Burnout to Boundaries: How to Value Your Time & Protect your Sanity As a Freelancer with Wudan Yan

What's the first step to taking control of your work life as a freelance entrepreneur?

Tune in to the latest episode of The Talk Freelance To Me Podcast featuring award-winning journalist Wudan Yan! In this episode Wudan shares her inspiring journey from academia to an award-winning freelance career, and gives an update about her viral blog post about holding late-paying clients accountable.

Host Ashley Cisneros Mejia and Wudan also chat about navigating client demands, advocating for fair compensation, and finding work-life balance as a freelancer. Get actionable tips for setting boundaries with yourself and others. Listen now!

About Wudan Yan

Wudan Yan is an award-winning narrative journalist, podcast producer, fact-checker, and entrepreneur known for her in-depth reporting and insightful storytelling. Her work has been featured in prestigious publications such as The Atlantic, The Guardian, High Country News, The New York Times, among many others.  Wudan also serves as the executive producer and host of The Writers' Co-op, an anti-hustle, anti-capitalist business podcast, and membership program dedicated to supporting freelance creatives. Learn more at WudanYan.com

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Transcript

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Hi there. It's Ashley. Quick note. The following episode has adult language. Please be advised for any little ears that might be around. Now let's get into the episode. Welcome everybody to another episode of the Talk podcast. I'm your host, Ashley Cisneros Mejia. And today I have a fantastic. Awesome opportunity to introduce you. If you don't already know the amazing Wudan Yan. Hi Wudan. How are you today? Hi, Ashley. I'm well, thank you for having me. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. You know, I have been a fan of your work, of your writing, of the Writer's Co op for a long time. So it's really meaningful that you carve some time in your busy schedule to be here with our community. So thank you so much. Cool. I'm excited for this conversation. Awesome. And freelance fam, as usual, I'm going to give you a little blurb, a little introduction to Wudan so you can kind of get to know her. So Wudan Yan is an award winning narrative journalist based in Seattle, Washington. Her work has appeared in the Atlantic, the Guardian, MIT technology review, national geographic, New York magazine, and the New York times, and so many more outlets. In addition to her writing, Wudan produces and fact checks limited series narrative podcasts. Wudan is the executive producer and the host of the Writer's Co op, an anti hustle, anti capitalist business podcast and membership program for freelance creatives. Wood Anne, I am just in awe of everything that you have achieved. That's your formal bio, do you want to introduce yourself to the crew, to the audience? Yeah, I kind of describe myself as a narrative Swiss army knife in the way that I produce narrative writing. for newspapers, magazines, brands, companies, non profits, for all different purposes, right? I help writers, non fiction writers, audio producers, production networks, basically craft a piece of work that is engaging, fun, and accurate, and I think the accurate is the best. The most important part, especially when I'm working as a fact checker. So yeah, I know I wear a lot of different hats, but I find all of them enjoyable. And it is surely a Tetris puzzle in my Google calendar all the time. I love that. I love the Swiss army knife analogy because how useful, you know, how versatile. And I think that that adaptability and the flexibility piece is so important to freelance. You know, to this kind of slice of the entrepreneurship ecosystem that we find ourselves in. So I love that, that analogy. So I know from your background, you are actually a scientist or, you know, you come from a science background in academia. Can you tell us more about what inspired that big shift to this world of freelance writing? Yep. So I got my bachelor's degree in biochemistry. I graduated college thinking I wanted to be an academic researcher, specifically in pharmacology and cancer biology. So I did go to a PhD program that began in 2012. And. After a gap year too, and you know, some people are like, oh, a gap year really helps you figure out that a graduate school graduate program is what you want to do. So by the time I started my program, I was like, okay, this is it. Except it wasn't. I'm somebody who notices everything, like everything. Every muscle soreness, every like tendon creak in my body for better or worse. And I noticed in grad school that I wasn't getting excited about what I was learning and how I was learning it or the experiments that I was doing or anything really related. I mean, I still had intellectual curiosity in the sciences. I think I still apply the scientific method to a lot of how I run my business. And however, at the time I noticed what I was. I was really interested in and that was traveling around the city with a narrative nonfiction book or a copy of the New Yorker tucked in my purse and reading everything cover to cover. I was obsessed with narrative nonfiction and when I especially read Science, health, and environment stories. I was like, wow, this is so interesting. I love the combination of like science and society. Could I do that? And I went to an event at the world science festival, which still happens in New York city every year. And they had a panel about. Science