Indie Mindset
An indie mindset is thinking of yourself as an island, regardless of wether or not you currently work for a company. Instead of viewing yourself as part of a company, you view yourself as an "other." A person with an indie mindset never has a full-time job in their mind, instead they have periods where they have one whale client.
In After The Future, the Marxist theorist Franco “Bifo” Berardi ties the defeat of labor movements in the eighties to rise of the idea that we should all be entrepreneurs. In the past, he notes, economic risk was the business of the capitalist, the investor. Today, though, “‘we are all capitalists’…and therefore, we all have to take risks…The essential idea is that we should all consider life as an economic venture, as a race where there are winners and losers.”
Keeping an indie mindset make you more antifragile, especially since full-time employment is fragile We don't have stability in jobs, so we are all entrepreneurs wether we like it or not. When you are an entrepreneur, every hour is potentially profitable. All leisure activity is a loss in a capitalistic sense. Since we have to find new jobs constantly, we have to think about our appeal in the market, (personal brand), we have to do work outside of work because we no longer have a definition of outside of work. Also leads to freemium leisure, where we feel an obligation to monetize our hobbies.
Thinking like an indie means shifting from a consumption mindset to a productive one. An indie mindset in practice means doing unpaid work to invest in yourself, not just doing paid work for others.
Getting ahead with an indie mindset
Getting ahead requires working hard for yourself, instead of for others. Examples include educating yourself, building and maintaining a network, freelancing and consulting, creating your own products, and keeping an eye out for opportunity.
Thinking of yourself as a business helps you maintain your professionalism and take work less personally. You can separate your ego from the work that "You, Inc." performs.
You can also use this as part of your personal marketing. Instead of pitching yourself as a freelancer, for example, pitching yourself as a consultancy.
It doesn't have to be all or nothing; you can leverage indie work higher paying and more prestigious paid work. If you want to work with cool and interesting people, show that you can do cool and interesting work yourself.
Be loyal to people, not organizations.
Figure out how to get what you want, no one is going to give it to you. Ask.
You are not your Job Title. Don't be afraid to tackle challenges that are outside of your specialization or positioning. Don't be afraid of change (see working identities). Cultivate who you are when you aren't working. Don't be like those people who achieve financial independence and then go back to a job because they are "bored."
Links
- Thread from Visakanv on working for yourself