 You guys should really look over her shoulder though. It's like the it's it looks like the matrix sort of like inverted Does anybody know what Trista decaphobia is fear the number 13. Yeah, okay Okay, how is everybody? We have freelancers in the house All right Awesome So we're ready to start. Okay. All right. We're gonna go So my name is Nathan Ingram. I am from Birmingham, Alabama where We will have word camp in August by the way. How many of you are from Birmingham ish the south Okay, so we have the best hashtag ever it's WP y'all and We have WP y'all calm and the website is up. So go check it out where except calls for speakers is open Call for volunteer and sponsors are open. So check that out. I'm the lead organizer this year I'm also the host at iThemes training. That's a significant portion of my time I do live webinars two or three times a week on iThemes training. Most of them are free It's like going to word camp all year long. So it's learning WordPress stuff lots of cool stuff I'm also a freelance business owner have been since 1995 Been doing this a long time. I have a small agency in Birmingham where about half my time It's still spent doing client work these days and I'm also a business coach for WordPress freelancers. I just celebrated 22 All right. No, that's old 23 years Actually in business. So been doing this a little while and I usually start a talk like this I did the last one with the statement that I'm not an expert in any of this I've just made enough mistakes where I can share those mistakes with you guys. So there's 10 things. I'm going to share you today About what I wish I'd known about freelancing if any of those things resonate with you Let's talk after seriously. I come to word camps and spend time with people here specifically because I am a huge believer in Having your own business and not being beholden to anybody else to set your priorities in life and what I've seen happen over and over and over again is that people go into business and it's usually about a year 18 Months in they hit the same walls and There are simple answers to all those things. So I love to help people figure that out. Anyhow All right, so let's get into this. We'll take questions to the end by the way We should have plenty of time for Q&A. I thought this was a half hour session. It's an hour session so awesome The first thing that I wish I had known about freelancing is that you are not alone You are not alone What I've learned over the years in in having conversations with people who do what we do is that there are very few unique problems In other words, it's very possible that you've come to an event like this thinking I'm the only one who struggles with the things. I struggle with I'm the only one who struggles with bad clients I'm the only one who is totally stressed out about my business. I hear people around here using words I don't quite understand about things that I know a little bit about but not enough and they sound so much better at this than I do I struggle with isolation and The problems that that creates when you work alone, you know freelance we all struggle with isolation What happens is we get blind spots because we're the only one we're working with we don't have a team We we get stagnant because we do things the same way because we're not challenged by other people We get lonely Anybody experience those things? We're all cut from the same fabric if you're a freelancer We all struggle with these things and you are not alone How many of you if you're a freelancer you will find yourself spending an entire afternoon Trying to solve the problem that it really should have taken you about five minutes to solve Yeah, but you're like a dog on a bone and you can't let it go. We all struggle with this. That's an incredibly Terrible productivity habit by the way instead of spending a whole afternoon find somebody that you can hire out for a hundred bucks and just get it done Right it happens when you're freelance because we're alone and we're isolated We struggle with productivity how many of you work from home Yeah, me too. Okay, how many of you here feel like we homeschool our kids. So like we're all there Yeah, right I've talked to Yeah, there's a lot of homeschoolers in WordPress. So You know what's funny about this is I just in the past two days I've had conversations with others who are husband wife teams working in their business I'm like, how do you guys even well Melanie you and your husband work together For the recording she said yes, but not in the same room That's so true, you know, so we struck these are common common problems They're a very unique a very few unique problems that freelancers have so let me just Set you at ease at the very beginning It is likely that you come to a event like this and you're surrounded by peers and you think that you are the only one Struggling with the way you struggle I promise if you let the guard down six inches you will find that you are in a group of people who struggle with the same things You do it was a remarkable thing when I entered into a peer group of other business owners and got a business coach And what that did for me and transforming my business. It was remarkable so The first one is to encourage you that you are not alone And there is hope and there are people around you who are struggling through the very same things You are so find a peer group that you can get involved in I started advanced coaching a few years ago to solve that problem Well, we put freelancers together in coaching groups and Work each other through different problems. So anyhow, you are not alone. Here's the second