Helping business owners, freelancers & other self-employed creatives succeed… and have fun doing it. It can be overwhelming at times, but there’s nothing like the privilege of working for yourself – making your own rules, owning your time, and trusting your instincts to make the right decisions. With short episodes that get straight to the point, this podcast is about the common issues we face in business, along with solutions that work for other creatives like you. Aardvark Girl is a producer, project manager & business specialist with 20+ years of experience managing companies & helping people in creative industries. She helps you get a handle on the business side of things so you can focus on your talent. Let's get to work!
Episodes
Monday Apr 26, 2021
Why is Authenticity Still on Trend?
Monday Apr 26, 2021
Monday Apr 26, 2021
If you’re enjoying this podcast and want to join the conversation, the “Self-Employed Creatives” club meets every Wednesday at 4pm Pacific time on Clubhouse. I hope you’ll join us there: https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/self-employed-creati
Authenticity has been a hot topic for a while now. But what does it mean to be your "true authentic self," and why is that so important?
The full episode transcript is available at http://aardvarkgirl.com/authenticity
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I’ve noticed a trend amongst the people I’ve talked to in the last year. Authenticity comes up over and over again as one of the most important traits. It can sound a little odd – if you’re not yourself, then who are you? But who you are inside isn’t always how you reflect yourself on social media, in business meetings, and everywhere else. Sometimes it’s intentional, because you’re trying to present a specific image of how you want people to see you. Other times it’s subconscious, and you’re subtly changing yourself to try to fit in. That’s not always a bad thing, but if it takes away from who you truly are, it can cause problems down the line.
What exactly is authenticity and why is it still on trend? Why is everyone looking for everyone’s “true authentic self?” I think it’s because we’re tired of being manipulated by marketing, media, and sales gimmicks. We don’t want the façade. We want to relate to others on a human level and we can’t do that if someone else is living a “perfect” life all the time. It seems we’re yearning for people to be real and vulnerable and talk about the challenges everyone faces so we don’t feel like we’re the only one who feels a certain way or is dealing with certain issues. Despite all the great things technology brings us, I think that the constant connection is actually making us feel more disconnected than ever. We’re not actually talking and communicating. We’re aggressively typing words with our thumbs and conveying emotions through yellow faces and other emojis, in as few characters as possible. The letter K has actually become a complete sentence, and a complete question. K? K.
But people have been trying to show the best version, not the real version, of themselves for a long time. That’s nothing new. I always think back to a conversation I had with a friend in my 20s. She didn’t understand why I wouldn’t get dressed up and put on a bunch of makeup to go on a date. But that’s not who I am. I don’t wear a lot of makeup, and I don’t mind getting dressed up, but only if the occasion calls for it. I don’t want to present some guy with a false image so he thinks I look a certain way all the time and then months later it’s like surprise! I’m actually just a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl who doesn’t spend much time getting ready. I always figured he should see me for who I am from the very beginning, so I wasn’t wasting anyone’s time, including my own. I think that’s why so many relationships start falling apart, because people can only put on an act for so long before their true selves start to show. So why not show it from the beginning and see what happens when you’re starting off from an honest place?
People do it in job interviews all the time, too. They try to look the part and think of the perfect way to talk about themselves to impress the person interviewing them. It makes sense why they do that. There’s only one chance to make that first impression and stand out amongst all of the candidates. But once you get into that job, you have to deliver on what you promised, and sometimes that’s when people fall short. Now that I think about it, I’ve never actually done the forced interview thing. I’ve been working for 24 years but I’ve always been myself in the process. I got one job through a referral at an informal meal. Another one I went in for an interview in my normal clothes and ultimately got the job because the owner thought I was quirky, and he liked that. And my last job I was recruited by the owner of a company. I didn’t think I wanted to take the job, so I ignored the calls for months. I finally agreed to meet with him so he’d stop calling, and I showed up in jeans and a t-shirt and got the job. And since I’ve been working for myself, I’ve never made any forced effort with a client, even if it’s my first time meeting them. I mean, these days people are mostly only getting dressed for the top half that can be seen on a Zoom screen, so maybe we’ve all relaxed our expectations about appearance a little bit. People seem to be quite proud of themselves when they manage to put on pants.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t make an effort in our lives. But we should always be striving to be the best version of ourselves we can be, not just act like it. And part of that comes down to knowing who you are. Self-awareness has been coming up a lot in conversation lately, too, and it’s all tied together. You can’t be who you are if you don’t know what’s important to you. And if you’re trying to be who you think other people want to be, instead of who you actually are, you’re probably going to end up frustrated and exhausted. It just takes too much energy to pretend all the time, doesn’t it?
