10 Lessons in 10 years of Freelancing with Wudan Yan
Season 8, Episode 9
Hi everyone!
As I’ve ideated around the title of this season, "The Year of Expansive Thinking," I realized that at one point, it might be a good idea to dig into how I think. I’m now through my tenth year of freelancing, and a 3x business owner.
Most of us will probably just run one business at a time, which is totally sane and fine. However, for folks who want to break the mold and take on the ambitious prospect of starting another company and running them simultaneously, I wanted to give y’all a peek behind that curtain. It isn’t easy, but it certainly is within the realm of possibility and is one example of thinking expansively.
This episode was also a chance for me to reflect on lessons in my freelance career—one lesson per year. I’ve summarized them below, but I encourage you to listen to the full episode where you podcast to hear how I landed on these lessons, too.
Build skills. If you know what you want to do, but don’t know how to get there, you need to start learning the skills—whether formally or informally—to get you the clients, rates, and creative work you want.
Take calculated risks. Risks can be as big or small as you make them out to be. If anything, think of taking a risk as an experiment. There’s nothing like creating evidence for yourself that taking risks is ok. Not only does this build risk tolerance, but it builds confidence.
If you’re just starting out, try a little bit of everything. See how far your different skills will get you—whether it’s by offering different services, or working for clients in different industries. Learning about what you enjoy—and don’t—is super valuable from a throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks method.
Develop evidence for yourself that there’s an abundance of work out there for you. This can come from the throw-spaghetti approach I described above!
Hire help. Learning to outsource parts of the business that slow you down will open up space, creativity, and emotional capacity for you to pursue more ambitious projects and earn more money. Full stop.
There are many ways to achieve the same income goal. Some will keep you sane. Some will not. Checking in with yourself and intentionally coming up with a business plan will help you along the path you desire.
In order to be a good worker, you need to figure out ways of taking care of yourself. Self explanatory 🙂
Not all goals in your business need to move at the same time. Freelancing requires constant re-prioritization, whether it’s based on shifting business needs or life needs. Check in regularly to see what specific things need to come to the front burners.
It’s impossible to always be pushing yourself to grow as a business. Seasons of growth need to be adequately accompanied by seasons of rest, ideation, and incubation.
Running a freelance business teaches you the extremely widely applicable skill of running a business. Over time, that can inspire your confidence to build other businesses.
Hosting this episode is the great Jillian Anthony. Jillian is a writer and editor with 13 years of experience in journalism and media. She is the former lead editor of Time Out New York, and her writing has been published in Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Pop-Up magazine, Contently, and many other publications. As a freelancer, she works with major tech, travel, and media companies in many content and marketing roles; is a regular public speaker at events like SXSW; and helps writers find their footing in the freelance world. She authors the newsletter Cruel Summer Book Club, about making space for your art and yourself, and hosts a podcast of the same name.
Until next episode,
Wudan
UPCOMING EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
MISSED OUR OCTOBER EVENT ON BUILDING A FREELANCE TEAM? You can snag a recording of it here!
NOVEMBER 6 EVENT: HOW TO GO FROM FREELANCER TO AGENCY OWNER
If you’ve ever been agency-curious, this event is for you. Learn from two agency owners, Caity Cronkhite (TWC’s guest from this season) and Aimee Swartz, who will be sharing all their wisdom on scaling your solo freelance business to an agency. Purchase your tickets here.
Did you know TWC just launched a brand new course? Check out our latest addition to the TWC Academy on Teachable: THE FRESH PAINT COURSE. The course is an asynchronous adaptation of the popular Fresh Paint Clinic, which teaches freelancers to build a business website that will attract the clients you want. Check it out at https://the-writers-co-op-academy.teachable.com/p/the-fresh-paint-course