Creative Pep Talk
049 - The Freelancer_s Dungeon Map
Hey y'all, just a quick heads up. The episode you're about to listen to is 8 to 10 years old. Now these episodes were intended to be evergreen and I still believe there's a lot of good information in these early episodes, but I do want to let you know that some of my ideas have evolved over time. Times have changed since we made these episodes and ultimately I'd like to think I've grown a lot as an artist and a human and that these don't necessarily represent my best work or the best of the podcast. If you're new around here, I suggest starting with the most recent episode or at least go back to around 300 and move forward from there, enjoy the episode. Hey everybody, it's me, Andy J. Miller, ready to give you some serious podcast action, ready to pep you out of your brains, like Matt Foley, you know who that guy is. So you'll notice that the intro was absent, well, that's because I'm getting rid of that. Episode 50 is next week and honestly, I'm seeing the first 50 episodes as the beta version of the podcast where I try to hold a bunch of things and thought a lot about what I was doing and talk to you guys a lot about what you're getting out of the podcast and next week we have a really special episode that I'm super pumped about. We're going to have new theme music that I'm pumped out of my mind about and you'll find out next week why that is. And as I was doing all this, I kind of wanted to pare down what is this show about who's it for? Now listen, if you're a regular listener and you love the show, the content isn't going to dramatically change. Actually the past two episodes kind of are the same format that I'd like to take forward, that being business time and relationships, and this episode will follow the same kind of format. The information's still going to be from me, still things that I've learned being a commercial artist. All that's not going to change, same kind of content, but I've realized that my core audience are freelance illustrators or would like to be freelance illustrators. And the point of this show is to help freelance illustrators make money making awesome work. That's what this is about. Now, if you're not a freelance illustrator, that's okay. You'll probably get good stuff out of this, but for freelance illustrators, if you are or you want to be, this show is absolutely for you. It's what I'm passionate about. It's what I know about. So that's what the core of this is. All other commercial artists get things out of it, yeah, but I'm focusing it on freelance illustrators, and you can be those designee illustrators like Mikey Burton. But yes, that's what it's for, and that's what I'm going to do going forward. And I hope that it's awesome for you. Today, we're actually going to talk about the freelancers dungeon map, but I'm a believer in the idea of dressing for the job you want, not the job you have. And I have applied this to my creative practice too, which means if you want professional results, you need to present online like a pro. And that means going beyond social media and having a professional website that reflects your style and looks legit. I rebuilt my site this year with Squarespace's fluid engine and was so happy with how easily I could build my vision without coding, that when they approached me to support the show, I jumped at the chance because I love and use this product. So go check it out squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out for yourself. And when you're ready to launch your site, use promo code PEPTALK, all one word, all caps for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks goes out to Squarespace for supporting the show and supporting creators all over the world. Hey, in case you don't know, we have a monthly live virtual meetup every last Monday of the month with supporters of the show from Patreon and sub stack. We have so much fun on these calls and they are the warmest, most encouraging creatives that I have ever met. And we also talk real creative practice stuff. We have authors, illustrators, lettering artists, picture bookmakers, fine artists, musicians, and folks that work in video and film as well. And we have people that are just starting out, people super established in their creative careers and everything in between. For the rest of this year, we're going to chat through our new Journey of the True Fan series, exploring questions and ways to apply these ideas to your own creative practice so that you can leave 2024 stronger than you came in with more visibility, connection with your audience and sales. Sign up to whichever suits you best at either patreon.com/creativepeptalk or antijpizza.substack.com. And I hope to see you at this month's meetup. Before we get into that, let's talk about the Baron Figg giveaway. I picked a winner. Here it is. It's Erin Perry. She is a mother and she listens to the podcast while her kids take a nap. And I wanted to pick you as the winner of the podcast review, Baron Figg competition to encourage you and say you're hustling, you're doing it right, you're on the right path. Super awesome. Send me your address, Erin Perry and I will send you the Baron Figg confidant as well as the little guy, the apprentice, the three pack. Thank you, Erin, for playing. Thanks for all the people that went out and reviewed the podcast on iTunes. If you haven't already and you're a big fan of the show, that's one of the best ways you can help the show. Go review on iTunes. If you want to support the show financially, go check it out at patreon.com/creativepeptalk where you can give a little bit of money my way for each episode of the podcast. I super thank the mess of you who have already pledged and make this an easier decision. Thank you so much. One last thing before we get into the show, my buddy Thomas James from illustration age. He was the host of escape from illustration island. He also runs illustration Friday, I believe. He's a busy guy. He's a great illustrator. He wrote a book a