According to the good old Webster’s dictionary (do people still use dictionaries?), authentic means “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.” Does that describe you? If not, how can you change your actions in a way that aligns more genuinely with who you are?
When I first started Aardvark Girl, I had this idea in my mind that I had to showcase my professional side all the time. I’m helping people with their businesses, so I need to be business-y. So I’d post my tips and try to be motivational and offer my best advice. My quotes were authentic and reflected what I truly believe, but there wasn’t much character there. The more I figured out what I wanted my business to be, the more I figured out that that wasn’t the best portrayal of me. When I really figured out my target audience, self-employed creatives, it started to click more, and I’ve slowly added more of my personality into my work. I still keep a lot of my personal life to myself, but I do share more than I used to.
I’ve only ever really known how to be me. I’ve always told people I think that’s why I don’t enjoy wearing costumes. Halloween is not my jam. Every time I’ve tried, I feel incredibly awkward, and I really think it’s because I’m not comfortable being anyone other than who I am. Some people love to pretend for a night, but it’s just not for me. That’s why now if someone convinces me to go to anything themed or requiring a costume, I’ll wear something I’d normally wear. A couple years ago I went as High School Amanda. I have this old pair of bell bottoms that everyone signed one year, so I dug those up and wore those, one of my old Nirvana t-shirts from back then, got a new pair of Dr Martens and parted my hair down the middle, and put on some eyeliner. That was it. There was a 70s themed party before that where I wore a different, but new, pair of bell bottoms, the same Dr Martens and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt. I’m not kidding. I really only know how to be me.
Being authentic is not just about appearance, though. It’s about personality and actions, too. There are times I feel it works against me because people want me to be someone I’m not. They want me to loosen up, or be more fun, or whatever it is that normal people do. But it’s not that I’m uptight, I just know what I like and what I don’t, and I’m okay honoring myself. I don’t drink and go to a bunch of parties and do the Vegas club thing. I have fun in my own ways, and that’s okay with me. I’m a little goofy and sarcastic and I usually don’t show enough emotion, but that’s just the way I am. I think we all have to do what’s right for ourselves and let others do the same. You do you, right?
That attitude has really helped me all these years. When I meet a new person, whether it’s a client, a vendor, a stranger at the grocery store, I act in a way that’s true to me. I’m nice, I laugh a lot, I make odd comments every now and then. That’s how I got the name Aardvark Girl. I do what I can to help those around me. And that’s why people want to be around me. Not because I’m pretending, but because I am. I don’t need to wear certain clothes or fake a certain personality to accomplish my goals. So I’m not going to waste my energy trying. I just don’t see the point.
I’ve been participating in these weekly Clubhouse chats in various groups. We often go live on Instagram after the discussion to keep the conversations going in a less formal setting, and it ends up being a lot of fun. We are definitely silly, and we make each other laugh, while also talking about things that matter. I had a realization a few weeks ago that part of why I’ve been enjoying it so much is it gives me a break from talking business all the time. It’s more of a social hangout with friends. They also have their own businesses, but by that point we just talk about whatever comes up. And we all seem to be our authentic, silly, fun selves. It’s great.
Being a single person business can be isolating at times in normal circumstances. Add in working entirely from home for a year without being able to see people in person, and it’s easy to understand why it’s taken such a toll on so many people. It’s been a great reminder of how important it is to socialize with friends and to have fun. Sometimes you put so much focus on your work that it’s easy to forget to honor the “you” part of you. I think it’s important to embrace those parts of you – the quirky side, the silly side, the hobbies that others might find weird, the crazy ideas that no one understands but you know are going to work. Be who you are, unapologetically. The world needs you just as you are.