one You don't have to know everything When I first started out in business, I was doing everything. I was doing it all back in 95 I was doing some graphic design. I was doing some print. I was doing web design What little web there was over time I started doing some video editing. You know why? Signed new computers not gonna make it happen, right? And when you're in business, there's a certain point where you're just doing whatever you can to bring in the money Right, how many of you've been there if it pays? I'm gonna do it because the kids got to eat, right? So over time when I realized was the the web is really what I wanted to do So I stopped doing everything else but web design for several years. That was it And over time I started to realize you know what web design is now getting too big You had to specialize. I'm like I hate code. I blow things up You know, it's that stupid semicolon every time that's you know, and I'm you know I blow things up. So I decided you know, I'm much better at the the process and client interaction and design side So I focused on that and that became what I was good at now. Here's the problem When when you do that you come to a conference like this and you get Pigeon hold like I'm not a real web developer because I can't write code How many of you feel that way? Well, all I do is put together themes and plug-ins Does that sound familiar and maybe we feel less than here's what I learned you don't have to know everything You can't know everything Web development is too big to know everything and be good at everything Wordpress is too big to know everything and be good at everything So do what you do best and find trustworthy partners for the rest You come to a conference like this and you get what they call imposter syndrome like if they only knew The struggles I had if they only knew that I'm really faking it Nobody would think anything, but you know what how many okay? Let's just can we all be honest here? We're all among friends. How many have you struggled with that very thing imposter syndrome look around you everybody look around you We all have an inner imposter All of us and you know, here's the thing when you've been doing this as long as I have guess what it gets worse It gets worse because guess what happens you start moving in a higher level of people And now well, I'm sure not as good as them And it keeps going it's this human nature thing by the way the industrial psychologist in the 70s who coined the term Imposter syndrome was not web development related It was executives and companies and the higher an executive floated in the ranks the more prevalent the syndrome became it's human nature So if you've come here thinking well everybody else knows more than me and whatever it's okay You don't have to know everything do what you do best and try and find trustworthy partners for the rest a lot of times We think of the world like this This is what I know This is what everybody else knows plus it sort of looks like a death star and it really is the death This can be the death of your thought process But here's the truth Here's what you know And here's what everybody else knows and the video projector is not great, but there's intersecting circles in there You know a little they know a little some stuff you know together There's something that you do better than anything else and probably maybe better than anybody else in this room So what is it? What is it that really sets you apart? You know how you find out what that is? Ask your client you ever thought about doing that What is it that made working with me a good experience? What is it that you appreciated about this project that we just went through you know what if you have a great Great client that you've worked with for a while just ask they'll tell you a lot of times We stop at the testimonial and we don't realize what that testimonial means Take it to heart of this is what I do really well So guess what I need to focus on that and stop trying to be the best PHP developer in the world I Need to focus on design or maybe I need to focus on being the developer and leave the design to people who don't make Things bright pink because that's the difference between a designer and developer by the way a Designer makes things that look pretty but may or may not work a developer makes things that work But they may or may not be bright pink you know so Figure out what you do best and find trustworthy partners for the rest. There are three types of us really I mentioned designers and developers How many of you would say I'm a pure designer. That's what I do. I'm a designer Okay, look around you everybody look around you how many of you'd say I'm a developer. That's it I'm code all about code and the rest of you don't know who you are right There's a word for you. There's a word for you. I call you and me. I'm in this camp to an assembler We do really well at taking good code snippets and decent design and put them together And guess what solving a problem for the client and that has incredible value Incredible value. I'll tell you that people making good money doing client work for WordPress are doing exactly what you're doing They're simblers So look don't be an imposter be who you are You're doing good stuff and you can do it and you can relate to the client and solve the client's problem and that has value Okay, number three debt is a ball and chain Money mistakes will cripple your business Freelancing is a marathon If you've got debt, it's like trying to run a marathon dragging a boat anchor debt That is buying something today on the assumption that I'll be able to pay for it