I’m going to do it, much like Miami, with style.
So what do you do if you “fall into freelancing”? Or if you fall into any kind of work situation that looks a little different than your original plan? How do you build a solid future when you have a goldfish mind—when you’re so consumed by whatever you’re working on right now that things beyond the bowl are of little interest to you?
Stay connected. If the first ten years of my freelance career were about doing work in line with my values and gaining an understanding of my capabilities, then I want the next ten to be about learning from others, sharing my knowledge, and asking for help when I need it. Right now, I know that I need some accountability and expertise when it comes to financial planning and marketing, and so that’s the kind of support I’ve begun to seek out.
Help out others. Since I’ve gone freelance, a number of former colleagues have reached out to me for advice, and I love sharing what I know. It’s a small investment of my time that has led to many new clients and projects. And I didn’t even know it was going to lead to good stuff—it just did! Which tells me that even if you don’t know how the hell to run a business yet, you can bring opportunities to your door by being a good human. It’s almost as if being a good human is… the way to build a sustainable business! Who’da thunk?
While you may not have chosen to fall into freelancing, staying there is a conscious decision. After I went solo, I got a lot of fantastic job leads and offers—a few of which I took quite seriously. But something in my heart always said “No. Stay independent. This is your path.” Your heart may tell you something different, and so I urge you to listen to it. This might not feel like “Planning” with a capital P, but I think it counts. It’s a beautiful first baby step into the big bad world of planning to know what you want and what works for you.
Recognize that no one is born a businessperson. Sometimes I want to beat myself up for some of my short-sighted business moves, for letting go of projects before a big pay-off, for all those roads not traveled. But recently I’ve begun to cut myself some slack. While I’ve edited many business books over the years, I have no formal business training, and I come from a family of public school teachers whose models for finance and security don’t look anything like mine need to look.
I may not have been born a businessperson or raised as one, but I am entrepreneurial. I’m someone who loves new ideas. I’ve just never had access to a framework or resources for turning those ideas into a reality—and so I often feel at sea around people like that freelancer who told me all about her Day One Plan.
But perhaps it’s the plight of the goldfish creative to always feel a bit at sea in the world of business.
How can we work together to keep ourselves moving forward at the right pace?