Treasa Edmond (00:48)
Jess, thank you for being here with us this

Jessica Farmer (00:51)
It's great to do there.

Treasa Edmond (00:52)
we're going to start off with a question for you. And this question is from Alastair. how do you deal with the inevitable loneliness of self-employment after transitioning from a busy office environment? I'm not talking just about the physical aspect. After all, lots of employed people have experienced that ever since working from home became a thing. It's more a decision-making side of things and the challenge of knowing that the buck stops and starts with you.

Jessica Farmer (01:20)
That's a great question. think it's something that I've kind of subconsciously given some thought to because I guess I understand this is fairly unusual for freelancers, but I'm an extrovert. I'm an extroverted freelancer. So I do really get a lot of energy and just find connection really rewarding. So I have been actively finding ways to get that as a freelancer.

But I have to say the sort of variety of conversations you have with, ⁓ you know, potential clients and people we collaborate with, to an extent that ticks some of the boxes for me, but obviously that's not quite the same as having coworkers. So I find a sort of sense of coworkership among the freelancers who I'm connected with on LinkedIn. I really enjoy those conversations and I really appreciate everybody who shows up every day.

Obviously, there's not necessarily a mandate to post every day, but enough people post regularly, it feels like there's a conversation going on that I can be part of. is a great source and leads, conversations with prospective clients, but I also find it a really great source of connection with other freelancers. Just knowing that I'm definitely not the only person working in this way.

having some of these challenges that we have along the way. Another fantastic source of connection that I've really tapped into since the spring, is a platform called Flow. So it's a virtual co-working platform that is built to take advantage of an effect called body doubling, which is a psychological phenomenon where you're more likely to get stuff done if you feel like someone's watching you, which helps.

sound a bit creepy, but it's not, it's really not. It's basically just a virtual room of people all working silently together and some of those sessions are facilitated and there's the opportunity to have small breakout conversations at the beginning and end where you ⁓ chat briefly to others in the group and set intentions.

And it's a great way to get to know new people and, you know, people dial in from all over the world. It's not just freelancers, there's students, PhDs, people doing a day job, an employed job, and they just find the platform a useful way to kind of maintain focus and accountability. So those are some of the practical things I've done to kind of get that sense of connection. And thinking about the other side of Alistair's question, the sort of the loneliness of being.

the sole decision maker. I guess at the moment I'm finding that a nice novelty actually being the decision maker and it's one of the things that I'm enjoying so much about freelancing is that it is all up to me and I'm not in an organization with a network of decision makers around me it is up to me and I think I have been ready to kind of be in that position for some time probably longer than I realized.

so that side of things doesn't bother me so much at the moment, although I'm sure at some point the novelty will wear off and, I haven't had any like super hard decisions to make yet, but I'm sure they will come. Cause I've just been in the building phase for the last sort of 10 months, but I do find a sort of the one thing that I do miss from, those days of being in a company and having a team around me and

a line manager and I've been very lucky to work in companies with a very, strong pastoral management ethic where managers are very caring and companies are set up to support employees. It's just having someone reassure me, you know, I'm doing a good job and I'm doing the right things. And, there are other ways that I can get that, from, the people around me in my life. And, I've, have.

cultivated some relationships who have, consider more as kind of mentors role models and I know can reach out to them get a little bit of reassurance that I think in terms of a sense of loneliness, that is something I feel from time to time that like, someone tell me I'm doing a good job, please. working through that.

Treasa Edmond (05:37)
I started out freelancing when there weren't a lot of online communities. So you didn't have access to that. And I was kind of just out here on my own, doing my own thing. And I just thought that was part of it. It wasn't until probably about seven years ago that I started finding groups that were really into supporting and doing all of that. And that made a huge difference for me.

And it's probably what got me through the whole pandemic thing, because that, for some reason, even though I'd been doing this for so many years, felt even more isolating, which was weird to me. it also made you kind of sit back and think, is this what I want to do? And all of those things. Now the physical aspect, I worked in offices for a lot of years and they were okay, but I'm the opposite of you. I'm an introvert.

⁓ so I really enjoyed kind of being on my own, doing my own thing when I started out and I started with editing and that is something where you need intense concentration anyway. So it made really big sense for me. I did find that when I started writing, when I started doing my ghost writing, I actually would go to coffee shops because I needed people to ignore. So I'd sit in a coffee shop and write and I'd get so much done just by ignoring everything that was going on around me.