books, science nonfiction books. And I was like, Oh, this isn't just a hobby. Like it's a career. And by then the seed had really planted and I was attracted to, you know, the fact that you can switch between topic area story ideas without having to commit like the length of a PhD program, which is around six years or an entire academic career around it. I thought that was really fascinating. And, you know, I was curious. I thought it could serve my brain and way of life and being a little better. Yeah. I love that so much. You said a couple of things there that really stood out to me. First, self awareness. When you were saying that you notice every crease and every tendon, and you had that awareness of it in yourself of how you were responding to your program. And knowing, you know, that something's not right here, you know, that maybe there needs to be a change. I think that's so refreshing because I think, and in your intro, I was talking about how you talk about the writers co op being anti capitalist, anti hustle, and so many of us. Especially in entrepreneurship where we're working for ourselves, where there is nobody else to do business development. I mean, we are it being able to have that skill of knowing something's not right. And I'm going to change it. I'm brave enough to think of something new, and I'm not just going to be in this reactionary place. I really love that. And I loved what you said about taking that scientific background and using that approach, even now and how you've created intentionally designed your business. That's very cool. Thank you. Yeah. I feel like we live in a society. Well, maybe things are changing and maybe the social media content that I'm ingesting suggests that people are more likely to pay attention and be more intentional in what they're doing rather than just staying in the course on a path that they think that they should be on for whatever reason, right? Like, whether the influence is societal, parental, familial, or. Peer pressure, like it looks good on my resume. It looks good on my dating profile. So I'm going to do this thing, even though I'm miserable. I think a lot of us are choosing to not be miserable and that's great. It's empowering. I love it. I love it so much. And you have your resume is killer. I mean, anybody can look at it and can see like how impressive you are and to be in academia and to be in science, you know, there's so much. There's so much talk about, you know, scientific careers and STEM careers. And did you get pushback from loved ones, mentors, family, in kind of hanging up this PhD program and going another route with your career? Well, my parents who immigrated from China were. Aesthetic. They were just like, oh my gosh, you're leaving this shitty paying field to hopefully go somewhere better. And I was like, I'm not sure about that, but I'm not going to say that out loud. I'd rather just like show you what I can do instead, because that has always been my relationship of how I communicate things with. My family, it was interesting. It was so interesting trying to leave grad school because they kind of wouldn't let me leave. They were just like, okay, well, if you're not going to do your defense in this lab, why don't you pick another lab? And I was like, I don't think you understand. I want to get out of this institution. I don't want to be here. Just let me leave. And they're like, what if you did it at somewhere else or what? And I was like, no, I know what I want. I want to not be here. I love that. I love that. That takes a lot of, um, and maybe not, maybe for you, it comes naturally and you're just able to state, no, I'm not moving. This is what I'm not doing. I'm letting you know, and it's not changing. There's some of us, I think me, I've always kind of been struggled with people pleasing and. I'm working on it 41. I'm finally working on it or finally getting better. I think, but I love that. And I think we'll talk about later, you know, your viral posts about payments that people owed you. I think I see this through line and you know, your confidence in your insistence on being treated the way you want to be treated and decisions about your life. I love that so much. I think that's super inspiring. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. So when you talked about, you mentioned fact checking accuracy a few moments ago, and oh my goodness, I can't believe it's in 2024 and there's still debates, intense debates over what's fake, what's real, what's fake news, alternative facts, you know, just what's journalism even. I saw, I was on YouTube, I fell into this rabbit hole of these people that call themselves freelance journalists and they're basically. Going into these public facilities, this one that I was watching, this guy was going to a school district office and he was just being a total jerk, basically, and saying that, you know, he was there for a story and he's an independent journalist. And of course, he's doing it for clicks. He's doing it for monetization on YouTube. And I'm just like cringing because I'm thinking, wait, stop. Don't call yourself a freelance journalist. Because some of us. That's what we make our livelihood. And when we talk about facts, tell me about that. How did you get into that? Are you facing any challenges when you're ensuring accuracy? What does that mean for you in terms of credibility? Like, how did you get into that world? So fact checking was the first job that I got after I quit my program because it's a different method of research, right? So I think when I was writing so many letters of