tomorrow And guess what in the freelance world you can't make that assumption Because there are very few freelancers myself included that have a stable income stream Most of us it's like this right there's projects and there's not there's feast and there's famine now when you bring recurring revenue And once I'll talk about in a minute it can help to stabilize that somewhat, but it's still up and down I've never I mean I could not go back and give you the same number every month. I mean, I'm always up and down That's the nature of the beast debt will cripple you So if you're a freelancer Get out of debt as soon as possible And I say this as a recovering debt a holic I spent my 20s getting into debt and my 30s getting out of debt How many of you that sounds about like you? At the end of my 20s, I was about $30,000 in credit card debt because I was stupid Stupid I was spending money with the assumption that one day this is all gonna change and guess what well finally did But I was $30,000 in debt So we took a long time digging out of that hole Because here's what debt does Knowing that well first of all let me ask this How many of you know what it's like to sit around in a dark room maybe over a TV tray like I did With all these bills out for the month and you're thinking well who's not gonna get paid this month Been there That sucks It does What it also does is this? If you're in business it makes you take on terrible clients Because you got to get paid and You're willing to work from less and work for people who don't appreciate your value that you bring to the table Because you've got this money stress Well guess what happens then you're working for terrible clients who put more stress on your life and Then that just invades your whole world And it all comes back to being in stupid debt to begin with I say this because I've made this mistake Don't be like me. Don't make this mistake Debt compounds the stress of the slow times. All right number four Build recurring revenue as quickly as possible This is the key without it. It is virtually impossible to have long-term success as a freelancer Virtually and I chose those words carefully because I don't think you could argue with me and prove me wrong on this It is virtually impossible to be successful long term as a freelancer without some kind of recurring revenue strategy For my money, it starts with a WordPress care plan maintenance plan management whatever you want to call it That's where it starts So the big picture is I need to figure out how in my business to eliminate recurring expenses. That's debt an increase recurring revenues Now if you do that Something miraculous happens It took me a long time to learn this but as I started living leaner spending less money and making more money on Contracts of just recurring revenue. The money was there every month no matter what I started to be able to pay my salary out of the recurring revenue Now I wouldn't pay myself much, but I could live on that which meant that I wasn't under stress to find the next project I Could take the projects that I wanted to take and start working with good clients It all comes from saying no to spending stupid money and stupid debt Recurring revenue is critical How many of you guys have ever taken on a rescue project? and by that I mean This wonderful client contacts you out of thin air and the developer they had before poof. They're gone I don't know what happened to him. There's like somewhere. There's like a Bermuda triangle of web developers, right? And there's like you'll walk in there and there's all these really poor-looking people going out. I don't know what I'm doing I don't know and I don't know I don't know where they go, but they disappear. They're the disappearing web developer One one day. I'm gonna have a call called the case of the disappearing web developer And I've thought about that a long time because you know a lot of times you think well Why did this developer bail on this client? There must be something wrong with the client and Sometimes there is That was a talk I gave it 11 o'clock the problem clients, but here's what I've kind of figured out I think I think that a lot of reason that these disappearing web developers happen is That somebody starts out with bright eyes not being in the web development space. They love building websites. It's fun Right. I mean it's kind of we're geeks. It's fun, right? Come on. It's fun And we enjoy the technology and they get in there and they hit a wall boom They hit a wall Because it's not all it's not good enough just to be good at the code and good at the plug-ins and WordPress and the whole deal You got to be good at the business side, too And if you're not building recurring revenue Guess what happens you go month after month and you have some work and not some other work And there's no recurring revenue and forget it. I'm just going to work for somebody else and who gets left holding the bag The poor client So if whenever now these days when a client pushes back to me on the cost of a WordPress management contract I'm like you want me to be around for you next year, right? Because the people who don't charge these won't be around next year Now you need to pay me to take care of your website Not only does it make your website perform better and work better for you It ensures that I as your web professional will be here to take care of you should you need something three months from now six months From now a year from now I'm just about convinced of the disappearing web developers never built in a recurring revenue stream never did it and so they're working for somebody else now So