few years back, it's an ebook called 15 Steps to Freelance illustration. He sent it to me and he supports the podcast and asked me to look at it, see if I thought it was something that would be relevant to you guys. Now if you're new to the freelance game, I think this is an especially important resource for you. It's got mock contracts. It's got the pitfalls of bad clients. It's got a whole mess of advice from other illustrators at the end of the book, which is super awesome. There are all kinds of things that you couldn't possibly know about unless you've been in the industry for a little while. Go check that out. You can find it on illustration age.com. It's called 15 Steps to Freelance illustration. You can also find my podcast at illustration age.com/creativepeptalk. For the syndicates, proud syndicates of the podcast, I super thank you, Thomas. Keep doing awesome stuff for the illustration community. All right. All that stuff's out of the way. Let's get down to the real business, the real deal content for you guys. Here's what it is. It's called the Freelancers Dungeon Map. Now if you have played Zelda before, you know what the dungeon map is. If you haven't, let me explain. In Zelda, Link, the hero, Zelda's not the hero. That's the first thing you've got to know. Link, he goes to different dungeons, finds weapons, and kills a major boss, and he does that several times throughout the game, sometimes like 10 different dungeons in a game. Now here's the thing about the dungeon map. Now when you go into the dungeon, you don't have the map, and you walk aimlessly throughout all the doors, and chambers, and kill bad guys, and all that stuff, and you're looking for the compass, you're looking for the key, you're looking for the secret weapon, and you're looking for the boss to destroy the final boss of the dungeon. Here's the thing though. The dungeon map isn't that exciting, right? It's not the exciting thing. It's the least exciting thing that you find along the way, but it's the thing that tells you where everything is. And when you're walking through the dungeon, you wouldn't believe how easy it is to pass over a door, or a treasure chest, or a hallway that you didn't, you just completely missed it because you didn't even know you should be looking for it. And I think in the freelance life, there are things that are hiding in plain sight, that are totally right there, but you don't even know to look for them so you completely miss them and they could be game changers. I've had these experiences a bunch of times, and that's what this episode's about, so I'm going to take the analogy of the compass, the secret weapon, the boss in the key, and I'm going to tell you what those things are in this freelance dungeon map. Without further ado, let's get in. Here it is. First question you got to ask yourself, are you really a freelancer? Are you the hero? Is the prophecy foretold that you will be the freelance hero? Because if it's not, if you're happy, if you're happy in the regular nine to five job, don't go freelance. If you're thriving in the nine to five world, don't go self-employed. Self-employment and freelance is freaking hard. I'm not saying that it's not also amazing, but I am saying that if you have the personality and the calling and the drive to stay in the normal workplace, just do it. Don't get a lord by the sexiness of staying in your house and working in your PJs. It's not that sexy, and actually the stuff that goes along with it, which we're going to talk about in a minute, it's hard. If you don't need to do it, don't do it, however, if you are like Emmet from the Lego movie, he's the guy who finds the lid to the crazy glue. That's the piece of resistance, so the prophecy says whoever finds the lid is the one, he is the hero. Here's the things you've got to look in yourself and say that's me or it's not, and if it's you, you don't have an option. The freelance life has chosen you. One of the biggest things for me, maybe the biggest game changer in the whole freelance thing and why I have to freelance is I am absolutely willing to trade autonomy for harder work. As a freelancer, I have to work harder than I would if I was in employment because I'm not just an illustrator or a designer, I'm not just that guy, I'm the guy who brings in business, I'm the guy who keeps the books, I'm the guy who invoices, I'm the guy who does the emails, I'm the secretary, I'm all kinds of things, and yeah, if you get super successful, maybe you can get rid of some of those things but probably not, like most freelance illustrators don't end up doing that. I have so many balls that I'm juggling at the same time and there's so much to keep track of and it's so, so much of a challenge to do great work and find new great work and get your work out there on a regular basis and that challenge is so hard and it's so much due, so much hinges on me staying really, really motivated but the price of autonomy, I will do almost anything for it, meaning autonomy, meaning the, the, now I don't get to work necessarily the amount of hours I want to, I want to work, I probably work more hours than someone does at a regular job, however, I get to choose when I take those hours, so sometimes I want to take those hours by getting up at 4am and doing half of my work day before 9am, right, I can do that because I can, I can do work whenever I want, sometimes I want to stay up super late and do my work, sometimes I want to come up with ideas in the bathtub, as I say pretty much every episode, I like to tell you about my bath times, why I don't know, maybe I'm just ashamed of, of my bath times and I feel like I'm getting some kind of validation by putting that out there into the world, I don't know, but I need that thing that says I can take, I can do that hour of work at 4am, I can do it at 3pm or I can do it at midnight and if I want to trade that hour to go take a walk, I can do that, I can trade that, if I'm getting super antsy and I'm not motivated, I can take the afternoon