You’re drawn to working on your own because you want to do it your way.  You don’t want a boss. You hate punching a clock, asking permission to do stuff, going to meetings, trusting your fate to some company.

You’d rather run your own life, and not be blown around by someone else’s winds.

Yeah, me too.

But there’s flip side to all that sweet autonomy. It hit me sharply about three days after I went freelance.

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What if you needed to ratchet up your income, by oh, 43% or so? And pretty soon.

Or what if you’re tired of scratching around with pipsqueak projects for D-list clients. You want to do work that means something, for clients with actual budgets?

What should you focus on? What do you ramp up?

Your skills? Networking? Productivity?

No. That’s the wrong end of the stick. Continue . . . »

Do you remember the first day on your own?

The day you stepped onto that swaying, shaking rope bridge over the chasm, without a job, in charge of your own fate?

Here’s what I remember.

I had set up an office in the basement. My desk was a folding table.  I had a stack [...]

How good must you be to freelance successfully?

Do you need to be a rock star genius in your craft?

Nah. Being a genius may be useful. But it’s not a requirement. Heck, just fancying yourself a genius is sometimes enough. (I’ve gotten by on that for years.)

And yes, as I’ve said, having a double dose of clanking, cast-iron confidence (balls) is worth its weight in brass nine times over. It is the difference between the minor leaguers and the elite.

But even if you’re the self-doubting sort with only basic skills in your backpack, you can do okay.

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Think of it this way.

In a cubicle job 100% of your income — the money you need for your family — comes from a single source.  The boss has 100% control over 100% of your income.  (Personally, that would scare the hell out of me.) If the job goes away, even through no [...]

Are freelancers just small-scale entrepreneurs?

Not really.

Are entrepreneurs just mega-freelancers?

No.

Freelancers and entrepreneurs are separate species.  They are wired differently.  I know plenty of freelancers and quite a few entrepreneurs, and like them both.  But they seek different satisfactions, have different heroes, and have different daydreams.

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Do you have to be big to thrive?

Nope.

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