I really like the online groups, the Facebook groups. There are a couple that I'm in that I check in with a couple of times a week. If I'm on vacation though, I don't. That's what something we're going to talk about later this week is the importance of taking time off. LinkedIn has been great and building a network and community. And I'm finding a really nice community through the podcast. because you get to talk to people. one of the turning points for me was

the mentorship. I found a mentor who was willing to work with me to take my business to the next level. And that was, it was a very specific purpose and I really enjoyed those weekly conversations and they actually introduced me to the concept of masterminds. so I joined a business mastermind and it is a paid thing, but it's a small group of people who

really fed into my business. And so every week we would come with a question or a problem and the other people in the group would give us feedback. And ideally the people are all a couple of steps ahead of you or, you know, it's a stair step situation in the mastermind. So that they can help you with your business and help you through things. And we were a varied group of people. We weren't all in the same business. So we actually got to just talk about business things. And I really love that. Another thing I find helpful is

peer groups. So they could be a support group. They could just be a group of freelancers that you check in with, once a week, once a month, whatever the cadence is that works for you. I find those really helpful. And I'm intrigued, Jess, that you mentioned Flow. Because do virtual co-working. I run virtual co-working for my strategy bosses group where I teach content strategy.

And we do virtual co-working sessions every week. And there's a small group of us that absolutely love them. Now we go off camera, so no one's staring at the top of our head while we're working. But we found that it's incredibly effective. Just knowing that someone is there on a call with you and you're going to have to check in with them in 30 minutes, we get so much done. And then we get to chat, because we have chat breaks. So we have 10 minute breaks every 30 minutes. And we find it incredibly helpful.

But how did you get into co-working? Did you kind of just run across that or did someone recommend it?

Jessica Farmer (09:11)
Yeah, great question. it's flown F-L-O-W-N. Okay, all in capitals. And I came across it actually in a newsletter I received, which is the newsletter of the freelancer magazine in the UK. And that newsletter is called The Dunker, as in, I don't know if you do this in the States, you dunk your biscuit into your cup of tea. So.

so British. So the idea is that you read your, your Dunkin with a cup of tea and a nice biscuit to dunk into it. So it's called a biscuit theme. biscuits mean something different for you in the same sense. Do you do that? Cookies. it's got like a nice theme. And some of those newsletter

episodes are kind of takeovers from experts in different areas of freelancing. And this particular issue was a who I think specializes in productivity, perhaps. Anyway, the piece, the newsletter was all about her tips and, I was just sort of browsing through it. It's always a really good read. And Flow was in a kind of top three productivity at kind of section of the newsletter. And there was just something about it that I thought

Well, I'll just have a quick look at it now. And some of the sessions are scheduled, but there's always a live dropping session that is always open. And you can start using it immediately on a free trial. I clicked into it and just immediately there are all these peoples by screen. and I noticed straight away, the distance it made to feel like I was part of a working group.

Before that I'd experimented with and driving out to my local library and working from there. And I was quite enjoying that, but would take quite a lot of time just sort of driving to and from. And also I can only have my laptop screen and I do like having my two screens. So, I was kind of in the market for something that would give me that sense of being, in a co-working space without me actually having to physically.

read the house, or I didn't quite realize it, that it was the right time for that to be put in front of me, because I was able to experience it straight away. And that's why I clicked the buttons and gave it a try, but it's become a really fundamental part of my working day. And actually I don't get that urge to go out and be in a physical co-working space anymore, because I feel like I've got that here at home with my two screens, and I...

my cackle downstairs, all the other nice things that you have in your house.

Treasa Edmond (11:52)
Comforts, all of the comforts. So I love that. And I've actually toyed with the idea of starting a coworking space for boss responses specifically so that anyone who wants to drop in can. And I may move forward with that now. ⁓ I did want to address another part of Alistair's question. And that is the challenge of knowing that the buck stops and starts with you. Because if you're not used to being the boss, then being the boss,

Jessica Farmer (12:06)
yeah

Treasa Edmond (12:21)
can be very, very overwhelming, especially when your own employee is you, because you're always your most difficult employee. We have unreasonable expectations of ourselves. There's just a lot that's going on with that. There are several things that I think really play into this. One, it's a total mindset issue. You have got to break that employee mindset. You cannot think like an employee. You have to realize that

You are not making decisions for you. You are making decisions for your business. So if you were to hire someone else in and ask them to do this thing, would you have the same expectations of them? When you start becoming an advocate for your business, then you'll also just by default, start becoming an advocate for yourself. And that's going

completely change your relationships with your clients and it makes making those hard decisions a little bit easier. It doesn't necessarily make having difficult conversations easier. That's just the thing. You have to deal with that. And you realize that's one of the decisions you need to make that you have to have those difficult conversations with clients sometimes. But when it comes to knowing whether or not you're making the right decision or just needing someone to bounce stuff off of, I highly recommend that you either join a mastermind

If you can, you know, that is a business expense. If you're in the U S you can write that off. If not, I don't know how that works in other countries, but it is a business expense. So usually there's a benefit of doing that or find a group of freelancers, not freelancers who are newer in business than you find freelancers who have more experience than you and the areas that you lack experience in or you're unsure in and start kind of.

