Soloing, Reaching Life's Everest ****
USA: Soloing : Realizing Your Life's
Ambition
Harriet Rubin, 2000, Random House Business Books, London
ISBN 0 09 941022 2 (Pbk)
This book is aimed at those who leave the frustrations / comfort of the corporate
world to work on their own account. However, it takes the different approach
to the typical "how to be a consultant" book. They normally recommend that
freelancers become an expert in a particular field and then promote themselves
in magazines and journals, at conferences and the like. Harriet Rubin's says
(in a nutshell) that one should relish the opportunity and fly free like
a bird, exploring ones inner-self, getting to know and help others,
until (one day) you will have all the work you want to do in abundance!
Harriet says soloist must take a 3 year view. This is a period of
experimentation, taking risks, seeing life as an adventure, being like an
artist, with free will. Every offer of work must be matched against ones
higher ideas as only these will give you the motivation to deliver outstanding
quality work. Second, Harriet says offers of work should involve a learning
opportunity, as this will be motivational as well. Work should be seen like
a sculpture, fashioned by an artist with feeling. Rather than specialise,
she advises one to throw one's net wide as this will bring challenging, fresh
opportunities. The strategy seems to be one of knowing oneself, building
inner strength, getting known to others on a personal level, and delivering
personal service.
Harriet Rubin was the editor and publisher of Currency, an important division
of Doubleday Publishing Company. She had spent 22 years in the
industry. For the last 3 years at Currency she hated every moment ,but
couldn't pick up the courage to leave. Like a lot of people she found security,
status, clout and structure, yet Harriet felt stifled by the bureaucracy
and the slow decision making. This book is written from the heart and many
will relate to her story.
The first part of the book advises on your corporate exit strategy - the
aim is to get a retainer and ongoing benefits (e.g. health insurance). Then
there is a section about finding your dream vocation; work that addresses
your inner feelings; work that will make you happy. Next a section on projecting
oneself, much as an artist does on stage - character building stuff, not
ego building. The next section talks about obtaining projects, assessing
them and keeping your sanity when your immersed in them 24 hours a day. Follows
is a section on rejection and loneliness followed by harvesting the rewards,
building a portfolio and when and how to sack clients! There is a short section
on networking and promotion including web sites. Then advice on time management
and pricing. Finally there is brief information on insurance, taxation
and accountants. In the UK version this refers to the UK situation, though
somewhat dated now.
This book gave me the feeling of being written in the dot.com era, when
everything was fluid, experimental and exploratory.
A time for creating vision and encouraging others to invest.
In this case, it is not investing in some dot.com but in the soloist
themselves. In the harsh period post 9/11 it doesn't seem to fit.
I also found the pricing recommendations unbelievable, even allowing for
a straight swapping the $ symbol for the £ symbol. She recommends
£3,000 to £6,000 per day plus expenses for someone who is in
the middle to high end of competency. In another section she talks about
doing work for free or for barter (e.g. a web site in exchange for
promotion), letting clients name their own fees and asking them to make
a donation to one's own charitable trust in lieu of fees. Still, Harriet
say her gross income for the first 18 months was $337,000 against a target
of $200,000 and a living expense budget of $100,000 (target less 50% in taxes
and national insurance).
From my own experience, I do agree that one should take the longer term view
and be prepared to invest during those initial 3 years. But this is not the
typical investment of the start-up: business cards, brochures, advertising,
premises; but it's self investment. I think only those with big pay-offs
will have the resources to do this, and those are fewer to-day. For those
with families and mortgages this approach may seem far too risky, far too
dream like. But for these people, freelancing may well be as inhibiting as
the corporate treadmill they tried to leave. |
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