Throw off the corporate comfort blanket? Why would you?
Your cosy company role gives you pension, healthcare, (usually) decent equipment when your working and paid holidays when you’re not. And, if you’re a creative, you don’t worry about all that tawdry sales stuff. If you’re in sales, you can dodge the tedious admin.
But, we do. The ranks of the sovereign professional continue to swell.
The thinking sovereign plans and deals with all of the above. But, uncertainty is unavoidable. Being independent is enormously thrilling, but it’s scary too. All the things you never worried about – like regular money – are no longer a given.
You need strategies to cope. Happily, the Art of Manliness blog has five tools for thriving in uncertainty.
Unsurprisingly, stoicism, of simply keeping things in perspective, is top of the list.
The rest of the list is interesting, too. The common thread is frame of mind: staying agile, generating options, maintaining perspective.
It reminds me of a valuable, little book I read years ago, Who Moved My Cheese, by Spencer Johnson.
Other useful resources include:
- You, Only Better by Nicholas Bate
- Nicholas Bate’s daily blog – essential reading
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius – I know I keep banging on about it, but the slim format and short verses makes it easy to find something pithy, pertinent and contemporary.
- The Daily Stoic – another essential daily blog (and newsletter)
Beyond that, you should:
- Laugh regularly
- Play great music daily
- Walk outdoors, feel the rain and the wind and hear the trees
Photo by Edu Lauton on Unsplash