off and switch my work to the evening or to the next morning, early in the morning, I am desperate for that because I get antsy and I don't stay motivated and I'm an emotional guy, so when my emotions are low, I like to try to do something to get me in the right frame of mind so I can work, I need that flexibility and I would work more hours and I will work harder to keep that, that sounds like you, you might just be a freelancer. I'm self-motivated, I've got more projects on my plate, more self-generated projects, more books on my plate than I can do, I've pitched, you know, I'm in, I'm always behind on the things, I'm not saying that's a good place to be, but there are lots of people out there who struggle to be motivated on their own, like if they don't have somebody, my wife, she does a lot better like at school or in a job or when she has someone coming to her, asking her to do something, she's good at doing that, she's not as interested in coming up with ideas on her own and making them happen. That is me, I love doing that, I've got 15 ideas right in my back pocket that I'm never going to get to and if I ever finish one or I, you know, I'm always looking for a way, how do I start new projects, how do I do more work, how do I find, how do I find more time or shift my time or work better so that I can get all these other things that on my plate, so if you have all these things that you want to do and you don't have enough time to do them and when you do have time you actually work on them, you might be a freelancer. The one last thing I would say is I think freelancers work better if they're project oriented, this isn't necessarily true, it's probably the one that's the least true always of this list but for me, I didn't do well in high school, I did okay in high school, I had like a B plus average, I didn't try very hard either because I really hated it but in college I did really well because everything was project based, like we would get a six week project and we get to manage our own time and we had that autonomy and it meant that everything that I did felt like it was significant whereas if you're doing a worksheet every single day and it just feels like there's no real overarching purpose, that's like task oriented, I can't do that stuff, it's like if I'm learning guitar, I can't just learn every single chord in existence, I need to learn a song, I need to see how it's going to be applied in the big picture in that it feels significant so project oriented work is really good for me and that's why freelance stuff is great because I'm not working on little tasks for a bigger picture, I'm working on the big picture every time so that's if you're project oriented you might be a freelancer, this is kind of like you might be a redneck thing which is not a reference that I'm comfortable with but it is what it is, so you know I'm a freelancer, I want to get into the freelance game or I already am and I'm just become more sure of it, well let's take a look at the situation, now if you look at the movies the heroes always scope out the scene and the scene looks really bad, really bad, like you might die if you go that route, you might, the road less traveled is sometimes traveled, less traveled for a reason as Jerry Seinfeld once said, I know he didn't quote coin that right, Star Wars, in Star Wars when they're scoping out how they're going to take down the Death Star it looks completely impossible, now I'm not a big Lord of the Rings fan but I know that last movie when they look at the last battlefield it's got like thousands and thousands of orcs versus their little ragtag team right, it's when they look at that when you scope it out, you go into the situation, you look around, you see giants everywhere and you're like I'm not sure I want to go in there, what are these giants? Well I think the main three are in America are healthcare, not that you're going to pay more for healthcare and you're going to have to sort it out on your own, you're going to pay more in taxes and you're not going to have that job security in quotes, they're big giants, they're scary, in fact if someone says the word taxes it makes my skin crawl a little bit because I have to pay big taxes and it's annoying to have my own accountant and have to keep track of all that, I hate it actually, these are giant things, they're not little things, they're not make believe things but all giants can fall down, there are ways of tackling these giants and I would rather die trying to take these things down than just submit to this idea that they're too big to take down, it's not worth fighting these giants, I would rather die trying than give in and say oh these are too big for me, you know I think in America and this isn't conspiracy theory, it's just is what it is, America is very corporate minded and you have these big corporations lobbying to the government to make it good for the corporations, for instance TurboTax, they help people with their taxes, they have lobbyists, it's a fact, they have lobbyists in Washington lobbying to keep the tax system complicated so that people need their products, that's the situation we're in and corporate America, corporations, they are the driving force of America and there's a lot of good things about that but it's not necessarily that great for the little guy because you have people like Verizon who have giant tax teams, Verizon phones, giant tax teams that mean that they know how to make billions of dollars and not pay any taxes whereas you Mr. Joe Freelancer are gonna bust your butt to make 50 grand and then you're gonna pay 10 grand to the government, come on, that's not nice, that's not fair, it's a rough situation, we're looking into the Death Star and it's got some serious force field mechanisms that aren't gonna be easy to take down, luckily we have the Freelancer's dungeon map, Andy Miller's Freelancer's dungeon map but I'll tell you this, yes these things have been big, these things have been hard to take down but you know what, I'm