Monday Apr 19, 2021
Working Through Pain, Grief and Other Turmoil
Monday Apr 19, 2021
Monday Apr 19, 2021
We all know it's important to set boundaries, but what do you do when you've already committed to something and you're just not feeling your best?
If you’re enjoying this podcast, please leave a review and share with your friends! You can find me @aardvarkgirl on all social platforms and the “Self-Employed Creatives” club meets every Wednesday at 4pm Pacific time on Clubhouse. We’d love for you to join us there. https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/self-employed-creati
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The full transcript is available at https://aardvarkgirl.com/painandgrief
You’ve probably heard me talk about the importance of setting boundaries with your clients, saying no, and making sure you’re taking care of yourself so you don’t burn out. As business owners, we need to protect ourselves from those who think they can control our time or the way we work. We get to choose when, where, and how we get the job done. That typically boils down to communication and it’s pretty straight forward to understand.
But what happens when we can’t really say no? Not because we’re afraid or timid, but because we’ve made a commitment and people are relying on us. We can’t always shut everything down because we’re not feeling well or are dealing with something personal that’s pulling our focus. There are times when we have to power through whatever it is because we said we would get something done. That can get pretty tricky because you need to take care of yourself, but the rest of the team still needs you to stay on track.
I personally deal with chronic pain issues. I don’t always know when the bad days are going to hit me, so I can’t exactly plan for it. Sometimes I wake up knowing I have a full day of work ahead and it’s going to be difficult because my head is throbbing. But I have responsibilities, so I have to suck it up.
Why? Because if I don’t, my clients are going to get behind on what they need to do. As great and understanding as they all are, it’s not always practical to think they can put everything on hold because I’m having a bad day. I actually don’t think I’ve ever asked anyone to do that. I don’t make my pain an issue. It’s not that I hide it, but I don’t generally talk about it because I don’t need the pity and I know I’m not going to let it affect my work.
Of course, I still use my basic time management and prioritization skills to know what I absolutely have to get done and what I can possibly put off another day if I need to. That self-awareness is the biggest key to all of this for me. I know myself and my workflow well enough to know what I need to do and when. That means I can quickly assess what’s going on to figure out that balance between taking a break I need while also fulfilling my obligations on time.
When I sat down to work on a recent crazy day, I looked over everything that needed to be done. There would be no way to predict what the show might need, but I would have to stay on top of my emails and text messages in case something happened. The marketing video had a concrete deadline and I had to make sure that was priority, that everyone did what they needed to do so we could get a new file uploaded by a certain time. The sale was still a week way, so I knew I could put that on the backburner if needed. As new requests came in, I gave them the same thought – does it need to be done today or can it wait?
Of course, the way I work, I also know that putting things off can be dangerous because I never know what’s going to come up unexpectedly. So that day, I still got everything done because I felt okay to do it. Sometimes, though, you need to take a nap. Or spend time not staring at a screen. Or go outside. Or hang out with your pet for a bit. Or whatever you need to do to make you feel better, even if it’s only temporary. The important thing is to keep realistic about what still needs to get done and where you can hold off if you need to.
Physical issues come with their own challenges, but what happens when the problems are mental or emotional? It can be really hard to keep going with business as usual when some part of your world is falling apart at the same time. If you’re dealing with a loss or are worried about something, it’s hard to keep your head in the game. But sometimes you don’t really have another choice. Of course, everything is a choice and you can decide to brush off your obligations, but you should probably consider the repercussions to doing that.
Unfortunately, I have experience with this too. The day before I was leaving to work on my first rocket launch, my cousin died, completely unexpectedly. The job was a pretty high pressure one already. It was my first one and even though I’d been prepped by the best, sometimes you can’t really prepare for those jobs until you’re in them. I have a pretty strong ability to compartmentalize. Meaning, I can put feelings aside when I need to in order to focus on something else. It’s not avoidance or denying they exist, but it’s a way of telling myself, “Hey, you don’t have time for this right now so let’s put it over here for a minute and we’ll come back to it at a better time.”
