Freelance Mindset Shift #1 - “I don’t have enough time”

Back in 2015, I was living every young boy’s dream. No, not a hoverboard, endless summer, and daily Wonka candy subscription but a role as the COO of an underfunded tech startup.

Two years prior, I had co-founded and invested $25,000 in Closeup.

My family depended on my part-time freelance “job” for our full-time income, and every hour spent on finding the way forward for Closeup was one more that I didn’t have to actually get myself paid.

Entrepreneurship is to anxiety was wind is for a campfire, and the back of my mind crackled and popped with the imminent arrival of my second child, bills becoming due, and yet more bills becoming due.

While I was so busy trying to make it all work, my love of running took a backseat. I gained weight. My sleep suffered.

One day, during a drive back from Nashville where my co-founder Nathan and I had stacked up a bunch of meetings, I said, “There’s never enough time to go around.”

He listened to me for a few moments then replied, “Sounds like you need to start telling yourself a different story.”

Half of me responded with a big eyeroll (discreetly, of course), and the other half conceded that he had a point.

Each of us has a choice to make about what we believe about time:

• Insufficiency: “There’s never enough time to go around.”
• Sufficiency: “There’s always enough time for what’s most important.”

Your belief about time is a tiny, hidden rudder on the back of the big ship. Insufficiency measures the distance and drops anchor. Sufficiency unties the rope and lets down the sailor—or whatever can be accomplished in fifteen minutes.

The consequences of which belief we choose and practice in tiny sprints are greater than most freelancers and consultants realize. Frank Outlaw, the late president of Bi-Lo stores in the US, connected the dots between what we think and who we become:

“Watch your thoughts, they become words;watch your words, they become actions;watch your actions, they become habits;watch your habits, they become character;watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

Since 2015 I have accomplished many things I shouldn’t have, given my commitments and time constraints:

• Growing my email list
• Publishing my children’s book, Grabbling
• Launching a high-ticket coaching program
• Creating my first course for freelancers, Freelance Cake
• Publishing my pricing and money mindset guide, Free Money

I can testify that if you “pay yourself first” by making daily time deposits in the future you want, then you’ll figure out how to keep your commitments in the time left over.

So what’s it going to be, friend, a belief in sufficiency or insufficiency?

I hope you’ll choose the former, write this on a sticky note, and put it where you work:

“There’s always enough time for what’s most important.”

Change your mind, change your life.

When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Freelance Fixes. This short guide walks you through 6 small but important “fixes” that you can make to raise your income without working longer hours. People really seem to like it.
2. Morning Marketing Habit. This course will help you build an “always be marketing” practice, become less dependent on referrals, and proactively build the business you want with the clients you want. My own morning marketing habit has enabled me to consistently make  6 figures as a freelancer.
3. Clarity Session. It’s hard to read the label when you’re inside the bottle. I've done well over 100 of these 1:1 sessions with founders, solopreneurs, and freelancers who wanted guidance, a second opinion, or help creating a plan.