still working on it, it's still tough but I have made serious headway over the past seven years, I've made some massive strides and when I hear the word tax it doesn't make my skin crawl as much as it used to because I've learned all kinds of ways of accomplishing this freelance life in the face of these big scary giants, I've found ways of making it more secure, I've found ways to tackle taxes, right? Now sometimes I feel like I'm the old crusty veteran, you know like I couldn't think of any good examples except for a rip-torn on dodgeball, he's like the guy who had the dodgeball incidents and incident and now he's in a wheelchair, he's like you want to be a Freelancer, you'll never live up, you can never do it, just forget about freelance life but then you do something and I see you might have the freelance spark and I think maybe just like me nine to five was just never really an option for you, you know you've got that fidgety, those fidgety legs, you can't sit still for eight hours, you know for me I looked at the nine to five and I thought okay sounds good, we get lunch at this time, when's bath time? No I need, you know what I loved about freelance and what I love about freelance is when I accomplish something it's significant because it impacts my everyday life and I need that to stay motivated and I've risked a lot, I've worked like a mad man and I'm going to share the things that have most impacted my career and the ways that I've went from pretty hardcore struggling early on to some real thriving seven years later. Here's what I've got, let's get to the plan. So in Zelda on the dungeon map you've got the compass, the secret weapon, the boss and the key and it shows you where all these things are. We're gonna take those ridiculous things and I felt like they worked really well as analogies for the things that you can be looking out for that can be game changers in the freelance world. One thing before we get to the plan, I feel like you know, if you, let me, let me start over, on radio lab, if you listen to radio lab it's a radio show, a podcast, it's fantastic, one of my all time favorites. On radio lab my favorite episode is this episode called colors and they talk about all these different awesome scientific things with color and you should go check it out, I'm not gonna go into all of it obviously, but there's this really interesting point and they find that lots of different civilizations throughout the world didn't have words for all the colors that we have words for and they found that if you don't have a word for what, for a color you don't really see that color and it's in the same way that the dungeon map, that dungeon map, if you see these things that I'm gonna tell you about, if you didn't know about them, if you didn't even realize they were on the map, you're not even gonna be looking for them, you're gonna miss these opportunities because you didn't see them. You know, in this radio lab episode they talk about going to a tribe that doesn't have a word for blue and they would show them these 10 green squares and one of them would be a blue square like plain as day, like bright blue, bright green totally different, the majority of the tribe members couldn't pick out the blue square, they couldn't see a different colored square, they couldn't even see it, the ones that did see it made lots of mistakes picking it out or it took them for a long time to see which one was blue, that is mind blowing and that is the power of knowing what it is you're looking for, it's like often the answer is right in front of your face, but if you didn't know what the problem was, you don't have a chance, you're gonna miss it, so that's what this episode's about, let's get down to business number one, compass, freelance resources, you know the first couple years I didn't really realize how many resources were out there, free resources even, that massively were game changers for my freelance career. For me to stay motivated and to be informed about best practices, how to find work, how to do better work, what the latest developments and technology that might interest me are, these are some of the things that have massively helped me. Same thing before we get started on the tax front, go find a bookkeeping company online, fork over the ten bucks a month or whatever it is, a lot of people use fresh books, find something that you can invoice with that will take that invoice then when you market paid it goes into your income automatically for the year. I use the GoDaddy bookkeeping, a lot of people use fresh books, go do that first thing, just go, if you're making money already on illustration, go do that, it is such a game changer it means you don't have to mess around with Excel which that's, I didn't become an illustrator to spend a lot of time in Excel, right? Go find one of those, that's the first thing you need to do. Go find the resources online that help you stay motivated and informed like creative mornings, creative mornings is a, was created by Tina Roth Eisenberg, also known as Swiss Miss, she created this organization that sets up three morning lectures in cities all over the world. So, first of all, check if they meet in your local city and go be a part of that. If you can't do that and even if you can, go online to creative mornings and find all these lectures and go look at the most popular talks, there are some doozies in there. Go check out Draplin, Aaron Draplin's 50-point plan to ruin your career. That thing, that thing, the day I listened to that was one of my favorite days. I remember it very clearly, I was in like euphoria, it was so funny and awesome, I just loved it. Go check that out. Oh, the holidays are here, you've got to find a unique gift for Uncle Derek and your sister, Kasturi, and her kids, Jetson and Jettin, Jirfree and Jaggab, and another two J kids. There's so much thinking, so much searching, plus there's the ethical thing, you've got to shop small, it just, it's a lot, but it doesn't have to be. Then Common Goods