About five years ago, I quit my job. It was summertime, and I'd been having lots of fun at the Photosynthesis festival out on the Pacific coast at the tip of the Olympic Peninsula. Late Sunday night, the music was still pumping loud and I was laying in a hammock freaking out a bit. Tomorrow I needed to be back at work, after breaking down camp and driving home, and it wasn't looking like I'd get much sleep. My instinct was that I'd be late at best, and I was worried that I might get fired.
So I started crunching the numbers to figure out how long I could live on my savings. While I can be critical of the quantitative obsession in retrospect, this process was actually quite liberating. I realized that I'd be just fine, job or no job, for a while. When I considered the freedom I'd enjoy and what I could do with my time, I decided to put in my two weeks notice when I got back to the office. As I rode in the car to Seattle the next morning, I started singing a song that I'd later finish with guitar, "I'm going back to the city / Gonna quit my job / Going back to the city / Gonna quit my job."
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When we did get back to the city, I got dropped off at work, late and unshowered. I walked in, planning to go straight to my boss to state my intention, but all of the managers were out doing some sort of team building for the rest of the day. It was quiet around the customer service department I worked in, and I hadn't been missed. They ended up "accepting my resignation early" after I sent an email critical of changes in working conditions to the small support group I worked in. My colleagues thanked me for voicing what they also felt, but my boss took this as a challenge to his authority and walked me to the door.
Riding my bike home, I happened to find my partner and a bunch of friends sitting outside a coffee shop. The weather was brilliant. Everything was OK in the universe. I was free, even if I wasn't really sure what that meant yet. But more change was coming—I'd have to move out of my house soon too. So began my journey of entrepreneurship, as I've come to think of it. I never went back to working for The Man. As romantic as this all may sound, my resolve to never have a boss again meant that I had to ask a lot from others and ultimately live with my parents again to eventually launch myself as a freelancer. There's been a lot of doubt, and I'm often tempted to lament time I "wasted" along the way. But, seen from another angle, it's all been part of my path in developing the necessary skills and understanding to succeed in business.
All in a day's...
Since that summer, I've been a care provider, a tech wiz for hire, a pedicab driver, and more recently, a writer, editor, and social media marketer. My years in customer service taught me how important communication is to business and how to handle it on the front lines. I wrote my first newsletters and tech guides as a tier two rep at zulily. That job also gave me great insight into the pieces of an online retail business, as I coordinated with virtually all of them to solve specific and systemic problems for our customers, from inventory and fulfillment to website bugs and content issues. I learned how to hustle and pitch prospects in real time on a bike taxi, and how to nurture trusting professional relationships as a care provider. So, when I decided to be a freelance writer, I actually had a solid foundation of entrepreneurial skills in addition to my university education in English, no matter how fresh I felt.
Finding my first writing gig was a struggle. Despite reading plenty of warnings not to, I got my start on that infamous job site known as Upwork. Submitting proposals was a full time job for the first few days, until I finally got a bite. I'm not particularly proud of that first contract, where the client paid $15 and I earned $12, after Upwork took its fee, for several hundred words of writing. But I got a five star rating, along with a shot of confidence and momentum that propelled me into greater success. While I no longer use Upwork to search for jobs and I never really made a living there anyway, I created some relationships on the platform that still endure. Most importantly, I got over my imposter syndrome and started to believe that I was worthy of earning money for applying my skills with the English language.
When I finally met a client in the real world, it was at a poetry open mic in the town where I live now. I started managing social media for their business and later writing newsletters. That sprouted a referral for another client with similar needs who I also do editing for. Whereas my experience on Upwork was a series of mostly one off gigs, I now have ongoing relationships with clients who provide steady income. Along the way, I earned my first bitcoin from a client for their cryptonetwork related project, and did some work for a cryptocurrency creator for pay in their coin. When people ask me what I do, my comfortable answer now is that I'm a freelance writer, editor, and social media manager. Oh, and I also help take care of my grandpa.
That freelance life
Being self employed is pretty awesome. I can work at home in my bathrobe, or at the coffee shop, or on the train on my way to somewhere else. There's a lot that sucks about it too. We pay more taxes than corporations. We wear a lot of hats. We don't get assigned someone to keep us productive. We have to buy health insurance. But I'm stoked to be part of this new wave of independent workers. This is something that I want to share with others, because I believe that everyone deserves to be able to do fulfilling work on their own terms.
I'll be writing more in later posts about my freelancing adventure, the tools I've found useful, and how to get started yourself. Of course, I'd love it if I could make all my money writing what I wanted to like I do here on Steem, but writing for clients is a nice compromise, for the time being. Simultaneously, I'm excited for opportunities in the crypto space, and I'm following a few different decentralized freelancing platforms. While my experience with Ethlance hasn't been particularly inspiring, I think others like FreelancerCoin are on the right track, and I look forward to meeting clients on these platforms in the future.
To conclude, it's an exciting time to be a freelancer, as our economy is undergoing a fundamental shift towards decentralization, which cryptocurrency and cryptonetworks will be an important part of. I hope that my story can be an inspiration for anyone who wants more freedom in their life. Stay tuned for more details from my journey, and please leave me a comment if there's anything you're curious about.