The past week I learned that nothing is impossible, or yampossible it seems. About a year ago, I was in Greenville, SC… unemployed and pretty much starving when I discovered canned yams at the local discount foods store. I started eating yams (sweet potatoes) pretty much everyday, straight out of the can for breakfast, lunch and dinner. While my strange food habit became sort of associated with me through my tweets on twitter, I wondered if I could possibly take my love for yams into a career. So I started the “Will Work For Yams” campaign on my website and twitter.

I sent Bruce’s Foods an email, with no reply. Then my writer/actor friend Brian Spaeth got involved, a four page and very crazy yam manifesto to Bruce’s Foods on why they should hire me. Then I got a very cryptic email from Bruce’s “Why Bruce’s Yams?” is all it said. So I wrote this blog post…. “The Power of Yams.” to explain my love for yams. A few emails back and forth with Bruce’s and a month later, this HUGE box of Bruce’s Yams products showed up at my door. You can watch the video of that madness here… “May is the Month of The Yam”

Anyways, I thought that would be the end of hearing from Bruce’s Foods… until a few weeks ago that is. I then received an email from Bruce’s… “Hey, you want to do our social media?”….*record screech* WHAT!?!?!

Long story short… I just got back from New Iberia, Louisiana and had a wonderful time visiting Bruce’s Foods and the great state of Louisiana. Great company, good people and southern hospitality to the max! (I got to stay in the old estate of the owner of Bruce’s Foods!)

You can see all my photos and video from the trip here… “Miss Destructo’s Yamventure”

I’ll now be actually “working for yams” and running the Bruce’s Yams Twitter and Facebook accounts. Fan us and follow us to hear me yammer’in about yams all day.

Bruce’s Yams on Twitter- http://www.twitter.com/brucesyams

Bruce’s Yams on Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/bruces.yams

Again if you have a goal…. follow it and never give up. Good things come to those who wait, be persistant but be patient.

Today on Twitter, it’s #nakedff which means it’s Naked Follow Friday! As you may have remember, awhile ago I started the I Tweet Naked website. http://itweetnaked.com celebrating those tweeps are all about speaking their minds and being themselves over Twitter.

Now you can tell the world how you tweet naked! We’ve got buttons at $2.50 that are selling like hotcakes.

We’ve got “I Tweet Naked” shirts… Great conversation starter for your next social media conference!

http://cafepress.com/itweetnaked Check out our store!

Thank you to our awesome designs by Amber Clark at http://tallulahdesigns.com/

At Destructo HQ, things can get a little bit nutty like any office. Phones ringing, dogs barking, tweets tweeting and the occasional burp or two from Cpt. Spauldad. Ever since I was a little destructo, I knew that my work would not take place in a conventional office setting, I think I saw the movie Falling Down and I never wanted to have a “9-5 job”, because in my five year old mind… it made you crazy and want to kill people.

Anyways, my younger self would be proud to know that I don’t have to go to a workplace, however being self employed is more like a 5am to 9pm gig. But I am far from the guy in Falling Down, I love the freedom and being able to work remotely since I don’t drive. But before you go, “Wow, I am quitting my job right now!” You have to keep up your own finances, pay your health insurance and job security… you could be making $50 and hour but that may have to feed you for those times you are without work. Well, technically, job security is made upon your own terms to work hard to gain new clients. Your happiness with self employment depends on your goals in life and organizational skills. If you are going to be your own boss, act like it.

First thing… go out and buy this book.

My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire.

This book can tell you everything about freelancing! It gives you the nitty gritty on self-employment as well and real life advice.

Don’t think any price is too high to ask. Research what other freelancers are making and set accordingly to the size of the project and your experience skills. Remember again… you may have 3 clients at a time paying $1000 a month. But at the end of the year if you stay with them the entire time, that’s about $4,000 in taxes you will owe… on top of paying your own insurance, travel, and office costs. Plus any of those times you may be without work. Learn how to budget.

Know your taxes and self-employment deductions. Learn these terms, 1099 and Schedule C… Us freelancers and self-employed have quarterly taxes, so we get to pay our taxes four times a year! Woo hoo. It’s not as scary as it sounds however, just do your research and did you know that even your household pets may be deductible? Keep all your receipts for everything for the year, you never know what may be deductible! Read this book for further help… Self Employed Tax Solutions

If you are lost in tax translation.. I recommend hiring a personal accountant that specializes in freelancers and self employed such as Jason Blumer in Greenville, SC. He rocks my socks.

Keep track of your finances. When working with clients,  I use Freshbooks for invoicing and Outright to keep track of my expenses and it’s made for self employed so it let’s you know when your quarterly taxes are due! Plus it’s integrated with Freshbooks, so all my invoices automatically go into Outright! Tre Cool!

One thing about being self employed you have to keep focused! I am the queen of Moleskines, planners, notepads… seriously… get your self a calendar now. Being a blogger… inspiration comes and goes so planning out topics when you get inspired is the best thing to do. I also deal in social media so I set up my hootsuite to watch all my accounts, while I multitask in finding new clients and working on setting up new projects. Not to mention everything else that comes up in the day to day life… at a normal workplace you don’t have to usually deal with chihuahua poop.

Keep your self motivated. Since you are basically, at your workplace and coming home to your workplace. You may feel the need to work ALL the time. Know when to take breaks, get out… go to the beach. Get inspired. Keep the flow going, the world is your workplace. Take your laptop to the bookstore if things get hectic at home and lastly, take a vacation every once in awhile. Even if it’s for work (tax deduction!) a different surrounding can open your mind (and job opportunities) up… that guy sitting next to you on the plane may be your next client.

