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About three weeks ago, I started to look at what it would take for me to launch a legitimate free-lance writing business. I’ve been lucky to work with some great clients over the years, but I never pursued them. Both for-profits and nonprofits came to me with work sporadically over the years, but the sum total of that only amounted to a little extra income from time to time. I never took it seriously as a potential living. And then I started observing friends and former colleagues who have taken the leap into entrepreneurship and are very successful. They also appeared to be pretty damn happy, joyous and free. I discovered I was really freakin’ jealous of them. I want what they have.
And then I thought: “I’m a smart and talented person. I have good business sense. I am aware of tons of business resources. I know how to market myself. I know a hell of lot of people in my hometown. I am organized, tenacious and determined. I could do this.” And THEN I thought: “Oh shit, I could really do this.” But I also realized that if I was serious about going out on my own, I couldn’t half-ass it. “Do or don’t do. There is no try.” Or whatever Yoda said.
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In another life, I wrote a weekly newspaper column for Business First. It went through a few iterations, but in the end, it was a vehicle for me to relate the random experiences of my life to the business world. It was called “The Hook Up” for about half its life, but after a fun little reader’s contest, it was renamed “I’m Just Saying.” A few years later, in 2007, I left the paper and the column was shelved. I have to confess that I much preferred its retirement over being replaced with a new writer. There was way too much of me in there to just hand it over. That would have been like handing over my son to someone else to raise.
The official tagline for my little column was that it was aimed toward business professionals under age 40 primarily because, at the time, I was one of them. But unofficially, I heard from a lot of 40+ readers over the years who said they read it to keep up with the younger generation of workers. I took that as a huge compliment. I mean, influential people in the Louisville business community actually gave a damn about what I had to say. Little did they know I had no clue what I was talking about! |
About Amy HiggsA former newspaper columnist, Amy takes her random, slice-of-life stories to the web. After 12 years, she's still just saying. Archives
September 2020
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