Intro

Today is a special post because it involves part of my conversation with my friend, Chen-hui Bergl, founder of Fully Analytics. Chen-hui and I worked together briefly at Mailchimp and she is now living nomadically while acquiring clients and building her business.

In our conversation, we touched on the concept of FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) the toll it can take, overvaluations in tech, and how I flew to Oregon the day after being laid off to meet some friends on a road trip.

I’m doing something a little different this week because I’m traveling, so instead of an audio transcription of this post, you can watch or listen to our conversation here on YouTube!

Stability: Something to consider

While there are many aspects to consider when comparing a full-time role with freelancing, one of the main themes Chen-hui and I chatted about was the concept of stability.

Stability heavily favors being a full-time employee and is the biggest reason why I have yet to fully commit to becoming a self-employed freelance designer. I’ve done contracts in the past in addition to my full-time role, something that I would highly suggest to anyone who is able to. It allows you to be specific about the work you accept and, more importantly, it means you aren’t reliant on the contract work should it end for any reason. 

It’s hard to want to abandon the safety and consistency of a steady paycheck and good health benefits. If you have a family or mortgage or are the main provider, missing payments isn’t an option, and taking care of yourself and your family is priority number one. 

I can personally attest to this, especially from the health benefits side. Once my separation date from Intuit arrived, I had 30 days of health benefits left before needing to pay for COBRA benefits. COBRA allows you to keep the same benefits you had while employed, except you pay for them. I was fortunate that part of my severance package included 6-months of healthcare, but it’s $2,600 a month and makes me want to throw up each time I have to pay for that. Yes, I’m aware of the other options.

One thing that Chen-hui brought up in our conversation that resonated with me is that it seems as though big tech is becoming less and less stable as time goes on. It’s a great point as Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have all gone through rounds of layoffs. These events changed our outlook on what it means to have stability working for a large company.

Upbringing

To better understand some of my thoughts and opinions on things, I want to provide a bit of context around how I was raised. Naturally, my experiences growing up have shaped how I value connection, work, and what it means to be successful professionally and personally.

I’ve always been an observant person and have taken mental notes of many aspects, patterns, and responsibilities of growing up in the middle class with many siblings under one roof. You see, I have just one fully biological sibling, my older sister, however, I have a step-sister, two half-brothers, and four step-brothers from my parents and step-parents.

At most, there were two parents and six of us kids living in a one-bathroom house. With so many kids means shared bedrooms, different schools, and multiple hobbies and sports. I think some life lessons this taught me were patience, independence, and selflessness.

A memory that remains vivid in my mind was when I was grocery shopping with my Mom and little brother, I must have been around 14 years old. Why this memory is so clear in my mind is because of the shock I felt when I watched her spend over $400 on groceries for the week for all of us. We weren’t hurting that I know of, neither my Mom or Step-dad would tell me if we were. They’ve always worked longer hours than they should, and still do to this day.

No working papers? No problem.

At age 14, I was old enough to understand that if I were to get myself a job, I could take some pressure off of my parents by making my own money. I wanted to work and earn my own money for gas so I could drive my friends places, or to skip school and go snowboarding, or to fund any of my other hobbies. So, that’s what I did.

I was able to find a job at a local auditorium before I had working papers and stayed at that job for 4-years. I would take on occasional seasonal jobs when I was in high school and I loved it. Not because I was a lazy student, I was, but because of the freedom and flexibility it allowed me.

Short outro

Of course, everything I wrote about is relative to your situation and life. If you’re in a place financially where you can take some time to explore your talents, that’s amazing! Chen-hui is a great example of someone who’s doing it right, all while living nomadically, I might add. And, if you’re a person who doesn’t want to take the risk, there’s nothing wrong with that. There isn’t a formula that works for everyone.

All of this is to say that stability is subjective and varies depending on what stage of life you’re in. I enjoy risk, well, I enjoy calculated risk and am always rooting for others who 1. know what they want or 2. don’t know what they want but take risks trying to find it. So, whether your work offers you stability or a bit of risk, I wish you the best!

Thank you

I like writing and sharing my experiences, so thank you for taking the time to read through this. As always, you can find me on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out with any questions, comments, or feedback as I look to write about relevant topics.

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