makes all of this simple and straightforward, for real. The site is chock full of unique and interesting gifts that also support small businesses. My fam loves advent calendars. I think Sophie would like the Stitch-a-Day advent calendar and 12 days of hot sauce is definitely shouting my name. Sorry, that wasn't me, that was the 12 days of hot sauce calendar shouting. Seriously, we had tons of fun browsing the site for ourselves and kids and family to get 15% off your next gift. Go to uncommongoods.com/peptalk, that's uncommongoods.com/peptalk for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer, uncommon goods, we're all out of the ordinary. Two other places you can go find talks other than TED, you probably know about TED. If you don't, go check out Stephan Sagmeister's talk on sabbaticals on TED, that's excellent. Do lectures was born out of Wales, born out of Wales UK and that has all kinds of different types of talks. There's some really good ones, Frank Chimero and Jeff McFetridge both have some awesome talks on there, I think Tina Roth-Eisenberg as well. Really great stuff there. 29U.com, tons of good information, articles, talks for freelance creatives. One of the biggest things you can do is get involved face-to-face. Find resources that help you connect with people face-to-face first and foremost for your sanity. You need to be around other freelancers if you're not already. Because they understand the grind, they understand the issues that you face. Your parents, my parents don't understand my dad, I love my dad, he's doing his thing, he's been really successful, he's awesome, he's a corporate guy. For the longest time, he just did not completely understand the freelance struggle. He didn't understand the corporate struggle, they're different, they're both have their own struggles. You need to find people that are trying to do what you want to do just for your sanity first and foremost. Last year I went to the Icon Conference, Icon Illustration, I met some, what I believe to be, lifelong friends there, some game changers, seriously, go spend the money, find the ways, you know most of this is like tax deductible, find the ways to connect face-to-face. If you can't do face-to-face, go find people's email addresses and send them super sweet, awesome, authentically appreciative emails to your favorite illustrators. That's free resources, ask them a question, don't bog them down but connect with them. That's number one, the compass, freelance resources. Number two, the secret weapon, my favorite in Zelda, my favorite part of the whole game is finding new weapons. My favorite weapon was the long shot, it's like a grappling hook, you can destroy enemies with them as well as, I don't know, swing to different areas, it's just super cool, I always wished I had a grappling hook when I was a kid. My favorite part of the game is finding the big treasure chests in the dungeons that have the secret weapon of the dungeon, every dungeon has a new weapon, best part of the game. This is also my favorite part of freelance, which is self-generated work. Secret weapon is your self-generated work, whatever it is you want to go do out there. If you want to do editorial work, you want to do skateboards, you want to do kids books, don't wait for permission, get to work right now. My goal is not, my end goal is never self-publishing, mainly because I don't like managing products. It feels like that task oriented stuff, I don't like shipping stuff, but you might not be like that, you might be fine with that. My goal is always to make stuff for myself and then find distribution for it. So I like working with a publisher because they can distribute it, they already are connected to an audience, I make something cool that's really, really cool that they want and they're going to help me get it to people. That's always my goal, it doesn't have to be your goal, you might, there's plenty of people that find self-publishing to be the ultimate goal. Self-generated work is your secret sauce, your secret weapon, as a freelancer. It is your best way to generate leaves in your work, it's the best way to differentiate your work in the market. I think one of the best ways to get started if you don't already get dirty with the self-generated work is to look back before you knew about illustration or look to the parts of your life that have nothing to do with illustration and then do personal projects about that. For those of you that have emailed me and said, you know, in a previous life or what I have been doing to this time, you know, I'm 30 years old, I'm 40 years old, I've spent my life doing a totally different career and now I want to go into illustration. Don't divorce yourself from all of that stuff. There are ways of taking that and bringing it into your current passion, your current pursuit. Batman used all the money he makes as Bruce, I can, oh man, you guys are going to be Bruce Wayne, I couldn't remember his name, but I don't know, Bruce Banner, is that the Hulk? Bruce Wayne, Batman uses all the money that Bruce Wayne makes. Spider-Man uses all his previous knowledge of science. Emmet on Lego movie saves the day from the idea that he had from his previous normal life of the double decker couch, right? You know, I couldn't think of any other good references, all my references are like kids movies, so I'm not really into the movie planes, I like lots of Pixar movies, that one's actually just a Disney movie. In the movie planes, the main plane used to be a crop duster and then he becomes a racer and he wins the race from what he learned as a crop duster, right? There's a moment in the hero's journey where everything you learned before all of a sudden becomes really valuable in this new pursuit. My dad, when he graduated college, he had to go get a job at a fast food place being a manager, he ended up working up into a training manager, but he was, he had an accounting degree, he wanted to be an accountant. Now he says that so much of his success is due to his ability