I'm taking a break from freelancing...
Hey friends, happy Sunday, I hope you've had a great week!
I have a couple quick things to share with you this week before I get into a rather big life update:
1. Local Maxima is holding you back
2. 17 Things Every Freelancer Needs To Know
Alrighty let's get into the Filter!
I'm taking a break from freelancing
Are you a freelancer or an entrepreneur?
There's a difference.
Freelancers get paid when they work.
Entrepreneurs get paid to run the company that does the work.
As Seth Godin says:
"The goal of a freelancer is to have a steady job with no boss, to do great work, to gradually increase demand so that the hourly wage goes up and the quality of gigs goes up too.
The goal of the entrepreneur is to sell out for a lot of money, or to build a long-term profit machine that is steady, stable and not particularly risky to run. The entrepreneur builds an organization that creates change."
Over the last 12 months I've had a strong urge to build something new. I'm not sure exactly what that is but I've noticed a desire in myself to evolve.
This push to evolve has led to a lot of introspection, the natural evolution of a freelancer is to take on more work and build a large agency but doing client work at scale doesn't appeal to me.
What appeals to me is leverage. The ability for a small team to build things that impact a lot of people.
Leverage is what fascinates me about media (YouTube + writing) and building digital products.
I'm confident that the next evolution of my career revolves around figuring out media and product building.
But I keep running into the same problem - I don't have enough time to experiment.
With the consistent time demand of doing client work there's not enough time in the week to explore, find and follow my obsession.
So I'm taking a break from freelancing.
I'm not quitting cold-turkey, but more of a season where I go into freelance maintenance mode.
I have a few retainer clients that I'll keep working with 1 or 2 days per week but from October → January I'm taking on no new clients (*nervous laugh*).
From there my plan is to stair step my way to entrepreneurship, creating content, running experiments and building products with no real expectation.
Just a desire to explore, spot opportunities and build things.
I.
Time is your most valuable asset so treat it that way.
Spend more time being unreachable.
II.
The best habit you can form is to stop waiting for the "right time" and just start.
100 Rules to Live By: I love the idea of collecting a list of rules to live by based on your past life experiences so much that I've started to do this myself.
This list of rules from Dru Riley is almost like creating your own personal user manual to help you re-visit and remember lessons you've learned along the way.
Derek Sivers on The Danny Miranda Podcast: This podcast episode is a great listen. Danny asks Derek some great questions and in typical Derek Sivers style he leaves you with some interesting insights and thought provoking ideas.
Designing a logo for a real client: I always find peaking into other peoples processes fascinating. This video does a great job of sharing the behind the scenes of freelancing.
END NOTE
The Sunday Filter relies on word of mouth to reach more people, if you’re enjoying the newsletter I’d really appreciate you sending it to a friend or sharing on Twitter.
Have a fantastic week!
- Stephen