The Joyful Freelancer: Work-Life Balance is a Waste of Time with Gage Mitchell of Modern Species
How do you grow your “brand” as a freelancer? Does the hype around the importance of a healthy work-life balance make sense? This week, we feature an episode of The Joyful Freelancer that our very own Gage Mitchell was on recently to answer these questions.
The host of the podcast, Katherine Gustafson, evoked Gage to delve into some of his favorite social media rants, how to engineer your life to be more fulfilling, and his approach to growing mission-driven brands. Tuning in, you’ll hear the origin story of EvolveCPG and Modern Species, the value of marrying work with your passions, why saying no can lead to better opportunities, and the reasons why strengths and weaknesses are situational, plus much more. Gage hopes this episode will motivate listeners to reach for their goals in the coming year, so listen in to find out more and feel inspired!
Key Points From This Episode:
Background about Gage, the work he does, and the projects he is currently working on.
Whether or not he works with Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) exclusively.
An overview of the many brands Gage has worked with.
How he approaches working with brands to showcase their values and products.
Growing your brand as a freelancer and why it is essential to be successful.
How freelancing led to the formation of Modern Species and EvolveCPG.
The inspiration behind the name of the company: Modern Species.
What Gage means when he says, “work-life balance is a waste of time”.
Why turning down work can actually lead to more and better opportunities.
Ways in which strengths and weaknesses are dependent on the situation.
Katherine and Gage share their experiences working as freelancers.
The importance of understanding your character traits.
What it is like being a creative working within a corporate space.
Tweetables:
“My philosophy is that mission should not be an add-on.” — @GageMitchell [0:08:17]
“Creativity is about making an objective and tying it to relevant measures or goals of the company.” — @GageMitchell [0:12:52]
“[I’m] a big advocate for life design. Design your life to be more fulfilling.” — @GageMitchell [0:20:38]
“My theory is that the most time-saving thing you can do is to marry your passions with your work, so that every hour you spend working benefits your life, and every hour you spend making your life rich and fulfilling benefits your work.” — @GageMitchell [0:22:14]
“When you have to say no to a project that's not ideal, you create space for a more ideal project to show up.” — @GageMitchell [0:29:47]