intent to different publishers around New York City that I admired, wanted to work for, I kind of was like, okay, how do I position myself, right? Like I have this deep scientific expertise. I know how to interpret data. Put a gun to my head and I probably could write well about science, but really I need to learn the nuts and bolts of journalism. And so when, uh, Nautilus magazine hired me as an intern, they gave me stuff to fact check because fact checking is reverse engineering and already reported story. So what I mean by that is what I received when I fact check is a pretty finalized story, probably one or two more rounds of revisions left in it. And every fact was annotated with sourcing, whether it went to an interview with a primary source or a PDF with documents or scientific study, whatever, web links, right? And so from that, I can see how the structure was built from the building blocks of raw information. And I also learned what is a good source because not all sources are good. Some sources are biased. Um, There's a great, I think, blog post about detecting bullshit on The Last Word on Nothing, which is a blog written by a lot of science writers. And detecting bullshit kind of goes down to the fact of like, oh, who was telling me this thing? What interest or stake do they have in saying this thing? And is there a reason who they are is influencing what they're saying? And is there a possibility that they could be wrong? If anything, a career in science taught me how important it is to think critically. So I wasn't a stranger to that. Like that has always come very naturally to me. So, uh, yeah, that's what fact checking is. I mean, challenges. I work with a lot of people who have never annotated a story for fact checking and sometimes drafts come to me with links to Wikipedia and Wikipedia is not a primary source. And so Wikipedia is a conglomerate of a lot of random sources and it's allegedly crowdsourced. So many people contribute to it. So how do I know who wrote this one sentence or this one clause and what interest do they have in shaping the narrative of some event or some person or place, right? Like you really have to think so deeply and so critically and One can get very philosophical about what makes a fact I have tried to go down that wormhole and then I extricated myself out because my brain got tired. So there's also that that's so cool. Everything you're saying is resonating with me so much because I just finished doing communications for a political campaign here in Florida. And, oh, my goodness, when you're talking about facts and questioning in a critical way, who benefits by this information? Who funds this outlet? Is this a real outlet? Is this a pseudo outlet? And that skill, I mean, that skill to determine, to say, you know, who's providing what I'm reading. That's a skill that I think John Q. Public, every person in this country, every person in this world, Needs to learn how to do because now with the internet and social media and tick tock and all of these ways that everybody can grab a mic and share their message, it's great for me and you. We can work from anywhere in the world and we can have a platform, but the trade off is so can all these other people and they can use these pseudo websites and pseudo content for bad for manipulating people. And I definitely think what you, the work that you do is so critical, so important. Yeah, it's definitely very interesting. I actually led a webinar for the writers co op about AI and our freelance writing business just yesterday. So this is very fresh and AI or generative AI like chat GPT is kind of like a regression to the mean, right? It's like, it's going to give us text based on what already exists. So what it's going to do is give us their best guess as to what already exists. Is on the internet after having read the entire internet. And so I think there is a lot of fact fiction. And during the webinar, we talked a lot about having to verify chat GPT claims. And one thing that I do, which some people call it trolling. I just call it being me when people say something, I was just like, what is the basis for that claim? Like, where did that fact come from? And I'm always asking that of chat GPT. And I'm always asking that of people like in my social networks, when like, Either I don't know, or if I have a hunch, maybe that like it came from a bias source. So yeah, it's a constantly asking that is definitely a muscle that can be cultivated for me. Thankfully, it is my nature. That's fantastic. I love it so much. Let's talk about that. So you've written, you left the book. Your career in academia or that path that you were on, you've had this amazing career in journalism, and then now you have the, your podcast, you have the writer's co op, you have your membership, and you mentioned this webinar that you hosted yesterday for other writers, what made you decide to start that and to start coaching other writers? Yeah. So I started the podcast and the coaching kind of came up at around the same time. And this relates to, I believe something else you want to talk to me about. So in 2019, I wrote that viral post about how I was, was not getting paid on time to the tune of 5, 000 plus from three different outlets. And I think what made the post so infuriating to so many people is realizing how systemic. The issue is of clients not taking freelancers seriously and not treating us as businesses and also trying to like retaliate against us when they were in the wrong in the first place. And after that post, so many people just started, they were like, I