Be your own travel agent. A part of being self-employed is that sometimes you’ll need to travel outside the state. I’ve been traveling the world for years now, so I have a pretty good understanding that you need to be smart and you can get anywhere for cheap. Most of the time they’ll pay but when it comes out of your pocket, get those reciepts for tax time!

• Flights… make sure that the layover time isn’t short, because sometimes you can be delayed. You don’t want to miss that meeting.
• Transportation… keep the local cabs numbers on you in case you get stuck somewhere. Airport shuttles are the best and cheapest, but sometimes when you are far away you may need to find someone locally to take you. Make sure your departing airport is nearby enough so if you have to leave early or your local transportation can’t make it on time you can still make your flight out. Don’t almost get stuck in Germany like I did.
• Get a deal… Try Priceline.com and name your own price or Kayak.com to see the cheapest deals from multiple sites.

Contracts. Being self employed you usually need your own contract, depending on the work you are doing. You can find templates online or have a lawyer make a document up for you. When working with a larger company or agency they’ll usually have contracts for you to sign. I usually never will sign anything until I have lawyer look at it unless I understand the terms myself, most lawyers will ask a small retainer fee for looking over documents. This is good to answer any questions you may have and to make sure that you don’t end up selling your soul or name to a company. Also READ those Non-Disclosure Agreements very very carefully, they can be confusing about what you can or can’t say but basically… keep Fight Club in mind. Just don’t talk to anyone about it.

We all make mistakes as freelancers… just less than year ago I can say I didn’t know any of this when entering the Self-Employment/Freelancing field…. there are tons of things I wish I had done or didn’t do and jobs that I thought I had but lost. These things at the time crushed me and I thought would be a monkey on my back of regrets… but we learn from these mistakes. I could have stayed in bed but I didn’t (well, maybe for a few days…) but I got out there and kept my head up while doing as much researching as I could and asking others who are in the same field as I am.

Find a mentor. I wish I could sit Richard Branson down and ask him about all his mistakes as a young entrepreneur, but I don’t have Richard Branson. I have people like Gala Darling, The Brand Builder and Clint Catalyst to give me the inspiration and guidance I need. Find someone who is doing what you want to be doing and just learn the ropes or ask a question or two when in a rut. You’ll find a little piece of them shining through in everything you do.

Above all self-employment is the self-employment of your mind. Keep focused, Let all your past job notions go out the door, if you can dream it, you can do it.. and you can make money from it.

If you are unemployed, you may be making the same face right now. I get asked all the time, “Miss Destructo, you’ve technically been unemployed for almost a year now… how do you do it?”.. okay, maybe that wasn’t so much the people I know rather than the voice in my head going… “What the heck are you doing?”. Bascially, I can honestly say I have embraced my unemployment as a time to grow and explore those things i’ve always wanted to do such as blogging. Honestly, it hasn’t been all glitter and fun times, living off of sardines and yams for three months while living in Greenville, SC.  I never was on unemployment or food stamps, I couldn’t qualify since technically I never moved to the state and there was other factors that rendered me unelligible. This should have sent me into a panic, but instead it just drove me further to learn how to beat the unemployment monster. Working odd jobs such as band promoting for Livenation and I started focusing previous band promotion (I worked for record companies since I was 13)  talents into social media and started promoting myself.. getting me a few paying social media freelance jobs.. leading me to where I am today. Don’t depend on others, if you work hard to survive you will.

Thus began my life into being self-employment, I made a huge leap and moved back to Tampa, FL… in with my eccentric father and one eyed camera guy Mr. D. This way, we could all save tons of money and have a place to finally set up a DestructoHQ for all our future deviations. So if you are struggling with rent and debating “I don’t want to be that guy that lives with his parents” You need to kick that stigma in the ass right now… if it’s what you have to do…do it. Plus my father makes a mean spaghetti, which is much better than yam-ghetti anyday.

The point of liberation. In my first month back home, sitting in my empty room with just a suitcase. All of material items I had sold or given to charity… That moment was probably one of the most liberating things ever, I was starting over… I knew this was the beginning of something big, something great and I was not going to look back at all the jobs I could of had or those items that were weighing me down. If you want to move forward, get rid of everything that is weighing you down (this includes negative people as well).

A few weeks later, while I was tearing through pieces of my former life and trying to grow my social media presence here in Tampa, I gained a freelance writing position at a local magazine Creative Loafing. Something so simple to most was a huge honor to me, I can remember in 1997 when I picked up a Weekly Planet (what CL was before) magazine and knew that I wanted to write for them. I tried for many years when I was a promoter to get into the magazine without much progress. My advice is remember your goals from when you were young, if you still want to do them today. Go for it and never give up.

I’ve been here for four months now, it’s had it’s share of financially terrifying moments still. But, I just am thankful for everything I have in my life… my family, my friends and those who inspire me everyday. There are so many people out there struggling and suffering. The knowledge of that puts things in perspective for me and pushes me to live life to the fullest with the resources I have. Being unemployed is not the end of the road, it’s been the beginning of a new path for me…. self-employment.

In the meantime, put all the worries into a box and put that box into the closet. When you wake up in the morning, don’t say “Oh crap, i’ve got this bill and this bill to pay”… bug the hell out of everyone you know, find your Italian and Greek friends to invite you over for dinner, network through social media and get out there… destroy your boredom with life and enjoy the ride.

When I went to Germany I asked a woman in her mid 40’s with PERFECT skin how she stayed so young? She told me about Nivea Creme and the Aspirin Mask and I have never went back to anything again.

Your probably like err… Destructo… Aspirin… Really? It’s primarily Salicylic Acid which is used in a gazillion face products especially those for acne. So this not only is the ultimate exfoliater but takes the redness and decreases spots.  Also awesome for guys before shaving!  You can get a huge bottle of this anywhere for under a dollar… just make sure you get the non-coated, they dissolve much quicker.

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