to lead other people and his people skills and he says that he learned those skills being a training manager. And so I guess for you who maybe aren't freelancing, you can take that as encouragement that says you don't know how the current situation is going to impact where you're going to end up, but it could be very valuable and you just have to believe, you just have to have faith that whatever it is you're spending your time on now, you're going to be able to use this for your value. Now if you're already doing the freelance thing, you can say, what was it? What is it in my hobbies or in my interests when I was younger or the things that I learned different roles that I've had in my life? How can I bring that to my illustration world? For me, one of the ways that I've done that, I've done it a bunch of different ways, but one of the ways is my passion for indie music, for independent music, I created the indie rock coloring book, I made a coloring book about the thing that I loved, the thing that I was interested in in high school, I brought that to the illustration interest and that was a way that I got to stand out from other people and I got to market my work with that self-generated work that was something I came up with on my own and ended up finding distribution for it. So your secret weapon is your self-generated work. Now number three is the big boss, the big boss, the big scary boss, the bosses in Zelda are always like 50 times larger than Link and you know almost when I was like a kid playing the 64 version, I remember seeing these giant bosses and almost feeling like a frayed. Okay, I was a little frayed, they're so big and monstrous and you're like super tiny. Now before I tell you what I think the boss is, let me just say that the worst villains are not the big scary monsters right in your face. The worst villains are the ones that are hidden in plain sight, right? Think about Emperor Palpatine, we're doing a lot of Star Wars today, he's the guy who was a senator and he's the guy who ends up turning Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader. But he does it slowly and people don't even know that he's the villain for a long time and that's how he sinks his teeth into you. So I think most people think that the boss, the bad guy, the villain of the freelance world is money, right? Finding money. Now if that's your attitude, you're going to get tricked because you're going to think more money, the better, the better, right? The bigger the check, the better. But here's the thing about those big checks. Those big, stinking checks usually come from a month of being unavailable and then if you're working with a big company, they're probably going to take 60 days to pay you after you wrap things up. That's three months with no money. That's what I think the enemy is, cash flow, having cash in the bank. It is hard. It doesn't matter what your salary is if you've got no money in the bank and for the first couple of years, it boggled my mind. I would look at, I was making more doing freelance than I could doing any self or doing any actual employed job but when I had a job, everything made way more sense. Everything worked a lot better and it wasn't until I discovered that word, cash flow. I've talked about it in the podcast before. I'm going to talk about it again because it's such a big deal. Until I discovered the word cash flow, the freelance life was boggling my mind. I couldn't understand it. It was just like I was that tribesman looking at the 10 green squares and the one blue square and they all look green, right? I was like, look at the, I'm bringing in these big checks but I'm still having issues with money. I'm still all small business owners know that cash is king. You've got to have the cash flow. If you don't, the business is dead. There are only three ways in my mind that you can make sure that cash flow doesn't destroy you. You're probably going to have issues with cash flow no matter what but these are the ways that you can make sure that it doesn't take you down. A, have three to six month savings in the bank. Have a giant pile of cash in the back room and you can do all those big jobs all the time. You never have to worry about cash flow. If you have that situation, good for you. If you don't and you're at a job, save a bunch of money up until you do have that. Be a regular gig. That can be something where you're on retainer doing a little bit of design work on the side. I did that for a while. That can be a company that passes you logo work from time to time. They give you about three or four logos a month or whatever or it can be a regular illustration job where you get to do one or two illustrations for the same magazine. You have a regular gig there for the foreseeable future. That's about as secure as it gets in real work. At any time someone who's actually employed could be fired or let go or whatever. Be is a regular gig. See? Some kind of trickle in income. My wife doesn't Etsy. It's been pretty successful, pretty awesome and it's cool because it's so different to what I do. She makes these animal year headbands out of felt and she is the master at this. They are so quality and awesome and I'm not even trying to sell them. They're super awesome. The threadhouse.etc.com. Go check them out. They're super cool if that's something that you're into. Super high quality. She actually went to college for embroidery which most Etsy sellers can't say that. She's got serious embroidery skills but what she does and what something that's helped us over the years is she sells these headbands for ten bucks, a headband and you know early on I'm like look I just brought in a $5,000 check and you're selling ten dollar headbands and I'm like man I can't imagine like having to sell that many headbands like how much you know but the thing is for her she's really good at when an order comes in taking care of business. She's good at when that demand comes in and those things stack up and if she sells ten that's a hundred bucks