In that case, it was probably good that the job required nonstop attention. It was busy and a little chaotic, but also what an incredibly cool opportunity to be part of something like that. The day the rocket was supposed to launch, it rained, and we had to push everything another day. The next day it almost got pushed again, but it ended up happening. But it happened much later in the day than usual, and I was supposed to leave that day. In normal circumstances, I would’ve stayed an extra day to make sure everything got wrapped out properly. But it was at that point I had to have an honest check-in with myself. I needed to go home. It had been a long several days in the cold, without much sleep, away from home without any of my normal life comforts like healthy food, my Tempurpedic bed, my cats, all that stuff. So I talked to my client, explained what was going on (I hadn’t mentioned it prior because I knew I wasn’t going to let it affect my job performance) and he was fine with me leaving as scheduled.
Like with everything else, handling these situations often comes down to two things – honesty and communication.
By honesty, I mostly mean being honest with yourself. What state of mind are you in? Can you still do the job? Can you get through it without making mistakes or creating too much of a burden on yourself or anyone else involved? If you try to show up, will you break down and wish you would’ve stepped back? If you choose to cancel, what will that do to your relationship with your clients? Will it hurt your income in any long-term sense, and can you handle that? It’s a lot to think about when your brain is likely tied up with other things, but it should be a decision based on logic as much as emotion, if not more. Only you can know what you really need to do, and even that can be pretty difficult to determine if you’ve never been in that kind of situation before. But hopefully you know yourself well enough to make an educated guess about what the best move will be.
Then it’s all about communication. I don’t think it’s a good idea to share the details of your personal drama with everyone. That’s not the way I handle things. Everyone is different, though, so you have to do what feels right to you. It’s also important to be mindful of how you communicate to make sure your explanations don’t come across as excuses. In general, I like to believe that people are understanding because chances are they’ve been in similar situations themselves. But, no matter what is going on in our lives, we have to remain professional.
When you’re communicating something difficult, it’s also important to give as much notice as possible and provide them with a solution. If you know that you aren’t going to be able to deliver what you’ve promised, or perform effectively on a job, you have to let the client know before it’s too late. And give them an alternate plan so they aren’t the ones stuck scrambling to pick up the slack for you. If you can’t be available for the time you’ve committed, find someone who can do it for you, and give them that option. Then they can either accept or decide to use someone else. If they go with your referral, though, make sure you properly onboard that person so it’s a seamless transition. This will show your clients that even though your priorities had to shift, you didn’t leave them hanging. This is a good way to keep a strong relationship so you can come back when you’re ready.
Also, if you decide to power through, make sure you can still deliver. It comes back to being honest with yourself and what you can handle. While it’s admirable to try to pull through when you’re struggling, it’s worse to say you can do it and then fall short, especially if it can negatively impact the client or project. And if it gets to be too much, be honest. At that point, it’s better to let them know that you’re not at your best and you are concerned that you won’t be able to give them what they need than to halfway commit and not do a good job. In most cases, I think people will be understanding and work with you to figure it out. If not, it’s probably not the right fit for you anyway and you should take care of yourself.
It’s hard to work through pain, grief, and other turmoil. There are times when you just want to shut down your brain and go lay in bed, lose yourself in a book, or binge watch a mindless show to take your mind off of what’s going on. Other times, you want to surround yourself with family and friends who can help you through a situation. And sometimes your head and your heart are just not in what you have to do, and you have to figure out how to get through it without letting anyone down, including yourself. And despite what you want to do, there are times when what you have to do is to push through it all because you made a commitment and backing out of it just isn’t a real option. When that happens, do what you have to do to get through it and then, when the job is done, take care of yourself.
Figure out what is urgent and what can be done later. Take breaks if you need to. Communicate with the other people involved and be honest with yourself in deciding what you have to do. Bad things happen. We can’t always control the timing of it all, and sometimes we have to decide whether it’s more important to honor our present internal needs or our previous commitments. No matter what the situation is, be kind to yourself in the process. Sometimes that’s all you can really do.
Monday Apr 12, 2021
Shawn Eiferman: The People You Meet & the Books You Read
Monday Apr 12, 2021
Monday Apr 12, 2021
Shawn Eiferman is a singer, songwriter, musician & creative entrepreneur who's been a staple of Las Vegas entertainment since the 90s. When he's not performing, he's exploring other business ventures like creating solutions for working musicians and renovating RVs.