think they must have read it and thought, Oh, Dan has really good business acumen. Maybe she can just help me with everything that's wrong in my business. Or maybe she can help me demand a late fee. And I did a lot of those calls for free for a while. Either because I was on the road and I could just talk for half an hour and it's fine, like it's not too taxing on me. But the more and more evidence that I got from other people wanting to seek me out for professional advice, I was like, A, I am tired of sounding like a broken record. So hence the podcast, right? People can literally just like go back 15 seconds. Every, like whenever they want, and it's a permanent landing spot for people to find advice. And then the coaching also came out of that when people wanted something so specific from me, or so it seemed that it demanded so much of my time and energy. And yeah, so I think got serious and started charging for coaching around the same time that the writer's co op launched. That's so cool. I love that post so much. I was floored from that. I was floored from even your out of office message, your messages about, you know what, I'm not going to jump when I get an email. I'm going to think about things thoughtfully. I may respond in 48 hours. And I was like, this is how you do it. This is how we take control of our one precious life. If we want things to change, and that can be in just setting boundaries over our, the way we approach our work life and our lives, our personal lives, or just the way that we run our businesses and we insist upon being paid like the real businesses that we are. I thought it was so refreshing. I also thought it was interesting because somebody posted it again in one of the groups on Facebook, one of the writers groups. And, you know, there was certain people. I think they might have been an older generation and they kind of even recoiled or they kind of I saw some judgmental comment for me. It's brave. Maybe for you. Like you said, it's your nature. But until somebody says, no, this is not okay. And I'm not going to stand for this. And I wasn't wrong. And I'm not going to shrink back from these critical business conversations, just because these outlets are powerful and their household names or because they owe me money. And so they think they have leverage in this, this agreement. I provided services and they need to compensate me appropriately to those services. I think until we have more people doing that, we're going to continue to have some of the issues that I think freelancers experience in terms of being underpaid or mistreated and not respected. Did you get bad feedback from any writers or were there outlets? I mean, you talked about the retaliation from some of these outlets. Can you speak more about that? Yeah, the retaliation is an interesting piece because It's illegal. Yeah. So if you've been following what the Freelancer Union has been doing and getting more freelances and free like acts outside. Well, now New York has signed the Freelances and Free Act into state law. So it has expanded past just New York City, which is where it was in 2019. There is a similar law in Seattle and San Francisco and Los Angeles and I believe somewhere in Seattle. Illinois, somebody will have to fact check me, but it's come up in quite a few different contexts and retaliation, uh, from a client after a freelancer exercises their right to negotiate, to ask for better, to set a boundary, like any right that a business has, basically to, uh, Assert when and how the work is going to get done. And if a client retaliates, there are damages for that. And I don't think a lot of clients realize that, but I think that even filing a claim against retaliation is not a win for anyone, right? We as freelancers want work and like, we don't want to go back to that client cause they treated us like shit, but it's just such a drawn out legal process. So I think that retaliation does is unfortunate. I mean, for the clients that I featured in that blog post. I have no interest in ever working with any of them again, because I value my own sanity. I have found clients who respect me, and thus, having that evidence shows me that those clients are out there, and it's up to me to find more of those clients and toss the other ones in the trash. Like, that's it. I love it. And I love how you mentioned evidence, man, that scientific approach to your business that you're seeing. No, I'm not going to give in to ideas of fear. I'm not going to allow these people to treat me with disrespect and violate the terms of our business agreement just solopreneur or I'm a small business owner. You wouldn't do that to Apple. You know, you wouldn't do that to Microsoft. These big companies wouldn't do that to each other. So why are they doing it to smaller businesses? I love that. And you have evidence that there's more fish in the sea, there's more business to be had, and you don't need to accept these things and hopefully other writers will do the same and kind of see that this is not okay, and maybe the type will change a bit. So I think it's really great. That you shared that journey back in 2019, and I've seen it come up. I've seen that post kind of come up since then a couple of times. Oh, interesting. I don't have a Google alert for that post, but I have Google alerts for other things. So that's good to know. Yeah. I do think there needs to be precedent, right? Because I think back in 2019, when I published that so many of those outlets were like, nobody else has ever demanded this from us. And I'm like, Really? That's on us. That's on