that we didn't have. You know if she sells a hundred you do the math thousand bucks. If I'm wrong that's fine I'm an artist not a mathematician but she does she's so good at keeping our cash flow flowing by selling those smaller things with that trickle in money. So maybe that's products I don't know but if you can find little things that you can sell a lot of often you can solve that cash flow and you can bring down that boss. Okay number four our final part of the plan the key. How do you find the key? What is the key to the freelance life? What's the key in the freelance dungeon map? The key in my opinion is optimism. Now I know some of you out there think that I don't know kind of look down on the old motivational poster thing and and all that jazz but here's a thing man I'm an emotional guy. Okay if you're an artist you might be an emotional person you might not but if you're doing the small business or the freelance thing it can get tough and sometimes you've got to take some risky shots. Every hero story has the death and the resurrection and although I'm not saving anybody's lives. I am saving my own life by finding success in this industry because I don't fit into I'm not a cog that fits into another machine. I'm my own machine. You can't take a little machine and throw it into another machine and it'll just break everything. That machine might be super useful but it doesn't act as a cog right. I make my own stuff and it means something to me. So okay maybe it's not live or die for anybody but it is make a break for my family. Like I'm I need to stay motivated. You know sometimes I look at I've talked about this before if you look at Neo from the matrix and Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker these heroes. You know I always thought it was super cool I'd love to be one of those guys because everybody around them is telling them they're the one they're the one that's going to save everything the prophecy already said it was going to happen. So there's really nothing to worry about. So I always thought how awesome a situation that would be. If you just had someone tell you look it's going to be fine it's going to work out. You don't have to worry about it. What I realized though was that they're actually in the same boat as anybody else because all of that is for nothing if they don't believe it themselves. And for me the thing that has really been a game changer for me is believing that I'm on the right path having the optimism and the faith that as I'm trying to do the right thing that the right things are going to come to me. There were so many times where I wanted to give up and although maybe it's not the most significant thing in the world it's very significant to me. You know what does failure look like for this. Why do I care so much? Well you know I've talked about my mom in the past on the show and I don't want to harp on too much about her and that situation but I have a lot in common with my mom. You know she wanted to make picture books she actually made some dummy picture books. She's where I get the art gene if that's a thing and but she really has had a tragic life full of all kinds of bad decisions and not a lot to show for it at the end. And I look at her and I look at her as someone who had that entrepreneurial spirit who had that artistic ability and I feel like if she would have figured out if she would have been able to turn all of that into a freelance career that could have been a game changer. Instead of looking for cheap thrills, thriving on fulfilling significant achievement like that thrilling to me and those thrills are there's something to them. They're actually they're they're actually real. You know I think about a there's a skit with Seth Rogen on Saturday Live where he's like a dare officer which is ridiculous because he's a big pothead but he talks about like ecstasy makes you feel amazing like you've achieved amazing things but you don't even have to achieve anything. And I think I think about this with my mom and I think about you know growing up I always knew that I was different like her but I didn't know about any path other than her path. So for me finding this freelance world was like a lifeline where I was like look if I'm this machine that if you throw me in like a cog into the bigger machines I'm gonna break the machine down like I'm I'm gonna fail big time. So for me freelance was the difference between success and failure and not every freelancers like that there's plenty of freelancers out there that are fine cogs as well they're just even better freelancers and good for them that's not me you know if you ever hear Jim Kerry give any talks he talks about how his dad was an accountant and he failed at being an accountant and he ended up having to be a janitor and it was really really tough for them as kids but he said that his dad had that funny gene and he could have been a comedian he said that Rodney Dangerfield actually ended up meeting his dad and becoming friends with his dad and he said that his dad was ridiculous the funniest man he ever met and Jim Kerry always says this and I think it's brilliant you can you can fail at what you don't want his dad didn't want to be an accountant but it was the safe option but he failed at it you can fail at what you don't want so you might as well take a chance on the thing that you want and I think that's real I don't think that's a platitude I think it's legit and so for me freelance has been the difference between a thriving fulfilling significant life and a really big struggle to fit into some other situation that wasn't going to work for me and watching my mom and her struggles was like watching it all happen you know if I would have taken it if I would have taken a different road so failures can be pretty big but success the success that I've found you know I've had real challenges I've really I've been there in the tough moments there have been you know I've raised a family doing an illustration some people are single and they