don't be that guy. Don't be that girl All right Number five Focus on process not heroics. Here's what I mean by heroics Heroics are those tasks Those processes those things in your business that depend on what's between your ears to accomplish You've got to be the hero and make something happen. Now you might say Well, that's what gives me value. I Mean, that's why people hire me and That's true to some degree But if if your business is simply run on your heroism to create sites and solve problems And there's no consistency If you're running your business by the seat of your pants In other words, and you're just making things happen. That'll work. Okay for a while, but eventually You're run out of energy. You're running out of time. It's not scalable So what I encourage people to do is Get everything out of your head and onto a list as quickly as possible Here's why There's this miraculous thing that happens when you take let's just say the process for launching a website How many of you can launch a website today? You can do it. You can make it live You can you've built it now you're gonna launch it, right? It's something if you're working with clients building websites It's something you do at the end of every project, right? Do you have a list of exactly what you're gonna do in which order when you launch a website? Probably how I'm not gonna ask for hands up, but usually it's about half Why well because I can just do it Why would I take the time to write this down if I can just do it? There's a book that I recommend to everybody called the checklist manifesto. It's a book about Checklists and if a commercial airline pilot who's been flying 40 years still runs the same checklist every time he takes off in the plane Or she takes off in the plane. There's got to be something to this Here's what happens when you start checklisting things when you pull these processes How do I set up a Google apps account? Well, I just go in and do it. No you one two three four five When you take it out of your head and put it on paper something miraculous happens It frees up your mind to think about other things. It's a beautiful thing that has starts to happen. Am I right Melanie? Melanie's been there. She's doing it right now. She's done it It it frees up your mind to think about other things. Also, here's what you'll find as You're running your checklist every time say launching a website. You'll discover that you know what if I do number eight Up here where number three is Then then this happens differently and it starts to become more efficient And as you run that checklist more and more and more you start tweaking and refining and moving things around and all of a sudden You've cut down the time it takes you to launch a website in half Because you've made it more efficient. You've gotten it out of your head out of heroics and in the process Now here's what else happens When the time comes it's it's time to on board and somebody to work with you and guess what if you're doing well working with Clients there will come a day where you'll need to hire a developer or you'll need if you're a designer You hire a VA like Mickey talks about to come in and help you out with some of the development stuff Or you hire a client support manager to answer those support tickets Well, you know one of the and that's you know, that's what you need to do But for many people who are at that stage They hit a wall doing that because it would take you too long to train the person to get all this stuff out Of your head and into that other person's head But if it's already in a list See it's already here's something else. There's something that is true of every single person in this room We are getting older Every day Right you will not be doing this forever Have you thought about what's gonna happen if you go to sell your business? You thought about that Does your business have any value beyond what's between your ears it does if you have processes and checklists So now all of a sudden this thing you're doing you no longer own your job You own a business and there's a big difference between those two things a business has value Now it's nice to own your own job and work for yourself But when I get finished doing all this I want to have a thing to sell to somebody that has recurring revenue contracts But that also has processes and things that I've developed over the years that has value So focus on process not heroics Consistency and checklists make you better By the way, I write my checklists with my 15 year old daughter in mind Because I want her to be able to read it and do it If she can read it and do it pretty much anybody could right Okay number six We talked about this a little bit earlier But there are seasons to freelance work How many of you know what I'm talking about ups and downs slow time busy times Don't waste the slow times Because here's what happens see if this sounds familiar it sure happens familiar to me. Oh my gosh. I've got so much work to do I'm totally stressed. Oh my gosh. There's no work coming in. I'm totally stressed Right, how crazy are we? Don't waste the slow times What I've learned is that there's an alert from the National Weather Service Well, Lord help them find them What I've learned is that the slow times are coming Listen the slow times are coming and the business will come back. It will I Was given this talk in Denver Something similar to this talk in Denver of last year and this slide came up And I had to stop and laugh to myself because just I mean just on the plane ride over. I was thinking to myself gosh It's really kind of slow right now. I wonder if the business