In this episode, we're talking about his career in the music business, doing what you're passionate about, and the two things that will change your life: the people you meet and the books you read.
He's played shows countless major artists, but the highlights of his career have been singing with Prince and opening for Journey. Even though live shows have sustained his career, he always has some backup plans in place.
When COVID shut everything down, he pivoted into the road trip business with his Free Bird RV Fleet. And while his crystal ball is busted, he's looking forward to playing more show and seeing the artistic explosion that's bound to come out of the shutdown.
The full transcript is available at https://aardvarkgirl.com/shawneiferman/
Connect with Shawn @shawneiferman
Connect with me on your favorite platform: https://pods.link/aardvarkgirl
The "Self-Employed Creatives" club meets Wednesdays at 4pm Pacific time on Clubhouse.
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00:41 Since I was 15 years old, I've been making a living butchering songs wherever there's a bar and a place to plug in some stuff. I just got really, really lucky/fortunate. And it comes with hard work.
03:04 As a songwriter, I made a living just writing songs in the 90s. I've had stuff placed in TV and film. And as a songwriter, it's a different ego. It's a different beast that you're feeding, because the truly creative side is really out there.
05:11 Persistence wins, I guess, because out of nowhere, like two-and-a-half-hours into this thing, he goes “Come on up.” And so I got to sing with Prince. That's the highlight of my whole music career.
08:25 I set myself up for other things besides music, because I knew that my hands weren't gonna be able to play guitar forever. I’m not gonna be able to sing forever.
11:17 The only thing that's missing [in Vegas] is the songwriting culture.
12:00 What a spectacular opportunity to be able to share a stage with Guns and Roses and Goo Goo Dolls on New Year's Eve in the entertainment capital of the world. And then literally the same night - I wish I was joking - we had booked at Texas station starting at 11 o'clock at night.
14:45 All my favorite family vacations were road trips in that RV with my kids. And so when COVID hit, we poured gasoline on that fire, and I now have 14 RVs. Some of them we're customizing and renovating and flipping for sale, and some of them are in the Free Bird RV fleet. It's something I've always loved to do. Road trips have always been fun, you know? It's a cool thing, and so we're now in the road trip business.
17:00 You got to meet different, better people and read different, better books. It's everything. The people that you meet, and the books you read, will change your life. You don't have to worry about what to do. You'll figure out a way how to do it by those two things. They'll just kind of present themselves.
21:23 I really believe in that whole balance in all things. It's a shift, I think, a paradigm shift of, I could be a musician or I could be in the music business. And I don't know what happened, quite frankly. It was probably somebody I met or a book I read. But I decided a long time ago to be in the music business. I didn't mind bands I was in, or myself, being thought of as a product. Whatever it took to be able to balance my creative life with a business model.
24:04 We started to get the offers that we got, from 33rd Street records all the way to Universal and Interscope. A handful of interesting conversations were going on. And I think the deal breaker across the board, just six months later, was some guy at some label in some office going, “Oh, well, what are your MySpace numbers?” That was it.
29:14 I created an LLC a few years back that is just solutions for working musicians. I'm in conversations with Fender right now to sell the design to this [built-in guitar stand] to start building and selling the Fender Standacaster.
35:24 Collaborate. You don't know everything. Collaborating with those people, understanding how other people write songs, figuring out what why a drummer plays what a drummer would want to play in a song versus what's best for the song. It’s empathy, I guess. Treat everybody how you want to be treated is an interesting way to look at your musical endeavors. Because part of collaborating is the audience, and until you put yourself in the seat of that person out there, you can't really make a living out of this. You can't do it at a certain level. You have to make it about them.
39:00 What COVID, I believe, globally is going to produce is the time and the energy and the passion of the average creative person has now been kind of massaged into this, well, what do I want to do? I think there's going to be poetry, books, music. I think the films that are going to come out… some of the scripts, the stuff that's going to come out of this shutdown will be a renaissance. I think some of the paintings we're going to see, and that there's going to be an artistic explosion.