freelancers, honestly, for not having the confidence or the scarcity mindset that's holding us back from being like, Oh, I can't speak up because then this client will blacklist me. We're a business too. We can also blacklist clients. I love, I mean, I don't love it, but like I have a client blacklist. Do you? Yes. I have clients saved in my phone still just so I know not to answer. Oh my God. If the number comes up, I won't accidentally, you know, engage because yeah, you're right. Life is too short. Life is too precious and we can't waste our energy on folks who don't want to respect kind of this business process or respect us. Yeah. A hundred percent. I love that. So you've coached a lot of writers now with your program and your membership offerings. So are these some of the common things that you're seeing with writers? Is it still kind of undervaluing their work or other trends that you're seeing in terms of things that our fellow writers are struggling with? Yeah, a lot of writers, it's, let's talk about journalism, right? Because there are mass layoffs all the time these days and it's really dire. And before we got on this call, I just answered a young journalist. They had questions for class. They wanted to ask me, what advice do you have for somebody wanting to get into journalism right now? I'm like, honestly, the traditional on ramps aren't there anymore. Right? Hate to say it, but yes. So I think even with more experienced, more veteran writers, there's this notion that we can't fuck up, otherwise we lose work. And there are fewer buckets into which, if you're a client who can hire us for our services. And while that is true, depending on the industry, that's discounting. Their skill set that can be widely applicable to so many other clients and so many other companies that I think having that really narrowed world view is a disservice in this economy right now, where we. As freelancers, right, are kind of being asked to be more resilient, not just more resilient, also more nimble. Absolutely love it. Love that idea. Very cool. So your journey has inspired lots of people, anybody that's come across your podcast or your website, your socials, or this post that we spoke about, how can other people kind of channel their inner Wu Dan? To hold these clients accountable, to embrace this idea of anti capitalism, anti hustle, and just stand firm in their professional worth. Yeah. Well, I always say the first boundary that you have to set is the one with yourself. My email signature can say that I don't work on Fridays, which I don't, or like anyone's email signature can say that. But what's the reality? Are you, you know, like driving around town about to go to the spa and just accidentally or intentionally checking your email just to make sure that nothing is happening, right? And so I think, yes, the boundary that you first need to is actually with yourself in order to reap the benefits of taking that Added time off limiting your work hours saying no to an exploitative work situation and so on and so forth. You really have to believe it yourself first before you communicate it to the world. And yet do you think there's a little bit of confidence in there? But confidence is not what you have it or you don't. Confidence is a muscle that you can build similar to how you don't you. Go from the couch to deadlifting 300 pounds. You start with the bar first, pick the bar off the floor, like metaphor. Right. And so I think whether it's negotiating, whether it's saying no to an exploitative contract clause, whether it's not wanting to respond to clients, ask within 24 hours, that feels short to me, but depending on what service or industries you're in 24 hours, maybe. enough time. But for me, 24 hours is not enough. So I think figuring out what you need, communicating it with people and holding your ground so you can stay sane as a human in this challenging world. And challenging it is, I mean, it, I think things have definitely changed, you know, in the world and the pressures that we see and things that are happening in the world. And if we're going to continue to have businesses and continue to do services and create a life that we want, we do have to protect our peace, protect our time. I love, I think in one of your, I think it was over the holidays you had in your out of office that you had deleted one of the apps. Oh, that would be my email. Yes. Yeah. And I love that when you were talking about, no, you have to enforce these boundaries. Like it's easy to set them, but then you actually have to follow through and enforcing and that's it. That's the work. Probably 5 percent I'm imagining is saying that this is what I will and will not do. And the other 95 percent is just doing set boundaries. How am I going to do it? Yeah. Do you still struggle with that in any way? Or do you find yourself working on things or wanting to work on things when you've set a boundary? I do not want to work on the time that I am not working. It took me a while to get here for sure, but I've talked about this pretty openly and I can't remember if it was the podcast, but I burned out pretty hard in 2020. The biggest thing that happened was, well, the pandemic changed everything and suddenly instead of traveling third of the year to do enterprise journalism, I was at home and everyone seemed to want news coming out of Seattle, right? Like it was kind of ground zero for COVID. What we thought at the time, there were a lot of violent protests in the wake of George Floyd's death in the Pacific Northwest. And so I kind of hopped on that bandwagon too. So