is coming back and Then the morning of the talk three Proposals I had came back in of course they all come in at once right? That's the way it works The business will come back there are ebbs and flows in business that take People with lots of letters after their last name to understand and make sense of and sometimes they can't even make sense of it But there are ebbs and flows in business. I've tried to track it seasonally There's no absolutely no pattern at least for me Maybe you've got some patterns out there that are seasonal with the kind of people you work with I don't know if you can track it. You're awesome do it for me I've never been able to track it. All I know is that there are seasons and freelance work So here's what I do I Keep a someday list and my someday list has all those neat ideas that I pick up at a word camp or Read about in somebody's blog post or some cool plugin I want to give a try or whatever and I keep a someday list and when it gets to be a slow time I just start working through my someday list Because that way it keeps me from stressing out over gosh, there's not enough work coming in And so I'm doing stuff like rebuilding my own website for a change or I'm testing this new cool toy or something That you know would have distracted me at other times Well now I can focus on it and really spend some time working on it. Just don't let the stress of being busy Keep you from enjoying the down times because here's the beautiful thing about freelancing If it's slow You get to take a day off And you don't have to ask your boss Because you are the boss So take a day off. It's perfectly fine. If it's slow. Enjoy it It's gonna be not slow again at some point likely in the near future So enjoy the time keep a someday list use the time wisely But don't be afraid to go do stuff with your family your kids your wife your friends your partner whatever Take the time and enjoy it. You know freelancing has enough stresses where we don't need to compound it by artificial stresses Enjoy the slow times alright number seven Bad clients are never worth the hassle ever Ever worth the hassle one good client leads to another Now like I mentioned earlier It's likely that many of you have had those experiences where you've had to take bad clients just to put food on the table and that's You know we've all been through that most likely But when things are going well and this client comes along and Your radar goes off your spider senses start tingling and you're just thinking It's just not something right. I'm getting I'm not getting a good vibe about this, but there's a paycheck at the end Anybody else ever think about it? I kind of want to take that jogs. It's got a few grand on it Bad clients are never worth the hassle Here's what happens when a when you let a bad client into your world They may write you a check but it's never ever Going to equal the amount of mental and emotional capital you have to invest to make them happy and some of them you can never make happy It's never worth it never worth the hassle So I got a whole talk on this but a client meeting is like a first date and think of it that way when you're meeting with a client and Something just doesn't seem right. I mean it's been a long time since I dated. I mean I've been married 24 years this year But I remember some of my dates How many of you remember those dates and you're going something's just not quite right here and When you're dating somebody you always get the best version of that person on the first date that you're ever gonna get right Think of the client relationship that way when you're meeting with a client for the first time and the client is rude That's as good as it gets right there Seriously, that's as good as it gets you're getting the best version of the client you're ever gonna get So when you see red flags during that client meeting red flags are like tips of the iceberg. There's a whole lot more underneath So listen don't make excuses for the client You don't have to work with everybody and you shouldn't listen work with everybody So if you got a bad feeling about a client on that first date listen to your gut On the other side of that. There's some really great clients out there really great clients and It's almost like it I had these conversations a lot with freelancers at events like this or in a coaching call or whatever and a Lot of times it'll have the conversation will start like gosh You know I know you talk about these great clients who actually you know pay what you're worth And they're not a lot of trouble and they just it projects just go well And I've just never experienced anything like that. I think they're a unicorn. Everybody talks about them, but they're not real Right. I mean are they really out there? They really real? Yeah, they're out there. You just have to keep looking for them And then it's almost How many of you know what I'm talking about you've had bad clients and you have some good clients It totally changed the way okay Tell me if this is your story because it seems to be a lot of people's stories It's like for years. I was working with these awful clients. They took advantage of me They didn't pay me what I was worth. They didn't pay on time. They wanted way more than the scope of work It was on and on and on I was never making any money I was miserable and then one day I met this client and They started treating me well, and they paid me well and like everything changed. It's like this You're welcome in this new world of like great clients because what happens is that one good client for whatever reason? I wish I could understand the metric or the