Hi friends, welcome to Ad Astra! It’s so good to have you here.

Today I want to discuss a topic that carries many names: being your own boss, forging your path, taking a road less traveled, following your dreams...

Take a moment and think about work (perhaps your own, or that of your friends and family). Does the structure of work you’ve just thought of look more or less the same, or does it vary greatly from person to person?

At its core, employment hasn’t changed much since the Industrial Revolution. We go to work, we clock in, we clock out, we get a salary. We help create and then execute plans for how to grow an organization, sell more widgets, gain more customers, increase revenues, and so on. We give our time, efforts, brainpower, and enthusiasm and in exchange, we gain security, status, certain financial freedom, and validation.

When that equation works, it’s wonderful. There is nothing wrong with being gainfully employed by someone, being good at what you do and enjoying it, and reaping the rewards. Perhaps contrary to a lot of popular opinion on Instagram and elsewhere, I believe that not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, a freelancer, a hustler, or his or her own boss — and that’s great!

Unfortunately, that equation did not work for me. I’ve reached the American dream, with my MBA and my six-figure salary, but what I found there wasn’t fulfillment or joy, but a lot of stress and a goalpost that kept moving further and further away.

The times, they are a-changing.

Even though the employment model has largely remained the same since the Industrial Revolution, our world has changed drastically. We experience greater mobility than our parents and grandparents ever did, jet hopping from New York to Casablanca in a matter of hours. We can work from anywhere, which was unthinkable in an era of conveyor belts. We seek from life a greater sense of fulfillment, we strive to be our best selves, we want to actualize our dreams and potentials.

I see this shift happening in many conversations that are bubbling up all around me. And I think it is a worthwhile endeavor to pursue the dreams and visions that go beyond your current job or profession. As one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, says: “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave it neither power nor time.”

I think this applies more broadly than creativity though: if you hear a call that beckons you away from what you currently do, you have to honor this call and give it power and time. (And by a ‘call’, I don’t mean that you would know exactly what you were put on this earth to do, but that you’d recognize that what you’re currently doing is not it.)

The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave it neither power nor time. — Mary Oliver

The day I walked out of my office for the last time was the scariest and the happiest day of my life. That day, I set out on a precarious journey of building my vision. I did not know exactly how I was going to do it, but I knew I needed to start. The security of corporate employment, real or imagined, was no longer enough to justify staying in a career that was not the right fit. So I took the leap and transitioned to a different lifestyle, pursuing my lifelong dream of becoming a travel photographer, writer, and entrepreneur.

I had no blueprint of what to do. Our schools, organizations, and societies don’t teach us how to forge our own paths. They teach us how to fit into a system that still follows that old employment model. So I had to learn the hard way: by trial and error.

Over the last four years, I’ve hit many dead ends. I’ve also made progress and learned a few things from this wild ride. Today, I want to share my essential ten with you:

1. Get used to people telling you ‘no’.

We often don’t act on our ideas simply because we are afraid to hear ‘no’ in response.

The objective here is to get desensitized to rejection. A good way to practice hearing ‘no’ is to approach people on the street and ask for things. I’ve asked a barista for a free cup of coffee and a man on a street for $5. I’ve offered a hug to one passerby and a compliment to another. Most of the time, people will look at you funnily and say ‘no’. Sometimes, they’ll stop and talk to you about what you’re doing. Occasionally, this small conversation leads to an unexpected, positive outcome. The whole time you’re learning that a ‘no’ in response to your inquiry is not the end of the world.

2. Don’t give up.

Most people give up too soon. Like any ambitious project, building your vision is a marathon. The acclaimed Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert faced thousands of rejections before her first story was published. ”The Accountant” star Anna Kendricks could barely afford rent while she was on a PR tour for ‘Up in the Air’. If you are serious about going after whatever it is that brings you joy, be prepared to stay in the race for a long time (and check out this cartoon, “The Iceberg Illusion”).

3. You’ll likely need to wear many hats to make it work.

Breaking in as a newcomer in any industry without prior experience or connections is not easy. When I first started as a travel journalist, paid assignments were few and far between. To stay the course, I needed to diversify my income streams. This has meant starting marketing consulting projects, launching social media gigs, even walking dogs on weekends (whatever it takes!) as I nurtured my new career.

Figure out what skills you have to offer — we all have some.

Better yet, ask your friends what skills do they think you have. Your friends may be better than you are at recognizing your unique strengths.

4. You will need more time and money than what you originally planned for.

When I started on this path, I gave myself six months (!) to ‘make it’ before I even knew what ‘making it’ looked like. There were two things wrong with that goal: too nebulous of an objective, too short of a timeframe. I’ve since readjusted and reworked my goals, recognizing that it takes time to build something great.