Monday Apr 05, 2021
My Favorite Things About Self-Employment
Monday Apr 05, 2021
Monday Apr 05, 2021
Last week’s topic was pretty heavy, so I want to lighten things up this week. You’ve heard me start a lot of sentences with “one of my favorite things about working for myself is…” I often laugh at myself when I say it because I realize I have a lot of favorite things about self-employment. So for anyone thinking about starting a business, here are some perks that are waiting for you when you do. Or if you’re already in business for yourself, maybe this is another reminder why you’re doing what you do.
I'd love it if you'd share your favorite things about working for yourself, too! DM me on social @aardvarkgirl and join me in the "Self-Employed Creatives" club on Clubhouse. We chat on Wednesdays at 4pm Pacific time to discuss these topics in a fun, safe and collaborative space: https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/self-employed-creati
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These are in no particular order, because it’s impossible to say what I love more at any given time. I do my best to keep a healthy dose of gratitude on hand at all times, because I do know it’s a privilege to be doing this. But I worked hard to get here, and I work hard to stay here.
Maybe one of the most obvious perks of self-employment is the freedom. I am my own boss, which means I decide what I can do on a daily basis. I don’t have to concern myself with looking a certain way, dressing a certain way, or being around a bunch of people when I’d rather be alone. I choose which projects to take on, which means I am engaged in my work and never have to fake it. I don’t have to fill the day with meetings and menial tasks that don’t serve me. I get to focus on whatever I want to do in that moment.
To bring it back down to earth a bit, it doesn’t mean there’s no structure, but there is definitely way more flexibility than working for someone else. I still have clients and deadlines and have to prioritize those over things I want to do personally sometimes. And because I’m a one-person company, it means all the work falls on me unless I outsource it. So it’s not that I don’t have to do all that admin work and other little things, it just means I get to pick when to do it.
Owning my time is another of my favorite things. I choose what hours I work, when I want to take breaks, and I have the ability to be spontaneous. I never liked asking permission to do the things I wanted to do. I’ve always been responsible with my time and work and always felt the corporate structure was too restrictive. I don’t know how many times I was stuck in an office with nothing to do because my work was done for the day but it wasn’t 5pm yet. I don’t like wasting time or filling it arbitrarily, and now I don’t have to do that. It’s not that I have more time in the day, I just have more control over how I spend it.
The earning potential is an amazing part of self-employment. It’s easy to think that being employed by another company offers the most job stability, and while I can see that argument, one I actually made for quite a while when I was still in that world, I now see the limitations of traditional employment. Sure, you might get a steady paycheck so you know you can rely on a certain amount each month. But most of the time you’re lucky if you get a standard cost of living raise once a year, any kind of significant salary increase over time, and any benefits at all. I do miss benefits like health insurance, paid time off and the 401k employer match. But my business income more than compensates for what I no longer have. Part of that freedom I have is the ability to go after any projects I want and reach for goals beyond the scope of what the company can handle. Because I am the company, I know I can handle it.
I really enjoy being able to offer whatever services I feel like offering, and being able to change my mind about what those are. I’m not limited to a title or role. I love being available as a resource for random needs. Some of the emails I get from my clients just make me laugh. Hey, I need to figure out how to borrow a koala who can chew eucalyptus in the same rhythm as the song we’re using for this video. Can you help with that? Okay, that one isn’t real, but I do seem to be the person people reach out to when they need something done and aren’t sure who can do it. I love that. Even if it’s not in my wheelhouse, if I have the time, I’ll do my best to figure it out. I’m nothing if not resourceful and I’m usually up for those kinds of unique challenges.
Choosing which projects to accept, and with whom I want to work, are more favorite things. When you work for another company, you have to work on whatever jobs, and with whatever clients, they want you to. Sometimes that means you have to spend time with those whose personalities don’t mesh with yours. You might have to work on a project with which you have no connection and don’t enjoy. If that happens when it’s your own company, you have the option of firing that client or turning down that project. That frees up room to work on things that are in better alignment with what you want to be doing.
Along those lines, I also love being able to create my own projects. Like this podcast. I don’t think I’d be able to find the time or energy to do this if I was also working a full-time job somewhere else. It’s time consuming, but I don’t mind because I love it. It’s really helped me connect with people on a different level than I’ve been able to do with things like social media or in-person networking. It suits me better. I also think about projects like the “Dream Out Loud” documentary I produced. There’s no way I could’ve taken 3 months off of a job to follow U2 around the world. There are so many things I’ve done in the last 6 years that I never would’ve been able to do if I was chained to a desk 40+ hours a week.