whatever, but it's like the universe lines up and all of a sudden more good clients follow Now some of it is that good clients refer you to other good clients And I learned the lesson a long time ago that good people travel in packs They do good people like to refer good people to good people Right and so that's some of it But it's like I don't I don't know what the the Mechanism is here, but when you find that first good client All of a sudden more good client It's like you are now aware of the fact that there is something outside the realm of bad clients And there really are people who will treat you well and value your work and pay you you know pay you fairly So all that to say if you're in the place right now where you've got really crappy clients Hang in there Keep perfecting your process keep perfecting your craft because one day you will meet a great client and everything's gonna change It will how many of you that's your story you met what the one good client and everything changed Yeah, there's several of you out there sure same story, and I hear that a lot All right number eight Okay, we're doing good on time number eight Don't be a hero. I'm gonna make a whole talk on this one day. I'm still flushing it out, but Don't be a hero and here's what I mean by that It's good to be helpful. It's good to serve people, you know I go into every client relationship wanting to to you know to serve them well However Fixing the client is outside the scope of work, and if your self-worth Lies in people patting you on the back and telling you job. Well done If your self-worth relies upon people needing you You're in for a world of hurt in the freelance world And this this is not a symptom that is just confined to the freelance world It's probably another relationships in your life as well But there is a kind of client code dependency that I see in working with freelancers Where they need to be needed so bad that they'll work late trying to fix a little stupid problem But the client wanted or you know the work weekends or they'll miss their kids birthdays because the client work was more important Because they were getting the pat on the back. Good job at a boy at a girl Don't be a hero if you have a tendency towards this You need strong strong boundaries in your business You need to be accountable to somebody who will see that in you and call you out on it because listen There's a whole lot more in life. It's more important than building somebody's stupid website And I got to tell you I'm you know, I'm ashamed to say that in the early days. I fed on this I had the cape and boots the whole deal I'd say tights, but that might be a violation of the code of conduct. I'm not sure I Mean I was this I was the superhero and I love the client saying how great I was and I'd let my family become second priority because of that. Don't do that. That's stupid It's stupid But there's something in me that needed to be needed So don't make my mistake, right? Don't be a hero Don't try to fix the client All right, number nine Your business should serve you and not vice versa Freelancing empowers you to set your own priorities freelancing is a wonderful thing. I am I am a firm believer in Owning your own business setting your own destiny Doing what you feel like you need to do with your life and the wonderful thing about WordPress and this is I Don't know a very other very many other Software platforms or supporting communities that let us do what we do so well. I mean think about it They're giving you the tools for free to make money And there's a whole community of people that support you while you do it for real It's an amazing Amazing thing that we have here, but in the big picture philosophy My I've always been able to structure my business in such a way that it Supported whatever my goals in life were And I think you know my dad could never get his mind around this name that he and I've had long talks about this But you know like he over Appeared in my dad's life. My dad was a sales manager regional sales manager when he retired Great when he took care of customers knew the details never let anything fall between the cracks He was the guy you could rely on like my dad's tools in his garage are like alphabetized. He's like that guy, right? He is totally totally 100% reliable But in the course of three years he was laid off for 18 months in two different two different sections Like he lost a job he had for 20 years because he got restructured had a job for three months restructured him out of existence Again after three months with a new company and then he's out of work another 12 months before he got into the job eventually retired He could never get his mind around how can you work for yourself? There's no job security in it Really let's think about that for a minute Well, see that's the thing I would much rather be beholden to my abilities and what I'm doing Then some boardroom table that I had no control over right? Anyhow all that to say we've got this incredible opportunity to structure a business that works for us right now and Supports our lives with whatever we wanted to do like for four years I worked with nonprofits and you know I was kind of on a sliding scale of you know, 25% of my time do up 75% of my time and the Freelancing business made up the rest of that it let me do what I was called to do and still feed my family Well, what we do is wonderful the freelance world is wonderful And when the time came several years ago when I was time to walk away from that nonprofit I just ramp back up full-time in my business again and never look back You know, I know people who were in