can keep the overhead super low and that's great I'm super thrilled for them but I've worked to provide for my whole family and there have been significant challenges and I've had some massive breakthrough you know my salary has grown every year you know in a few years I've I doubled my salary and I don't say that as a bragging I say that as I have had big breakthroughs in this and I do this podcast to help you do the same thing or at least if you're already doing the same thing we can bond over it for me the difference between success and failure as a freelance was success and failure in my life that's what that's at least what it feels like and the autonomy that I find in freelance and the thrills that I find in freelance they help me in my everyday life then they've they've they've meant the biggest difference in my life so if that's you if you think you might be a freelancer or you already are don't believe don't ever believe the lie that the corporate nine to five is the same way it's always been it's the same way it'll always be that's what the that's what the enemy always says in corporate America is not at the enemy corporate America isn't necessarily bad it's not inherently bad it's not inherently good but it's not for everybody and the truth is the nine to five isn't how it's always been it's only been that way for the past I don't know 50 60 70 100 years or whatever you know since the industrial revolution it's so it hasn't been that way that long you know for the longest time people had to take care of themselves they had to make money for themselves they had to be farmers or blacksmiths or whatever they were the miller right that must have been my ancestors milling the the the flower I don't know I don't know what it is but you know it hasn't always been like this and it won't always be like us I think we're having a shift now where that option of the nine to five is just not actually that prevalent not as much as it used to be so you find yourself trading perceived stability for your soul I can't do that you know sometimes I feel like America it's like the corporate America is kind of like hot fuzz if you've ever seen that or the village that movie M night Shalaman I don't know how to say his name the village which you know might not been the best movie but it serves as an analogy here's a village where they it seems like colonial times there's no technology they're surrounded by woods and in the woods they're these monsters that will get them if they go outside of it and really they're living in modern times sorry for the spoiler alert but I'm guessing that's an old movie you probably heard those monsters in the woods aren't real they're played by people from the village to keep people in the village and sometimes I feel like corporate America uses health care and taxes as these big scary giants that nobody can take down but the truth is you can make more money doing freelance than you can in regular employment yes they're a higher cost so maybe it evens out I don't know but if that autonomy that you find in the freelance world is worth working a little bit harder do it because for me it has been an awesome experience a hard one but one that I'm proud to have so whether you are the new guy who has never you know never really tried freelance and you come into the town and you're like look things aren't right I can't fit into this place I need to do my own thing or whether you've been on the road for the longest time and you've been going one way and it's always been the wrong way and now like Darth Vader it's time to throw the emperor over the overpass throw him down into the abyss take the stand or whether you're already a freelancer if you're already a freelancer and you're finding that thriving success go help another person that wants to be a freelancer because it's hard and everybody can use a leg up that is it that's the whole thing I went a little bit over today I'm really passionate about this subject freelance has been just a massive thing to me I hope that this helps you in your pursuit and I can't wait to share the next week episode with you I've got some doozies for you I'm super pumped about it I'm doing all kinds of things thank you for being part of the journey so far thank you to those who back the podcast on Patreon you guys make the biggest difference for this thing thank you for sharing the episodes thank you for reviewing it on iTunes thanks for the support I hope this helps and you can find the show on illustration age calm on my website Andy hyphen J hyphen miller calm slash creative pep talk or you can subscribe on iTunes whatever you do however you do it find a way do whatever it takes to stay peped up I'll speak to you soon [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey all one more quick thing earlier this year I rebuilt my website using square spaces new fluid engine and I was so pumped about how it turned out that I have been really thrilled to find as many ways to partner with them and tell you about what they can do and bring you discounts as possible with social media going haywire I think having a site that feels as unique as your creative work is essential to building trust with your target audience or your clients I have had several clients point out how cohesive and fresh my site looks lately and if you want to check that out and what I was able to do without any code check out Andy J pizza calm if you want to test it out go to square space calm slash pep talk to test it out yourself and when you're ready to launch use promo code pep talk for 10% off your first purchase thanks square space for supporting the show and for supporting creative people I did consider Barney a friend and he's still a friend to this day the idea of Barney is something that I want to live up to you know I love who you love me I call it the purple mantra Barney taught me how to be a man generation Barney a podcast about the media we loved as kids and how it shapes us listen wherever you get your podcast [ Silence ]