I remember back in 2005 when I was planning my first trip to Australia. My boss said he’d consider letting me have the 2 weeks off. He was a little confused, and I told him I wasn’t asking and that if he had an issue with it, he should consider that to be my notice. He didn’t have a problem with it. But that’s when I learned how much I love traveling and seeing other parts of the world. It was one of the reasons I finally decided to leave the corporate world, so I could work from anywhere as long as I had my laptop and an Internet connection. Since then I’ve worked from Ireland, Germany, England, Canada, and all over the US. Who knows where I’ll work next?
Being tied to an office was never the right fit for me, but I didn’t realize it soon enough. When I think about it now, I don’t know why I didn’t see it. I love that I don’t have to use an alarm. I wake up when I wake up and I go to sleep when I’m tired, not when the clock says I have to because I have to get up in 8 hours. The quality of my sleep is way better, and my energy levels have definitely improved. I don’t lose 1-2 hours a day commuting and being stuck in traffic. I get to spend more time at home, which is a place I love to be. I get to control my environment, so I’m not freezing all day long, listening to all the sounds when I’m trying to focus, or smelling microwaved fish coming out of the communal kitchen. I don’t miss any of those things.
Working for myself gave me back the choice of being social. If you’re not an introvert, that might not make sense. Being around people, while it is often fun, drains my energy. So I’m better in small groups for short periods of time. When I worked in an office, I had to be “on” all the time because I had coworkers, clients, and vendors around all the time. By the time I got home during the week, or on weekends, I was drained. It was difficult to muster up the energy to go out and see friends. Now, I get to be home by myself all day while I’m working, and then I have plenty of energy to meet up with friends or the occasional client. I look forward to it. I’m much more social in my personal life now (or at least when there isn’t a pandemic) and enjoy my outings way more than I used to.
One thing I haven’t really thought about until I started working on this list, but is probably one of the most important things, is how much more respect I get on my own. I didn’t really feel this way too much at the time, but thinking back over all of my years working for other people, I probably should have. I don’t miss people assuming that I would answer the phone, or get coffee for the clients, even though I was in upper management, because I was the only girl in the office. I don’t miss doing extra work to help people who were getting paid for it but couldn’t do it themselves. I don’t miss people condescendingly trying to convince me that I didn’t actually want the things I wanted. I don’t miss people lying to me about what was going on behind the scenes while I naively supported them. And I don’t miss other people secretly doing their best to hold me back so they could keep moving forward. Since I’ve become my own boss, I haven’t had to deal with any of that. Instead, I have clients who value what I have to offer and don’t have any problem paying what I’m worth. It’s been an incredibly welcome change of pace.
The last favorite thing I’ll mention, is the feeling of accomplishment that comes with being in control. I feel like I’ve had to do everything in life on my own, and that’s not a complaint. It’s just how it’s been. I work hard because it’s who I am and have never expected anything in return from anyone. But it’s always nice to be noticed. I appreciate it when someone compliments me for doing a good job. When someone gives me credit for helping them succeed. When someone refers new clients to me because they know I’ll do right by them.
I had too many experiences in the corporate world where other people took credit for the work I did, and often the benefits that came as a result. It was another big motivation for me to go out on my own. I figured it was worth putting my self-confidence to the test. I’d either work hard and earn my own success, or I’d fall flat and realize maybe I wasn’t doing such a good job after all. If I’m being honest, I didn’t actually ever think the latter would happen. I suppose it was always somewhat of a possibility, but I was willing to take the risk. I had to at that point. It took me a long time to get here, but it was worth the wait. I learned what I needed to every step of the way, and know I know exactly what I want, and that’s what I’m going to keep doing.
I’m sure I’ve missed some good stuff, but those are some of my favorite things about being self-employed. If you are also self-employed, what are some of your favorite things about it? Or if you’re thinking about starting your business, what are you most looking forward to? Connect with me on social @aardvarkgirl and let me know! Until then, I’m going to go do one of my favorite things and stop working for the day simply because I feel like it.