5. Institute a practice of relentless follow-up.

If you follow up on your inquiries, you will be more likely to get a positive response. And when a response is not a ‘yes’, learn the difference between a ‘no’ that means ‘I’m busy, and I don’t know you, so I won’t make the effort’ and a ‘no’ that means ‘I am not interested in what you have to offer’.

The former is an invitation for you to do a better job selling your idea, while the latter is a firm ‘no’. However, if you do your homework, the likelihood that a person you’ve engaged with is not interested in what you have to offer will be low.

6. Try as many things as you can between now and next Sunday.

You have to put yourself out there.

Sometimes, being your own boss is a numbers game. Find events, conferences, meet-ups, and people with similar interests. Try new things. When you bring forth enough projects into the world, some of them will bear fruit. That fruit may not be the one you expected, but it will be a fruit of your labor nonetheless.

7. Fear does not go away, but it becomes easier to be afraid and still act on things that scare you as time goes by.

Just like you exercise your body regularly, you’ll want to learn to exercise your ‘acting in spite of fear’ muscle regularly. It becomes easier with practice because our minds have this incredible ability to learn called neuroplasticity (and it doesn’t stop as we age, contrary to what we used to think). When you take a speaking gig and do it in spite of your fear of public speaking, your brain will record a ‘See? Nothing bad happened!’ memory. Next time, you will be a little more likely to take on another new thing that scares you.

(Side note: to dig deeper on neuroplasticity, check out this fascinating On Being podcast, The Magic Shop of the Brain.)

8. Embrace failure.

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

What would you do if you knew you would fail for sure? Would you still proceed? Because failure is inevitable. Many of the paths you’ll take will lead nowhere. Until one day, completely unexpectedly, one path will suddenly open up to a field full of accomplished dreams and, better yet, new possibilities.

9. You are not alone.

Find other people who are trying to do something different. There are many.

The importance of having a community of people that have similar struggles and aspirations cannot be overstated.

When I left the corporate world, I felt incredibly alone and misunderstood, for who in their right mind leaves the security of that behind? Turns out, many people want to transition into a more meaningful work field. I’ve found my community. Find yours. (And stick around here because I am currently working on building a community aspect to Ad Astra as well.)

10. This could be the most difficult journey you’d ever take.

There will be doubt, fear, stress, and judgment. Some of your friends will estrange you. Your family will worry about you.

But this road will also bring you a lot of joy because you will have built it yourself, brick by brick, mistake by mistake, success by hard-earned success.

Perhaps for the first time, you’lI stop feeling that you are living someone else’s life and will instead have a strong conviction that you are headed in the right direction.

And that is something worth taking a risk for.

Have feedback or your own experiences to share? Reply to this email (it goes directly to me), I’d love to hear from you!

Onwards!

Yulia

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P.S. Ad Astra is a weekly discussion on these four topics:

* Living Your Boldest Life: tools, tips, and strategies on pursuing big projects, such as pitching National Geographic or launching a company

* Going Pro: my tips on quitting the job you don’t want and becoming someone you want to be instead (in my case: a writer, photographer, and entrepreneur) 

* Putting Your Imagination To Work: insights on storytelling and creativity, i.e. creating a winning pitch or coming up with ideas, consistently

* Personal Growth: how not to stand in your own way to your dreams and on being human with failures, doubts, and struggles (we all have them!)

The newsletter is going to be free for the first four issues.

On February 2, 2020, I’m going to turn it into a mostly paid subscription content: one issue a month will be available to everyone and three issues will be for paid subscribers only.

If you sign up in the four weeks following February 2, the subscription is going to be $5 a month, going forward, forever. Think of it as taking me out to coffee, once a month, and getting four opportunities to ‘pick my brain’ on the topics above while you’re doing it.

After March 1, 2020, the regular subscription is going to be $6 a month (or $65 a year if you choose an annual subscription).

Why am I doing a paid subscription?

There are two reasons:

* I believe that what I have to say has value. I have accumulated the thoughts, tips, and strategies I am going to share with my readers in this newsletter in over FOUR years of experience going after my dreams and living boldly every day. This is a lived, breathed, and tried-and-tested insight that I am now putting out into the world. If you’re not willing to (or able to) pay for the subscription, that’s totally fine. After all, there is a lot of content already out there EVERYWHERE that you may search for on your own. But if you have $5 a month to spare and are looking to make some meaningful changes this year, then I believe this will be worthwhile to you.

* As a freelancer and entrepreneur, I do not receive a salary from anyone :) Every minute I spend on this effort is a minute I could be spending on sending out more pitches, hustling, trying to figure out where my next dollar will come from… you get the idea. So, as someone who gladly and willingly participates in the creative economy (and supports other people pursuing creative work), I believe that there are other people out there willing and ready to support my work. If you are one of them, join us, hit subscribe, and welcome to Ad Astra*!

*What is Ad Astra? It’s part of a Latin saying ‘per aspera ad astra’ which means ‘through difficulties, to the stars’ ✨

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit livingboldly.substack.com