How to Live a Self-Employed Life

Welcome back to my weekly LinkedIn newsletter! In this edition, we are featuring fantastic advice from Jeffrey Shaw, author of The Self-Employed Life!?This also serves as a reminder for my weekly interview show with Newsweek, Better. It airs today at 12 pm EDT/9 am PT/5 pm GMT, and this week I’ll have the founder of stage32.com, RB Botto, talking with me about how to pitch your idea. To add a calendar reminder for later today, you can click here.

Also, if you aren’t part of my email list, which has completely different content than this newsletter, sign up here - it has advice on personal branding, strategies to grow your business, and ways that you can lead a more fulfilling life.

Jeffrey Shaw entered into the world of business working for himself as a kid and never looked back. He’s found that a self-employed life has been a constant state of evolution and growth as his interests changed and developed over the years. If you would like to hear every pearl of wisdom shared in our recent interview, you can view a replay of our talk here. For now, these are some thoughts Jeffrey shared with me about the power of having career autonomy in a self-employed life:

Identifying your new business:

“You might want to look for some innate qualities and characteristics that you have that you actually can monetize. That sounds crazy. But one thing I would suggest, and I often do as an exercise with my clients, is to make a list of compliments that you have heard probably throughout your life. What is the thing that people have repeatedly said to you, that maybe they come to you for because you have a way of cutting to the chase? One of the primary reasons why many of us, particularly creatives, don't get paid their full value, is because what they're really good at is so natural to them, that they don't see the value in it. Pay particular to the ones that you're like, 'Oh, that? That's so easy for me.' It's probably worth a fortune to somebody else. That can begin to head you in the right direction because honestly, almost anything can be monetized. I'm not kidding.”

Creating stability when you are on your own:

“I think stability in a traditional job is a myth. Maybe it's just ingrained in my soul. I mean, I've actually never had a traditional job of any kind. I've never received a paycheck. So, this is all I know. But I'll tell you - having control of your own life is far more stable to me than that feeling that the rug can be pulled out from underneath you at any time. If you're thinking about becoming self-employed, how much financial runway can you give yourself? Initially thinking, figure out how you can get by for seven months. The more you can have in financial reserves, the more time you can buy yourself. Even if you have three months of reserves, you can stretch everything else out for another three months. Just say the first year is your journey back to a level of income that may or may not match what you're leaving, but to a point of sustainability.”

Setting boundaries:

“When we're self-employed, we all know that there's no line between your personal life and your business. That doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a line in as far as how much you work. Structure your day. I do coaching calls from 10:00 to 12:00. I take an hour off for lunch. Calls from 1:00 to 3:00. From 3:00 to 6:30 I write content, whether it's a book, articles, and that's my workday. Prior to that, I've been up since 6:00 AM and I read for an hour every morning. I take my dog for a walk. I make my chai tea. I do 45 minutes of exercise. So, from six to ten, even before I even make my first phone call, even that is all really structured.”

Thanks so much for reading my newsletter! To learn more about building a self-employed life, check out Jeffrey’s website at jeffreyshaw.com. Next Thursday I’ll be speaking with the author of Rogue Waves, Jonathan Brill! We’ll talk about how to adapt to exponential change. For a calendar reminder, click here.

On a final note, don’t worry if you can’t make today’s interview, because we always make a replay available! It’s uploaded to my YouTube page. If you’d like to be notified when the newest episode is available, subscribe to my channel and you’ll receive a notification.

Wishing you health and success -?

Dorie