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In my last email, I shared about "autonomy" and which side hustles I did that gave the most autonomy.
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But before we go further into this topic, there's one important thing I want to note:
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Autonomy without skill is not freedom. It is just uncertainty with added personal responsibility attached to it.
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A lot of people think they can just skip the skill-building part and dive straight into becoming their own boss.
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Unfortunately, that's not how this works.
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You actually have to go through the phase of "working for someone else" first to build your skills and leverages that will allow you to be independent and have more autonomy in what you do later on.
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So yes, as much as I love talking about "freelancing", I want you to get the full picture too. Don't skip this part just because it's less convenient.
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I too, worked for organizations and companies BEFORE I went solo, do full-time freelancing, and became "my own boss".
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But Naz, why do I need to "work for someone else" first before building my own stuff? 🤔
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Every autonomous income stream requires a real skill underneath it.
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And the fastest way to build that skill (especially when you're new in the skill) is to work inside a real organisation where the feedback loop and the learning phase are fast, and the stakes are high.
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1) You are exposed to real standards.
When you work in a company or an organisation, you are expose to real standards, not just the standard you would set for yourself. BUT, the standard the market actually expects.
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For instance, for copywriters, there's a huge difference between the copy you think is good and the copy that a client pays for and runs in a campaign.
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Working inside an organisation closes that gap fast for you. This is what we call having "industry-standard" skills. This keeps you relevant and hireable even when you become a freelancer in the future.
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2) Feedback is immediate and specific.
When you work in a company, you will have a manager, a creative director, or a senior colleague who reviews your work and tells you exactly what is not working.
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That feedback alone is worth months of solo work.
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3) You learn things you didn't even know you needed to learn
In a professional environment, you will notice a knowledge gap very fast.
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You discover them through briefs you cannot execute, feedback you did not expect, and situations you have never encountered before.
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All of these (no matter how inconvenient they sound) are needed for your skills to be improved.
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4- The pace of exposure is compressed.
In 10 months of working inside a marketing agency, you would encounter more variety of real-world work than you would produce in 2 years of solo freelancing in the industry.
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Especially when you're a beginner. The volume and diversity of projects will accelerate your skill development.
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This is not just unique to copywriting skills only.
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The same pattern applies across almost every skill-based career — design, marketing, development, finance, operations.
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The people who build the most durable independent careers always have a period of working inside an organisation where the skill got compressed and deepened quickly.
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The depth in your skills is EVERYTHING.
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So what should you do instead?
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I share it in in this article I wrote 👇
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Why "Working for Someone Else" First Is the Smartest Career Move for Freelancers
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There is a narrative that gets repeated a lot in online business spaces: quit your job, work for yourself, build your freedom. And while that is worth working toward, the conversation always skips something important which is the phase that makes it all possible. What I realized, most people who have successfully built autonomous income streams, multiple revenue channels, or …
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