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If you dream of being a published writer, there’s a fantastic book for you to read. Govt Cheese is a brutally honest memoir by Steven Pressfield, the author of The War of Art, Gates of Fire, and other timeless fiction and nonfiction titles.
In this new book, he tells his full origin story for the first time and shares many valuable insights into how the publishing and movie industries work on the inside. It’s a tough business, mostly, and a formidable challenge for any idealistic, creative soul like Steve. He struggled and persevered for decades, working odd freelance or temp jobs, and he turned 52 before his first novel was published.
Govt Cheese is a thrilling, unputdownable masterpiece, especially when it comes to the author-narrated audiobook on Audible.
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A new article on BBC Worklife, The quiet guilt of self-employment written by Kate Morgan, spells out a problem known to many freelancers:
It’s expensive to take a time off, and it’s easy to work more hours and make more money instead of taking a rest.
“This is not to say self-employment is all bad. Despite the long hours and the stress of being the sole source of your own income – and even despite the burnout – some data shows some self-employed people report higher rates of satisfaction and feel more fulfilled at work. There’s a good reason many keep at it.”
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Freelancing is a long game. A successful freelance career can easily span many decades, so it’s natural that there will be emotional ups and downs along the way, which may include anxiety, burnout, or outright mental-health issues.
For people prone to such problems, there is Leapers — a large online community created to support the mental health of freelancers and the self-employed. It does this by publishing useful resources, articles, and comprehensive annual mental-health reports.
Finally, as another level of prevention, Leapers has developed a Freelance Friendly pledge or framework, which provides 10 suggested guidelines for organizations.
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Did you know there’s an entire community dedicated to freelance parents trying to make flexible working work?
Doing It For The Kids, launched in 2016 by Frankie Tortora in the UK, includes a blog, award-winning podcast, newsletter, paid membership and more.
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If you’re interested in the future and risks of AI, you definitely shouldn't miss Marc Andreessen’s widely discussed and shared article Why AI Will Save the World. He argues quite convincingly against the fears that resonate in the public sphere today. Namely, these 5 risks:
Marc Andreessen is a software engineer and entrepreneur, one of the pioneers of the Internet (he co-created the first successful browsers, Mosaic and Netscape). Today, he is primarily a technology investor at Andreessen Horowitz and has a significant influence on political discourse. His views on AI regulation can be heard in recent episodes of the JRE and Breaking Points podcasts.
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How do you become a consultant? One of the most surprising answers, at least for Americans, is that you can learn the basics by joining a student consulting club.
“Over the past decade or so, undergraduate ’consulting clubs’ have proliferated. The idea is to band together and offer to do work for firms for a fraction of the cost of hiring regular consultants, and in the process learn a lot about business,” writes The Economist in a recent article on What the rise of student consulting clubs means.
Since consulting jobs, in both freelancing and employment, can be very lucrative, this is a great way to explore their caveats and possibilities. The student consultants may be paid next to nothing, but they could just as easily make a fortune in the future.
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Beginning freelancers often continue to think like employees, which is both a common problem and an obstacle to growth.
“You have to learn how to be a boss in a world where the vast majority of workers never work for themselves. … You don’t get to fully reap the rewards of independent work if you can’t break the employee mindset. Here are the key mindset shifts that need to happen to claim your freedom like a boss,” writes Sarah Duran in her article Six Ways To Start Thinking Like a Boss, pointing out the following six areas for improvement:
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You can now register for a free freelance business masterclass with Robert Vlach, scheduled online for August 10th.
It’s called Game Changers and here’s a brief teaser:
“Game-changing improvements are critical for business development of any independent professional. Some are the result of happy accidents, others of our decisions and actions. But what they all have in common is that they up our game forever after, taking our freelance journey to a whole new level. For this masterclass, Robert Vlach has selected the most game-changing moments and decisions from his 25-year freelance career. In his presentation, he will describe the profound impact of these events on his business and lead a debate on possible takeaways for other freelancers. The freelance talk of a lifetime.”
Robert Vlach is the founder of Freelancing.eu and author of The Freelance Way — an international business bestseller published worldwide in 2022 by HarperCollins and translated into 5 other languages.
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Today’s the day… Yes, the Google Bard AI tool, which is a direct competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is finally available in Europe and in a number of European languages! To try out Google’s chatbot, all you need to do is sign in with your Google account (Gmail or Google Workspace).
Note: If you are on a paid Google Workspace account and can’t access Bard, make sure you have the Early Access Apps option enabled in your Admin Console.
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If you're creating a presentation, you might like the new Gamma AI tool which can create great-looking slides, documents or web pages based on a given topic — complete with content — in less than a minute. You can then edit each part as needed, either on your own or in collaboration with the app. The basic version is free, while the unlimited version costs $16 per month.
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