A couple weeks ago I gave a lecture about working as a freelancer at a nice community bar/event venue (Evenue, if you will..) - Q.E.D in Astoria, NYC.
The idea for the lecture came from the process that many freelancers go through- we all start somewhere. Whether we got laid-off, quit to pursue our dream career, or just that this is what we could find in the job market. When I first started as a full-time freelancer, I had a lot of questions. I asked anybody I could, including friends who were already freelancing, colleagues, and did my research online. As always, a lot of it came from trial and error. Places I worked at, clients I dealt with, and whether the experience was good or bad, it added to my knowledge.
I still ask a lot of questions to a lot of people whether they've been doing it longer than me or less than me, as we always learn from other people.
Through the last few years I found myself answering a lot of questions when I talked to my colleagues, friends, and the students I teach. We learn a lot of skills in school, but we seldom learn the related skills that would require us to maintain a living. So a few months ago I started making a list about things I would like to share with other people. Things like what to do about retirement and health care, what kind of work is out there, forms and contracts, clients, marketing and more. The more I wrote the more I realized there's more to cover and there's more to learn. It is also a good reminder for me to practice and keep on practicing the things I recommend to other people. Things like finding a second source of income, learn to hustle, advertise your work and more.
More people than I expected came to the lecture which was a nice surprise. This is a paid lecture (I split the revenue with the venue). I was happy to find out that the people who came were not just from my industry but from others as well- there was a fashion designer, a magazine writer, a makeup artist and others. When I tested the timing of the lecture at home it was about an hour and change, but the actual one was about two hours, including interaction with the crowd, Q&A and more. This was a good opportunity to address and improve the lecture for the future.
I'm looking forward to give more of these, to share my knowledge with others but as always, it's great way to learn what and who else is out there.