The best life-changing decision that led me here
Week 20: earnings and learnings
The premise of The Bored Millennial?
I share my weekly progress on building a sustainable online business through my writing. I gave myself 1 year after making my 1st dollar online in February. You can follow my journey week by week. I share my stats, my earnings, and my learnings. Open and honest.
That you can count on!
It’s my first time staring at a blank page for this edition. Not one spark of inspiration came to me this week. Nothing, zero, nada, niente.
Most of the time, on Wednesday, I have a decent amount of ideas written down or stored in my head. This time, on Thursday, I fully ignored the fact that I had nothing. Pushing that blank page anxiety away by avoiding thinking of it.
However, not sending out this newsletter is not an option.
So, while writing this, my brain finally started working and sputtered out an idea.
I’m gonna tell you a story.
A (real) story
This story is about how I tripled my income overnight and secured my ticket to freedom by making one life-changing decision. It sounds like the perfect LinkedIn headline, and it kind of is. This decision was the first domino piece that fell, releasing a chain reaction leading to where I am today.
In January 2022, I decided to leave my corporate job as a consultant business analyst in the financial sector and start as a freelance business analyst in the financial sector. Yes, you read that correctly. I kept doing the exact same job; the only thing I changed was the legal structure I worked in. This led to me earning three times more than I did as an employee.
The story begins in 2021 when I worked on an awesome project. We were doing a data migration, and it was my first time as a business analyst. I worked closely with two developers (who happened to be twin brothers). They became my mentors. Both were working as contractors, and they quickly started telling me I should do the same, that it was something for me. They planted a seed.
Then, one day, an email not meant for my eyes hit my inbox. It was the invoice for my prestations from my employer to the client. My eyeballs almost fell out of my sockets when I saw the 5-digit number. Is that how much they can invoice for my services? In a single month??
My mind started racing.
Could I ask this myself? Could I become an independent business analyst? How could I get such a job?
Soon, I was convinced this was my way forward, but it felt too soon to make the change. I believed I needed more experience.
When December 2021 came, my current employee told me my pay raise would be 100 euros, which was the final straw. We were living in a global pandemic combined with an energy crisis. Inflation was insane. And I had to cover everything with 100 euros extra a month?
I realized then I did not want to spend my life living from paycheck to paycheck, hoping I’d get a nice raise by the end of the year. I would have to work for years until I had a decent wage that could give me more freedom.
I was earning a basic 5 figure wage, and the company gave me a car and a lot of nice extra bonuses—which is typical in Belgium. But, if I had to finance those things myself with the money I could earn independently, it would still be more interesting financially.
I changed my LinkedIn status to ‘open to work’, and the requests flooded in.
Within two weeks, I had two concrete contract proposals with a higher rate than my current employer was asking for me. I was ecstatic and didn’t hesitate one second to say YES.
In the following six weeks, I ended my employer contract, hired an accountant, set up my own business, leased a car, and obtained all the necessary insurance. I was ready and extremely excited.
My first job as a contractor, however, started badly… Immediately in my first week, I knew something was wrong. Nobody was there to greet me, the manager was on holiday, I had no access to any programs, and I spent a week waiting. Nobody answered my emails. From then on, the job stayed unmotivating and boring, and they did not offer enough work while hiring more business analysts.
However, a whole mindset shift happened when the first payout arrived on my business account. I had access to way more funds than I was ever used to, and if I handled this smart, I could completely change my life.
When the job kept being extremely boring, making me extremely unhappy. I didn’t understand why I was there. I was confused and doubted my decision. I felt unworthy of the money I was earning.
I started focusing on personal growth, reading many books, and listening to inspiring podcasts to fill my time. I might have escaped the rat race, but it didn’t feel like it. I needed to change myself. I quickly realized I should ask for help if I wanted real change.
I contacted a business coach who focused on mindset. Had I not become independent, I would have never been able to pay for this type of coaching. I signed up for a six-month track, which completely changed my life. It was hands-down the best investment I’ve ever made.
That coaching led to me writing online, developing grit, and understanding the importance of consistency. It showed me I was living in a victim mindset, and I shifted to a growth mindset. I started setting goals and reaching them. Dreams came true in a very short time.
It led to me leaving that boring project and finding a new project that fits me better. I improved my health and started working out more regularly, reading many books again, and ditching social media.
Everything slowly fell into place. My life unfolded in ways I never thought possible. Working full-time remotely from Italy? Yes! Being able to work less? Yes! Starting my dream writing project on the side? Yes! Feeling healthier than ever? Yes! Having a comfortable financial buffer? Yes!
Of course, with the ups come the downs—moments of feeling uncertain or having low energy. Boredom creeping up again. Wondering about my purpose is in my short life on earth. I got disillusioned by writing content on LinkedIn. Obsessing over improving myself and finding flow. Feeling a form of restlessness. Forever searching for better and more.
The big difference is that now I have full faith and trust in myself, even in those periods of doubt.
Look, being a freelancer is not for everyone. You earn much more as a contractor because you take a higher risk. Your client can decide to stop working with you at any moment. You are responsible for everything yourself: finding new jobs and clients, administration, insurance, holidays, you could be months without income… You don’t have these insecurities as an employee.
