Every Tuesday morning, I drop my kid off to preschool and like the thousands of commuters in the city, hop on a train that takes me to my friend’s house in London, from where I do my work for the day.
My friend, who runs a very successful business, doubles as my business mentor, which is the reason I show up week after week without fail. He listens to my problems, helps me to come up with solutions, but mostly just throws targets and numbers at me that leave me with no choice but to work harder, push that little bit more, come back with a bigger achievement to brag about next time.
Tuesday is the day I get the least amount of work done (it is easier to gossip and dream than work, after all), but something else happens after I leave my friend’s house and arrive at my own: I am fired up. Wednesdays are now one of the most productive days of my week, simply because the conversation and goal-setting of Tuesday spurs me to greater action, sometimes shames me out of inaction, or more typically, just pushes me to achieve something greater than I have before.
I’ve talked about networking before, but this isn’t about networking. It’s about surrounding yourself with the right kind of people.
Studies show, in fact, that you can estimate a person’s income by calculating the average income of their five closest friends and advisors (people they ask for business and financial advice). I’ve tried this and at least for me, it was pretty accurate. I was not happy with the number, though, and I realized pretty quickly that even though I’d been trying to hit a six-figure income, I didn’t actually regularly sit down and have coffee with anyone who had achieved that target.
It happened by accident in London, but I ended up meeting successful and high-earning businesspeople. And every month since, I’ve been watching my income grow.
You are never going to earn a number you cannot imagine. Let me say that again: You are never going to earn a number you cannot imagine.
What your personal networks do is that they help you imagine.
A few months ago, I was standing with this same friend at the bus stop and I said to him that I’d had a pretty crappy week income-wise.
“That’s the thing about business,” he said. “You have $0 days, but then you also have the $10,000 days.”
I had to laugh. “I’ve never had a $10,000 day,” I said.
He just shrugged. “You will,” he said.
That number has been planted in my head ever since. I had never imagined what a $10,000 day could even look like, but now I had a friend who achieved that quite regularly. It seemed, if not yet achievable, at least possible.
And sure enough, while not a $10,000 day, I had a $4,000 day last month and I realized that I could never again go back from that. Because I had done it once, I was now convinced that I could do it again. I am always going to keep trying to top this number because that is what we do as freelancers, as businesspeople.
We continue to grow. We continue to push. Smashing targets is how we get our jollies. (Or is that just me?)
But we can’t do it if we can’t actually picture ourselves doing it first.
You cannot earn a number that you cannot yet imagine.
A few weeks before I made that $4,000, I received an email from a top editor at an online publication offering me an assignment that would take three days of reporting at the grand rate of $100. I would have laughed at that rate thirteen years ago as a new freelancer, but I instead calmly told her that my minimum was $100 an hour, thankyouverymuch, and I usually charged at least twice that for rush work.
Her response? “Even I don’t make that much.”
This was meant as a jab at me, the lowly freelancer who obviously lives on food stamps, but the truth is she probably doesn’t. Her publication—a news site—is one of many that like to complain about how hard it is for writers to make money (as they continue to pay $100 for reported stories—go figure). Yet, hang out with the people with whom I hang out— kick-ass members of FLX, ASJA, UPOD—and you’ll start to see that not only are freelancers making six-figure incomes, they’re doing so without burning out and while doing the work that they love. Work that creates change in the world.
The story that was my most profitable financially in my career was also the one that won two awards and brought wastepickers in India to the global consciousness. Making money and making change are not exclusive to each other. You must believe that.
But you can’t see that if you’re hanging out in communities filled with people who keep complaining about how hard it is to make a good living in today’s “media environment.” (Really, it’s not.)
You just need to hang out with a different set of people. The people who are doing the work that you want to do and making the kind of money you want to make.
I’m trying to create these communities at The International Freelancer and having some very good results.
If you want to increase your income as a writer, you must do three things right away:
(1) Change your mindset.
(2) Surround yourself with the right people.
(3) Get the right information.
Start taking steps in those three areas in whatever writing niche you’re interested in and I promise you, the results are guaranteed.