just a meetup. So meet with them, have conversations with them, and then bring your questions. And that's more valuable than you'd think. So you're essentially starting your own mastermind, but you're creating a space where you can talk about what's really important and what you're struggling with, and then they're giving you feedback. And here's an interesting mindset thing. Sometimes

Asking the question and having someone tell you something that feels completely wrong to you is just the feedback that you need because it instantly clarifies what you actually want to do. I've always done this since I was like a teenager and I don't even remember where I picked it up, but someone at one point in my life said, when you're struggling to make a decision, especially if it's a this or that decision, flip a coin. And if you're disappointed with the outcome of the coin, then you know what the decision should have been altogether.

can absolutely use that with your business. I have doesn't always lead you right, but having those people that you trust and having them be willing to speak into your business in your life. think that's really important. you also mentioned that you have people around you, Jess, who speak into that. That fascinates me because in my experience, most of the people in my life have no clue what I do. It makes no sense to them.

So they can't tell me I'm doing a good job. They can tell me they're proud of me, even though they still don't understand what I do. I did not start getting that kind of feedback and reinforcement until I started connecting with and networking with other freelancers. And that was a huge turning point for me, because they understood.

Jessica Farmer (15:45)
sure. But I am fortunate enough that my partner is a business owner. He's done his own company a couple of years ago. I helped him with doing that. Back in 2021 when he made the decision to go from self-employed, Helps set up the website.

At the time I was working for one of the biggest accounting softwares in the UK, so I got set up with the accounting software, which I now use myself as a freelancer. So I guess it was, that was fortunate because it gave me a bit of a dry run of setting some of these things I didn't realize at the time is what I was doing. But also it means that, I have someone at home that I can talk to about.

some of the, he's not a freelancer, it's a very different sort of business, but a lot of the challenges are almost identical and it's quite funny how frequently one of us is describing a scenario to the other and the other has had the exact same thing, just, perhaps in a slightly different context. So that's very handy, but it doesn't mean that we are talking about that business here, frequently.

Treasa Edmond (17:00)
We need to talk about that when we talk about taking a break. Yeah.

Jessica Farmer (17:03)
Exactly. and you know, that's some additional support that I'm fortunate to have, outside of the professional environment.

Treasa Edmond (17:10)
Now, I know we've talked about this for a little bit longer than we normally talk about conversations. I want to address one more thing really quickly, just because of what you just said, Jess. You said that he's started a business and it's a business different from freelancing. That's an interesting statement. And it's a statement that I see a lot. I don't run a business, I do freelancing. I know people who run businesses, what I do is freelancing.

And now Jess, Jess hasn't been doing this long. You'll find out more about that a little bit later this week. So she's, how long have you been freelancing?

Jessica Farmer (17:44)
I began in November 2023, is 10 months ago now.

Treasa Edmond (17:50)
So she hasn't hit her year mark yet. She's still a baby freelancer, but she's good at what she does. So she brought a lot of expertise in, but Jess runs a business. She's not just a freelancer, she's running a business. And we do ourselves a disservice when we say we're just a freelancer, because we are not, we are running a full-fledged business and you cannot grow your business and really settle into it until you realize that.

And I hope that lessons come across in the podcast and we have a couple more episodes coming up that do talk about that. Listen to those mindset matters and language matters suggest you're not just a freelancer.

Jessica Farmer (18:31)
we can't agree with you. There is context behind that. There is a bricks and mortar establishments that this other business operates out of, which makes me think about it in a slightly different way. But you're absolutely right. And there are.

Treasa Edmond (18:44)
There are different trials between brick and mortar and kind of an online business or a service-based business like we do. So definitely, absolutely. You don't have all of the overhead and the employee stuff that comes with that unless you grow your business that way. But yeah, I do encourage everyone to really think about your business as a business, even if it's not brick and mortar. And honestly, we're all sitting in a place.

doing business. So even if that place is a room in our home, you know, I'm in an office right now that I have to rent because my internet sucks, whatever it is, you know, that is your space and it is a dedicated business space. It's really, I think that's something that does matter to Alastair too, because you have to think of your business as a business and yourself as an employee of your business, but you're still the boss.

You're still the boss of the business and that's a whole different type of thinking you have to do. So I hope that was helpful, Alistair. I hope that you find some help in that. it comes down to find people. Even if you can't find people you want to network with as a freelancer, because sometimes we just don't want to talk to other people who are doing what we're doing. If that's the case, set boundaries, make sure you stop work on time, join groups after work, go to your local pub.

You know, whatever you need to do, join a group at the library, join a book club, do whatever it is to make sure that you actually have people that you look forward to meeting with on a regular basis. And that helps. That's what I did for a lot of years before I found a freelancing network. Then build a network, do coworking, join a mentorship or a mastermind, do something. It ultimately comes down to the decision is yours. And you have to do what feels right for you.

All right, that's day one with Jess. Come back tomorrow for day two when we're going to talk about the transition from traditional employment to freelancing.