photoguy112

so hard to read that text

That was an Emperial ban when emperors had power. Pulling a similar stunt now would be impossible.

Late 80's into 90's.

I feel like his comments do not apply to all of the world. In Japan for example, meat consumption is so prominent that we hardly ever consider not having meat. Sure, there is a lot of hamburger here but for the most part people stick to meat in its natural state - lots of pork, beef. Trying to convert Japan from a pork eating society would probably be a feeble attempt.

Back when I was a kid, after a heavy downpour the roads would be crowded with earthworms. You really had to watch where you step to avoid stepping on one of those suckers. Fast forward today and I RARELY see a single worm out on the road after a similar downpour.

Most startups don't have an exit, I believe most fail. So you could be sitting at a failing startup and your options worthless.

You really don't have to figure out anything, it's all been written about many times over and posted all over. The post is a good summary but lacks details. I am a UX consultant, not a developer, I figured it out on my own (although I'm sure there are things I am not aware of that perhaps I should research and figure out further) but I probably didn't have to if I did some googling around first.

The biggest thing that makes you successful as a consultant is thinking like a business. You are not a person performing a service for the company (that makes you a hire / an employee figuratively speaking), you are a business, solving their business problem. When you think of yourself in this way and act accordingly, then everything becomes easier - saying no to bullshit, billing and collecting, charging way more.

I nodded my head when I read the point about increasing your rate for every new client. People think charging more is being unfair, but this is just business practice. You don't need to charge "your worth" whatever it may be. There is a supply of a very particular thing, and a demand of a very particular thing and the rate does not matter whatsoever when the return far outweighs the costs. A million dollar product is worth exactly zero if it cannot be produced and if you are the one to help see it through then you can charge whatever you like, given the margins make sense. These days I find myself increasing my rates for every new client. Sometimes, just for the heck of it, when I have many leads, I'll double my already high rate to see what happens ;)

Haha, I am not looking to find out but I'm sure it'll happen soon enough. Oh god.. just thinking about the exhaustion that comes with that, maybe I'll run off into the desert.

I am thinking of launching a course on how to become a UX consultant / designer if anyone here designs and wishes to go down that path. Let me know... You can expect 60-150k, work from home.

It makes total sense. If your time is worth way more than theirs (in terms of pay), why not outsource as much of your daily boring, time-consuming work to someone else?

We had a kid last year. My time went from some availability to NONE. Granted, we don't have a babysitter, both myself and wife stay at home (I work from home, she doesn't work). Despite both of us being available, just the daily chores and things that must be done with a little one are insane. Ours could be a unique case because my kid is kinda difficult, but it's definitely a huge change from not having kids. That being said I think anyone who recently had a kid and works from home can attest to forming new abilities to manage time super effectively. Before I would waste a lot of time on non-important things, now I know what my priorities are and get things done really fast. I am a lot more focused because of this.

I'm in Japan. Last year I remitted $16k. My residence is paid for and I spent an additional $12k cash. In total, I live on 28k / year. Add in a residence if I had to rent, down where I am it's $500/mo for a 3 br "home". It's really a shanty by western standards but enough for me. On 34k if you rented, one can live comfortably in Southern Japan. Of course, this is not possible without a valid visa. I have lived in Midwest, California, Washington and visited most of US. I would still choose to live here than anywhere else. I think most Americans who have not done enough travel do not seriously consider living outside of their country (if they had the chance) just due to a mindset that America is the best place to be (hint: it's not).

I can attest to this. Being on your own clock is still stressful in some ways, but compared to a standard work week - not even close.

Chase beats Citybank - they ask for a case sensitive password but dont care about case sensitivity when entering your password.