Going freelance

Is like climbing a rock, blindfolded without a rope with snakes on the ground to soften your fall.

I’ve tried it several times in my career, but it sounded better in theory than practice.

In theory, you’ve got all the time in the world. You work on exciting things. You can choose your projects. And you are your boss.

In practice, declaring yourself a freelancer and changing your job on LinkedIn to “Self-Employed” does not make you rich.

You stare at an empty calendar and wonder what to work on.

The problem is that there are unlimited options, but only a few will move your business forward.

The rest? Just busywork.

In a typical 9-5, busy work is paid as much as strategic or other work, even playing Mario Kart.

You get your salary.

When you are freelance, busy work = 0. Sick days = 0. Vacation = 0.

Unless you’ve built a hands-off service, but for most of us who get paid for solving problems, that’s downtime.

It gets worse. Your signals for what’s working come with one hell of a delay.

But it has an incredible upside:

**What you get paid directly correlates to the value you create. ***

If you solve bigger problems, you can command a higher rate.

This is not how most jobs work.

In a job, what you work on is typically completely disconnected from its impact on the business.

If more companies bridged the two, more people would feel purpose in a 9-5 job.

No one wants to be just a cog in the machine.

Best regards,

Taj

*and how well you can demonstrate that value