many people tapped me for my expertise in science and health to contextualize COVID for us. And so, That was the first year that I, it feels like overnight doubled my income. And I also, you know, quadrupled my burnout. And so when I first started enforcing a lot of these boundaries, whether it's logging out of work at 3 p. m. Pacific or not taking Friday off, it felt really unnatural. I'm like, Oh, what am I going to do? I have to go into the woods and really disconnect to enforce like Fridays. I don't work. And. Now it's become second nature. I'm like, today's Thursday. We're recording on a Thursday. Today's my Friday. Tomorrow I'm gonna like, dick off and do whatever I want to. Read a book. Knit. Like, sit in a coffee shop. Go to the spa. Go skiing. Like, go for a hike. So many possibilities. And all I want to do on my time off is like, listen to audiobooks. Be present with whatever situation I'm in and not work. Like, that's all I want. Same. Sign me up. I'm ready today. Sounds great. Wutan, you are so cool. You're brave. And maybe you don't see yourself as brave. Maybe you just see yourself as doing what's right. But for me, and I think for other writers who maybe are still trying to unlearn, unprogram, unsubscribe, opt out. Of this world, this world that is so capitalistic. It is so hustle culture. You're a bright light for us, you know, to aspire to, and to kind of imagine what's possible for ourselves. What's next for you. Can you tell us about your plans, both as a professional writer, as with your podcasts as a coach, what can people look forward to from you in 2024? Yeah, so I'm not sure when this episode will air, but the Writer's Co op is about to launch into season eight, which is going to be all about ways you can really think expansively about your business. Back to my earlier point of, we're not on the one track that we started on when we first struck out by ourselves or started our, started our business. of our career, so on and so forth. Like you don't have to stick with it. Like, let's kind of explore all the ways to play around this, given that we all have our different backgrounds and expertise. How do we pivot? How do we make the most out of it? How do we grow our businesses in creative ways or take our businesses and kind of untraditional directions, uh, based on what is quote unquote expected of us, how to make money that a lot of us probably can't make. Imagine, right? Like I think, so the season is called the year of expansive thinking. And I think it's just like going to be so full of conversations with people that help us think bigger and help us kind of quell that voice inside of us. That's like, this is scary. I can't do it. It's like, this is scary and let's try something small. So you can do the thing. Of course, the season is really born out of my personal experience because a handedly began running two businesses in full. So my, Editorial business and the writer's co op. And that was the transition for me. And. As a teaser, I was like, Oh my gosh, what other freelancers run two very different and independent businesses? And the answer is not that many. And I first wanted a blueprint and I couldn't find it. And then I was like, okay, I really have to stop panicking and looking for Examples are mentors in this space. I have to do the work now and in the last year or so I've kind of stumbled around and figured out a tenable solution for myself. And that feels so awesome to be like, yeah, actually, this can be sustained for me at this moment of my life. And this is how, which definitely. Was formulated because I ran all these experiments for myself to figure out like what I needed and how and when I could get things done. So that is the upcoming season of the podcast. Still continuing all my editorial work. I am starting to think about how to expand my business, given the state of the economy and the fact that journalism is. Dying. I'm dead. Uh, so yeah, there's a lot to think about, but it's January and I still have a lot of that new year energy. So let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Well, I don't, I don't know how profane you allow guests to go, but my trail name on the, when I did the PCT was LFG, which means let's fucking go. And so that's what I always like feel compelled to yell. But that might not be appropriate. You know what? We are all about our authentic selves here. So LFG, Wudan, LFG. Love it. Thank you so much for being on the show. I can't wait to get this out into our community and just see all of the awesome things that I know you're going to create in this year and beyond. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. And with that, we've come to the end of another episode. Please make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already done so, and give me a five star review on Apple. This will help out a lot in reaching more listeners. With our podcast, I invite you to check out the show notes and grab my free niches, get riches, freelance writing worksheet. You can use it to brainstorm the best niches for your writing business. And if you're not a writer, you can still use it to get business ideas. And until next time, this is Ashley Cisneros Mejia at talk freelance to me. Don't forget, we all get this one precious life. Don't constrain yourself to a box that you were never meant to fit in. It is your right to profit from your own creative gifts. This podcast was created by Ashley Cisneros Mejia. Our intro music was composed by the one and only Donna Raphael of World Instrumentals. Talk Freelance to Me is a product of Phoenix Creative Studio.