the situation I was in who had to go work at Walmart or work at some Retail or whatever and just try their best to make ends meet because when the economy crashed a lot of people What I did struggled with income I Didn't have that struggle because I had a business that could support whatever my life priorities were at that time So one of the people I was coaching a couple of years ago had as her priority They're ready to have a baby Right. She's she started her WordPress business like a lot of us do which is you know I'm doing something else and I built a website for the business I was working for and now everybody's asking me to build websites. Wow. I could do this full-time. That was her story so she built her business and we started working together in some coaching situations and a couple of these folks know who I'm talking about and With her permission, I'm telling the story, but she Wanted to have a baby and wanted to take six months off to have a baby in her business So what did she do? She put everything together. She's systematized She on-boarded people and she took six months off to have a baby now. How awesome is that? Where else could you do that and then pick right back up where you left off? It's fabulous what we can do. I have another friend who's from Oklahoma and Chris is A remarkable guy built a WordPress business and Chris and his family they have 12 kids 12 kids Two of them are theirs Ten of them are adopted Ten of them are adopted special needs kids Chris has a WordPress business and they felt like they needed to move to Just outside of Kiev Ukraine and Work with families with children of special needs because in the Ukraine those folks are Not taken care of the way we take care of people here So they move their family with ten special needs kids the others are in college now ten special needs kids across the world To do what they felt called to do and guess what the WordPress business Makes it happen and some donations, but the WordPress business makes it happen now. That's awesome So my question for you is What's the purpose of your business in your life? It's so easy to get so busy in business That that becomes the purpose is just my business life is a lot bigger than that What is it that you really want to do? Freelancing will let you set your own priorities What is it that you really want to do in life and then structure your business around that? That'll that's transformational Okay, one more. We're done Being busy is not a badge of honor How you doing Nathan? Oh, I'm busy busy How you doing Mickey Mickey? I'm crazy busy Right crazy busy and when somebody tells you that what do you think of him? Oh, they're busy. They're really doing something There's an article in March 2017 in the Harvard Business Review called crazy busy the new status symbol and they did this research of You know among people and they showed him a couple of Facebook profiles fake Anyway, that's another story That's a whole other talk They showed him a couple of Facebook profiles and one was like the guys, you know He's just kind of lounging around not doing much, you know, whatever and the other guys like oh, he's busy He's meetings. He's traveling here going there doing this doing that. Which one is the most successful Without sale. I mean it was like I can't remember the percentage is I'd make them up You know like 78.2% of all statistics are made up on the spot. Have you heard that one? I can't remember what it was but That's like the one don't believe everything you read on the internet said Abraham Lincoln But huge percentage of people looking at those Facebook profiles says the guy that's super busy is the more successful one That's a modern phenomenon Success even today success in Europe is more defined by how much leisure time you have But today if I want people to think I'm doing well, I'm busy crazy busy crazy busy Crazy busy. I am a productivity geek Like seriously, I love personal productivity and I'm always tweaking refining doing things to to improve the efficiency I have in my business But what's the point of that? It's not to do more work The purpose of productivity is not to do more work It's to create margin Margin think about that for a minute margin Time where if I want to do more work, I can but if I want to take the afternoon off and hang out with my kids I can do that too Or I can come and hang out at word camp Or I can do whatever it is that I want to do The purpose of productivity is to create margin in your life so that you can do with it what you need to do so Being busy is not a badge of honor. Don't forget about what really matters in life There's a little rule that I put into place several years ago where I would I Would divide my day into three parts Every day is morning afternoon and evening my family always got two of those apart me work got two of those parts My family always got one Right, so if my kids when they were little if they have a program at school in the morning I could go but my wife would know I'm working that night though, you know to make up for it Right, so we have this very simple rule about how I structured my time And there's sometimes from super busy and generally like working on a deadline that I would be working morning noon and night But I was accruing debt So I owe the family three days and my wife is very good about reminding me when Those three days are up right anyhow all that to say being busy not a badge of honor What what matters to you in life? What are you trying to do? What's your life about structure your business and your time around making that happen because you have the freedom To do it as a freelancer