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"Feeling grim about your prospects?" asks Tom May at the beginning of the article and emphasizes that maintaining a positive mindset can lead to a turnaround in the most unexpected ways.
To put a concrete spin on it, he shares a few positive stories from the creative community – moments that have helped these freelancers keep going despite the gloomy climate.
The UK's IPSE has published its 2023 Self-Employed Landscape Report, which covers both the self-employed and freelance population.
There are over 2 million freelancers operating in the UK, an 11% increase since 2022. The results also show that 44% of the UK’s freelance workforce has been operating in this manner for over 10 years.
Here are some other interesting findings:
If you're looking for a good newsletter for freelancers (and independent consultants), check out Matthew Fenton's Soloist Sundays.
In one of the last issues, Matt reflects on the life and wisdom of Charlie Munger, brilliant investor and professional, known also as Warren Buffett's right-hand man. He shares his personal takeaways from Munger's quotes that have guided his career as a freelancer, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness, professionalism, reliability, and integrity in business.
Here's one standout quote: "I don’t know anyone I’d consider absolutely reliable who isn’t doing pretty damn well in life unless they had some truly extreme bad luck."
American business coach Sarah Duran is launching another very interesting and free virtual workshop Delegation Decoded. It starts on March 12 and focuses on the dilemma of delegating work to a virtual assistant — how to identify the right time to engage a virtual assistant and how to delegate in a way that will have the most benefit for your work. You can register for free on Sarah's website.
Re-reading Paul Graham’s long essay How to Make Wealth (hint: via a “startup”), it’s impressive how fully relevant it still is, 20 years after its publication, even though so many things have changed. The ongoing relevance suggests that Paul hit some fundamental, lasting truths about how wealth has been created in the West for centuries. If you haven’t read it yet, give it a try!
Billionaire activist investor Bill Ackman gave a fantastic new interview on Lex Fridman’s show. He has an enormous talent for explaining investments and the various market mechanics for laypeople and, perhaps more importantly, he’s honest.
For example, he details how he nearly went bankrupt at the height of his investing career. The whole interview covers many topics, including non-investment ones. However, all of them seem to share a central theme: the quality of governance. The conversation presents a simple, eloquent way how Bill puts complex things into neat explanations.
Legendary music producer Rick Rubin, who also wrote a bestseller on creativity, has been recording a podcast called Tetragrammaton for a year now, which has gained attention for its fascinating guests and discussions.
One notable guest was Steven Pressfield, the world-renowned author of The War of Art, Turning Pro, and other influential books for creatives. He discussed his approach to work and creative process, his reading habits, and his reasons for not reading much fiction.
A recent article on the Useme blog discusses the benefits and mechanics of using Wise and PayPal for international money transfers, offering a good comparison of the two platforms from the perspective of freelancers operating in the international market.
"Go freelance and make deals with clients from around the world, they said. But did anyone tell you how to handle international money transfers and stay afloat with unprofitable exchange rates?"
The text addresses exchange rates, highlighting how both services offer more favorable rates than many traditional banks, and covers transaction fees, accessibility, and security measures.
"Are You in the Ballpark?" asks Mark McGuinness in his recent video, providing an excellent look at self-evaluation and coping with rejection, not just for creators but for independent professionals in general.
"If you are in the ballpark as a creative, it means your work is good enough to be worthy of serious consideration. But getting there doesn't guarantee you're going to win the game," says Mark, using the baseball analogy.
"Do to-do lists help you plan your day? Or do they increase your stress as they do for me?" Tom Baranek asks in the introduction to his article How I learned to plan better.
In the text, Tom describes his personal experience and the path to creating the Nautilus — an innovative extension to Roam Research for better time management, which we mentioned in our news recently.
As Tom writes, this concept may be of interest to you even if you don't use Roam yourself. It's a more general concept than just a platform-specific solution.
"I’ve tried millions of apps, but their tasks always look one like the other — one task, one line. To-do lists are just unintuitive and useless for getting the bigger picture."