Dan Pink

I'd rather have a sales person that is as much a part of the team as anyone else.

Daniel Pink's ["To Sell Is Human"](http://www.danpink.com/books/to-sell-is-human/) makes a strong argument against commissions, which is echoed in these articles:

https://hbr.org/2012/07/a-radical-prescription-for-sales

> Mitch Little began questioning the received wisdom on sales commissions in the late 1990s, shortly before he became vice president for worldwide sales and applications at Microchip Technology, a large semiconductor company headquartered near Phoenix. He oversaw 400 salespeople whose compensation plan was the industry standard—60% base salary, 40% commissions.

> “That made sense 40 years ago, when the Fuller Brush salesman went door-to-door,” Little told me. “But the world of business-to-business sales has shifted fundamentally.” So in an act of sacrilege for a onetime sales guy, Little killed commissions altogether. He established a new plan in which salespeople received 90% of their compensation in a high base salary, and the other 10% was linked to corporate (rather than individual) measures such as top-line growth, profits, and earnings per share.

> The result? Total sales increased. The cost of sales stayed the same. Attrition dropped. Retention rose.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/21/business/smallbusiness/for-some-paying-sales-commissions-no-longer-makes-sense.html

> The proponents of ditching commissions believe they foster negative behaviors, such as focusing on…

There's a lot of ground to cover to become a non-starving freelancer. You need to find mentors and other working models quickly and some grit. You may need more education and training. Since you're looking at web-work, you need also to start building your own portfolio of sample-work in order to prove yourself, I recommend learning everything you can about github.com and making yourself a name there with a github page--version control systems like GIT will become your ultimate UNDO/REDO system and will save you hours of agony when you make mistakes. Make mistakes. You can't learn anything without learning how to recognize you've made a mistake. But networking on github is just networking on the Internet, you'll also need to find communities of people to associate with in real-life to network. You're young, there are a lot of other people out there to discover how things worked best for them--their experiences can help you guide your own.

Here's some more rabbit-holes to fall into, you'll come out of them fine:

http://thefoundation.com/ (Entreprenuership)
http://5by5.tv/quit (Grit, psychology of going-it-alone, passion)
http://www.danpink.com/books/free-agent-nation/ (Work ethic and networking)
http://www.personalkanban.com/pk/ (Self management)
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/a-review-of-the-art-of-learning.html (Learning)

And finally, if you have any debt, by hook or crook find ways to eliminate it. Stay off the debt path, it will only cause you suffering after…

"... Baccalaureate Education and the Employment Decision:
Self-Employment and the Class of 1993 a working paper by Chad Moutray Office of Advocacy U.S. Small Business Administration ..."

This is the title of the study which I found here ~ http://www.danpink.com/archives/2008/11/who-becomes-self-employed

"... This longitudinal survey asks a number of questions to a nationally representative sample of college and university students who were seniors during the 1992-1993 academic year. The same students answer follow-up questions periodically. In the case of the B&B data, there is information from subsequent questionnaires in 1994, 1997, and 2003. Much of the analysis in this paper focuses on employment in 2003, or ten years after graduation. To the best of my knowledge, the present study is the first to link and analyze educational ... experiences at the baccalaureate level with self-employment and other employment decisions using the 2003 B&B data responses ..."

From the abstract. Some of the data is interesting. In the study "Startups" don't seem to fit the model of a small business. For example:

"... The author also noted that the grades of those working in smaller firms tended to be lower on average, and they were less likely ... to have earned as many professional qualifications or advanced degrees as their peers who were employed by large businesses ..."

Also nice summarisation of Startup risk WRT…

As a culture we now assume that everyone is supposed to act as their own personal sales and marketing department. You aren't even a complete human being unless you do [1].

We also take it for granted that marketing involves a certain amount of exaggeration and deception, and that anyone taken it by dishonest marketing only has themselves to blame, as long as the dishonesty is kept within certain culturally accepted limits that keep getting stretched further and further [2]. Maybe some advertising can get away with honesty, but that's the exception, and it's arrogant to think you're exceptional [3].

In other words, lying about ourselves is now culturally expected.

Perhaps in the next generation, an unwillingness to aggressively sell yourself will be seen as just as sad and self-defeating as not completing high school. How do these poor kids not see how dropping out of school affects their life? It's so tragic, we think now. Just sit in the classroom and do your work. Perhaps in twenty years we'll be lamenting the stubborn inability of disadvantaged kids to exaggerate their achievements. How can these poor kids just sit around doing their schoolwork and not sell themselves aggressively? It's so tragic. Just smile manically and say you're an awesome, passionate rock star. Is that so fucking hard to understand? What are parents teaching these days? Shit, we should really be funding Head Start.

[1] http://www.danpink.com/books/to-sell-is-human/

[2] This link…

Make good decisions when you're feeling well that make bad decisions when you're feeling impulsive harder. Example: buy only good food / no alcohol / etc when you shop; when those emotions well up that typically trigger going towards the bad thing to consume, it just doesn't exist. It's amazing how NOT hungry one actually is when you actually would have to do so much as microwave something!

Show up daily, even in a small way. BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits stuff goes over this exhaustively, but basically it's better to go to the gym to do 1 minute of exercise than to not go at all, as it's more about building your identity than doing the actual thing effectively.

You should consider changing your relationship with your regret, so you can use it as this "pointy stick to motivate yourself" instead of this dull, directionless pain that pervades your life. This book is great [0].

Ask yourself "would I regret NOT doing this?" often. Would you regret not looking at this Orange Website, even if you feel the urge? Keep looking at your life through this lens to understand what you'll regret, and steer your ship accordingly.

[0] https://www.danpink.com/the-power-of-regret/

Wealth and investments are not ends themselves. Having enough money won't guarantee a meaningful life. This is a mistake many working people, not just the FIRE community makes.

I found the concept of "funded contentment" by Brian Portnoy[1] useful:

> ... wealth and investing are about funding contentment and underwriting a meaningful life, as defined by you. Not about getting rich, having "more," and losing yourself on the hedonic treadmill.

So without having defined "contentment" first, you'll be unhappy either way, retired or working. Contentment itself seems to come from a combination of three things. The weights tend to be different for each person: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.[2]

I found this a very useful framework for myself and I don't see early retirement as a goal any more. Instead, I focus on the things that make me content, which is mainly mastery and autonomy for me.

1: https://www.alexjhughes.com/books/2018/7/4/the-geometry-of-wealth-brian-portnoy

2: https://www.danpink.com/books/drive/