8 years since I quit full-time employment and went independent! And it has been the best 8 years of my working life! No, it's not about the organizations that I was employed in earlier, but about the sheer freedom to choose what I want to work on and when, not bound by the city's or someone else's time zones.
Of course, this may not fructify when you are at the start your career, and you need to have put in solid work (of being employed) before you can consider going independent. 1/6
2/6 Also, long before I decided on a date to quit, I had been planning, in small, background'ish ways, a base to stand on... a professional identity that I can call my own, without it being tied to a company or a designation. This eventually became my signature workshop - personal branding for working professionals.
Oh yes, the initial 1-1.5 years were difficult. There was far less work to choose from, the fee was lower. But my preparation did not just involve personal branding for myself, but
3/6 also saving for at least an 8–12-month runway of no-income/very-less-income (with a home loan, and 2 kids' education included).
I could call it luck or could say that I attracted my own 'luck' by working towards it, but I did get some really good, lucrative projects and workshops by the end of the first year of going independent. And all of this happened without any outbound push - they were all inbound leads from people who 'had heard of me' or 'noticed me online'. All my work continues
4/6 to be based on inbound leads.
A simple operating principle I work by - have a monthly figure (mine's significantly larger than my last-drawn monthly salary) in mind and stop taking more just because it all comes to you. There's always the temptation to say yes to more, earning more, hiring one/more people, build a company, expanding, etc. I chose to remain independent - just me and my GST number :)
Sure, there's a hidden cost to freedom as well. What nobody tells you: freedom comes with
5/6 a silent trade-off. You become your own HR, accounts, and admin. The discipline required is different, but it's still discipline.
And when my health threw a curveball last year (my angioplasty), I was grateful I didn't have to ask anyone for time off. That is also freedom.
If you have already put in 10-15 years of work experience, I'd suggest that you start working in the background towards building your personal brand and financial saving for an exit route in the next 2 years or so.
6/6 Once you taste that freedom, there is absolutely no going back :)
One thing you can do this week: write down what you'd want people to say about you, independent of where you work. That's where your personal brand begins.
Karthik S