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Raise your hand if you’re a freelancer or solo business owner who has got it all together and knows how to psych yourself up.
As someone who didn’t raise her hand, I know I’m not alone in my struggle. Think about it: you’re constantly juggling all the day to day stuff in your business. It’s those daily tasks like invoicing, marketing and actually doing client work, that can feel tiring and overwhelming all at once.
I mean, who has time to *gasp* work on our mindset or learn more ways to be more efficient in our business? But if you have voices in your head telling you (untruthfully) you can’t hit your freelancing goals or you’re not good enough to grow beyond your current income, then you need to set some time aside to figure that out.
Enter podcasts: listening to them is a great way to improve your mindset as well as other aspects of your solo business. The best part is that you can multitask while you’re listening — while driving to run errands, washing the dishes and even while you’re working on mundane admin tasks.
Not sure where you start? Don’t worry – we’ve got you covered.
No More Water Cooler
This podcast is brought to you by Leapers, a community supporting the mental health of self-employed individuals. It offers resources such as a Slack community and strives to work with organizations to improve the freelancer experience (including their mental health).
No More Water Cooler chats with a freelancer from their community each week that starts off by asking how they are and explores their perspective in terms of mental health, what it’s like to be a freelancer and some of the triumphs or challenges that come with the territory.
What’s so great about this podcast is that you’re not going to hear from the big names in the online business world. Instead, they’re people just like you and me, going through everyday struggles. For example, the episode with Suchandrika Chakrabarti features conversations about supporting fellow freelancers.
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Freelance to Founder
The very ethos of the popular podcast Freelance to Founder is to help scale your freelancing business. Hosts Clay and Preston went from operating their separate one-person business to larger entities. Even if you don’t want to go beyond a one person company you’ll learn a lot from these episodes.
Some of their episodes talk about what they wish they knew when they first started — the episode with the co-founder at Electric Eye in particular covers fighting impostor syndrome, deciding whether to send client gifts and fixing major mistakes.
The coolest part? The podcast brings on freelancers to get free on-air coaching from them. That means you can get free advice too. To do so, you’ll need to fill out a questionnaire on their website and schedule a time to record the episode if you’re accepted.
Clients From Hell
Not everything has to be about growing your business — it’s ok to listen to self-employed related stories that poke fun at the business, right?
That’s where Clients From Hell comes in. What started as a Tumblr blog morphed into a podcast that’s equally as popular. Host Kyle Carpenter (and former host Bryce Clatyon) invites various freelancers on to talk about how to survive as a freelancer and the future of self-employment. Some recent episodes include topics like how to remain creative as a solo business owner amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, how to productize services and incorporating healthy habits.
While you’re at it, go to their Tumblr blog to see reader submitted stories of client stories — some of them are funny in their own way.
A Beautiful Anarchy
A podcast hosted by photographer and author David duChemin, A Beautiful Anarchy offers bite-sized encouragement in the form of 15-minute shows. You won’t hear anyone else on the show, it’s just David. He covers topics that have to do with the creative process — aka the high and lows of creating something and putting it out there for the world to see.
There are plenty of relevant topics — if you’re unsure of where to start, go with the most recent episodes. Topics include how to not let feedback distract you from your work (and when you should give it a second thought), how to not feel intimidated by social media, how to avoid burnout and how to fuel your creative fire.
One cool thing is that aside from the beautiful episode artwork, David has written transcripts of every episode produced. Whether you’re hard of hearing or prefer to read the content, you can do so.
UnF*ck Your Brain
Hosted by Master Certified Confidence Coach Kara Loewentheil, J.D., UnF*ck Your Brain isn’t only for the self-employed, but the insights and mindset strategies will help you level up your game. According to the show description, this podcast is aimed at high-achieving feminist women who struggle with anxiety, self-doubt and imposter syndrome.
Even if you’re not a high-feminist, it’s worth tuning into. The shows are fairly short — none of them are more than around 25 minutes long — and offer lots of encouragement in terms of helping you feel more confident by getting over your own limiting thoughts. Kara breaks down each concept in ways that are simple and actionable.
Some episodes you’ll hear are about resourcefulness, how to stop self-shaming and giving yourself permission — this episode might hit home to many of you as it talks about stopping the guilt when you’re doing something that people at large think you “shouldn’t” do.
7-Figure Small
Formerly called Unemployable, the 7-Figure Small Podcast features Rainmaker’s founder Brian Clark who is one of the most insightful voices in the entrepreneurial space. Again, it’s not a self-employed focused podcast per se, but it can offer you some inspiring and hopefully encouraging stories as you’re chugging away at your business-of-one.
This podcast features guests that consider themselves unemployable — from entrepreneurs, agency founders and other self-employed professionals. Almost all the episodes talk about how guests made the jump and are no longer interested in going back to the nine-to-five world.
One of the best current episodes is all about advanced technology and integrations. More specifically, guest Jason Miller talks about how it can free up business owners to focus more on creative pursuits, the last thing technology can take over (if at all).
The Freelance Podcast
If you haven’t made the leap to full-time freelancing or have just done so, then this podcast is for you. The Freelance Podcast aims to talk to those who are still freelancing on the side — host RJ McCollam started this podcast with the goal of helping you make the leap, even if you don’t have a huge email list or a large network to rely on.
The sad news is that RJ’s last episode was back in late 2019 but there are still lots of nuggets that are as relevant as ever. He’s devoted at least three episodes of Q&As so perhaps one of the questions you’ve been dying to ask a more seasoned profession is within that episode. His last episode called Taking Time Off looks at how freelancers can take time off, both from a logistical and mindset perspective.
Even if your schedule is full, you can multitask when listening to any of the above podcasts. Give them a chance and you never know — you may be able to crush all your goals next year.
Sarah Li Cain is a finance writer and a candidate for the Accredited Financial Counselor designation whose work has appeared in places like Bankrate, Business Insider, Financial Planning Association, Investopedia, Kiplinger, and Redbook. She’s the host of Beyond The Dollar, where her and her guests have deep and honest conversations about money affects their well-being, and Podcasting Q&A, a branded podcast from Buzzsprout.