But by becoming a freelancer, I have gained a level of freedom unmatched. I work from where I want, I choose how to spend and invest my money, I decide which courses or educations I want to follow, I don’t have to ask permission to anybody. I’m not bound to a strict 9 to 5. I must deliver quality so the client wants to keep working with me.
I will not sit here and tell you: you have to become a freelancer and this is how. Because it’s not for everyone. Everybody makes their own choices in life, and it’s important that you do what is right for you.
But I do want you to know that there are other options in life. And if you don’t open yourself up to those other options, you’ll keep being stuck in a life you might not be happy living.
Make sure you are living your life!
YOLO ✌🏻
End of story.
Learnings
I said it before, and I’m going to say it again: I’m really struggling with how to convert free subscribers to paid subscribers. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, but I've barely been acting on it.
Hello, procrastination. I'm not happy to see you again.
However, I have a new idea that will make the paid subscription more valuable. And I’ll have to work a lot harder, so no more reasons to procrastinate. (Immediately, the little voice in my head says: there will always be reasons to procrastinate)
This newsletter aims to share my open and honest journey of building an online business through writing for at least one year. I started by making $1 online in February and am curious to see what I can accumulate over 52 weeks.
I hope to inspire you during this journey and give you the full picture. I’m trying my best to share as much as possible with this Friday edition (that will stay free forever). But there is so much more to write about!
That’s why I will start a bi-weekly ‘How I'-series.
These will be high-quality, in-depth articles, often backed by science.
I want to share how I tackle certain things so you can learn from them and maybe try out some protocols, systems, and habits yourself.
Here are my first post ideas:
How I maintain my weekly writing streak using writing flow blocks.
How I learned to value consistency and the boring habits as a leverage for growth.
How I combine my job with my side hustle
How I leverage science and mindset to achieve my goals
How I used and experienced the power of visualization
How I never gave up on writing, although I had zero success
How I survived and thrived for 6 months on Substack
How I maintain a healthy lifestyle with cheat meals
How I failed at morning routines and why I believe they are overrated
How I ditched social media and now read 30+ books a year instead
I’ll share the tools I use, the things I tried that didn’t work for me, and what did work. I’ll go deep into the details but keep it accessible and understandable. Clarity over complexity.
I will combine these articles with my monthly connect calls (or Webinars) and hope to get some interesting guest speakers on those calls.
With this included and the personal growth course I’m developing, I believe I have a beautiful, worthy offer for only 50€/year.
My current promo ideas are:
30-day money-back guarantee
Offering the first edition of the ‘How I’-series for free
Opening the first webinar for everybody as a teaser for more
Offering a ‘Early bird’-discount
All of these combined.
I haven’t decided yet, but you can expect a promo email soon!
Sometimes, this whole concept feels weird. I’m sharing as much as possible about how I’m thinking, which offer I’m crafting, how to price it, etc., and at the same time, I'm asking you to become a paid member. Haha. That’s not how it’s normally done, but hey, I’m okay with that!
I wonder how you see it. I'm so curious about your thoughts! Let me know in the comments. Also, I would love to know what you would be willing to pay for!
Oh, and by the way, just to be clear, I don’t expect or hope to see everyone become a paid subscriber. That would be extremely unrealistic, but I’d love to reach a healthy conversion rate of 5%.
Earnings
Although I spent less time on Substack than usual, we maintained a steady, beautiful growth. The curve is going up, up, up—and I love that sight!
I had so many wonderful, heartwarming reactions to my note about nobody showing up. People appreciated my honesty, reinforcing my belief that what I’m doing here is the right direction.
This morning, I also got such a lovely surprise! 2 more people joined as paid subscribers. 🧡 Thank you so so much!
Here’s the spreadsheet:
And here’s my Stripe payout.
What I loved this week
Being in Belgium, spending time with my parents and enjoying their lovely company and garden.
Seeing my family! We organized a little family party to welcome the dogs and also so I could see everybody again.
📕 Finishing Norwegian Wood! I really loved it. It left me with many questions, and I even went back to the start. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ I’m in need of a new fiction book, preferably something easy to read but with substance. So, any recommendations are welcome!
Sleeping 7 hours in a row! The doggies are managing to sleep through the night!! Yippie!! Now, the next step to get done is to no longer pee in the house.
As always,
thank you so much for reading, and have a lovely weekend.
With love,
Marie
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I think it was the best decision that you did not have any content planned and just went freeflow with your story! It's incredibly inspiring, but first of all, I am so happy I got to know you and your journey a little better.
I am also excited for what you are going to do about the additional offers for paid subscribers. The AI image workshop was great and I am already looking forward to the next workshops on your schedule. Honestly, for my personal The-Bored-Millenial-Fan-Girl opinion, it didn't need more to become a paid subscriber. But I guess having longer, well researched essays as an additional benefit might help you get to your conversion goals.
Fun fact: I am going to talk about morning routines in my next postcard 🤣
All of this is so relatable, except the business analyst being successful at your job bit. I've never been particularly good at jobs.
I've always been a writer, but tried to stuff myself into a corporate 9-5 work. It didn't end well - mostly because of my adult ADHD, but also because I was ignoring what I was supposed to do. Writing was my first love, even before my sports (figure/speed skating) yet I kept thinking I needed to do something else. Things started improving when I started to take writing seriously, wrote consistently on Medium, started two Substacks, and prioritized learning. This is my job and business now. I'm not doing well financially from it yet but I'm hoping to learn as I go and build. :)