A Freelancer is a 26 year old who will design you a logo in her spare time. A Consultant is a man in his late 30s with 15 years experience and a tie. Since nobody can tell the difference via email, you get to choose which one you'd like to be viewed as.
My sense of it is that a lot of people talking on HN about freelancing could stand to do that right now.
None of this has anything to do with what you call yourself. No two clients will give you the same answer about what differentiates a "consultant" from a "contractor" from a "freelancer".
this is Zen
Precisely, it's why it's up to us to figure out which relationship they're looking for and do it if we can.
A good idea is always to dress well, speak well, write well, and be pro-active/thoughtful in ways that count. That always comes across excellently in reinforcing your value no matter what you do at any rate.
- Raised by a woman to not be a mommas boy.
They're just people. Treat them accordingly.
(I don't mean to imply any ill will on your part. I just thought you should know.)
I didn't mean to put anyone on a pedestal, patronize or be kind out of charity. It's the best lesson I've learnt. I spent 10 years of my life complaining about women and consequently found nothing but women to complain about.
As soon as I realized I complained because I cared I met the one of my dreams.
She's my heart, my compass, and the sunshine keeping me where I need and want to be... even when my mighty intellect forgets to breath, feel, love, and live for a living.
So now, I compliment freely from my heart. The most important things in my life haven't been understood because of my mind, but with my heart and gut.
Hope that clarifies, didn't mean to offend anyone, only live in gratitude a bit more. It's the new year ;)
But the main thing to watch out for is projecting that out onto "women" as a whole. It's perhaps obvious that some women are not naturally warm, or good at female-stereotypical skills, and may even be far more socially-inept-egghead than you are. And hence not exactly happy to hear "no, stay a woman (in spite of the well-known earnings gap) because we so value your feminine skills" or anything remotely resembling that.
I hope this helps a bit... I'm still figuring stuff out myself, of course, and expect to be for the rest of my life. True for everyone, I imagine, though many folks stop trying at some point.
Love:
I don't believe in being fanatically dependant or fanatically independent. Both leave you alone and without yourself. I do, more and more appreciate the middle ground of interdependance, which in turn helps us build up the things we need to get better at.
About love "lasting": Loved and lost several times. Death, cheating, and more. Glad to have the sobering reminder and well wish, though. ;)
Love, though, is one of those few things that must be understood with the heart, not the mind. Most pain occurs when we try to understand something using our mind when we should be using our heart, or vice versa.
Relationships:
Where I've seen others succeed, a solid relationship of any kind (love, friendship, business, family) is about relating. To ones self, each other. We can only relate as deeply as we can connect. We can only deeply connect to others as deeply as we can connect to ourselves. Developing this connection is key. Developing communication, caring and most importantly learning to ask "What else could this mean?" and assume the best, instead of the worst brings people together.
The #1 barrier in the way to our own happiness and fulfillment are the barriers we need to remove within ourselves. Instead of being the cynical bastard I enjoyed being for many years, I found it worthwhile and more fulfilling to keep kindness and giving fashionable. It's not a curse that I'm wishing on women, or my fellow beings on this earth.
Approach:
Through it, while I am a worst case strategist, I don't dwell in worry. Worrying/Doubt is paying interest on money I'll never borrow. Resentment is taking poison myself and waiting for someone else to die.
Too much doubt isn't healthy. Neither is too much hope. It's good to be aware of what might be possible, worst and best case, but not to use it as an excuse to not try.
To me, it's about becoming a well rounded individual. What I learn with someone, from someone, I forever get to keep. The shortcomings in myself I get to bridge, are my rewards I get to keep. The same goes for when others randomly get something from something we say or do. Some of the best relationships are ones that are mutually, and indirectly committed to the growth of another.
My better halves:
When we, automatically assume the worst (doubt) about someone, or something, we divide.
About "female-stereotypical skills", I have no clue what you're talking about. I simply said women are men's superior in every way. How free thinking open-mindedness might choose to interpret that and stick it into a box of stereotypes is not tied to what I said or implied in anyway.
With social awkwardness, in the thousands of folks I've met in business, volunteering and life, there's far more males than females who suffer from this. Wishing someone to be open, warm, kind, giving is not a curse or a judgement, or a stereotype. It's just becoming, and being a well-rounded individual.
On the whole, females learn much more the social side of being human from the playground onwards. Women are far more socially, emotionally aware than men, regardless of their disposition.
When you've been in the trenches with both genders, you realize women truly have some gifts of intellect, emotion, and more, where they are far easier able to grasp and live by than most guys.
What's the saying, a guy will figure it out weeks later? :)
I agree wholeheartedly about a balance between dependence and independence, and have posted on this subject before.
Stereotypes: roughly, that women are better at supporting/nurturing roles, are good with children and the infirm, are better at navigating the social world -- like knowing how to smooth ruffled feathers, etc.. Whereas men as more tone-deaf socially, but are better at raw intellectual or physical tasks -- "getting the job done". Which are the activities that, coincidentally, our culture also values more than "soft skills" (follow the money).
(Please note I am not saying these gender stereotypes are accurate or useful).
This is what I was hearing echoed in this: "She's my heart, my compass, and the sunshine keeping me where I need and want to be... even when my mighty intellect forgets to breath, feel, love, and live for a living."
See? You don't see "mighty" used to describe anything about women very often.
I hope I'm not coming across as judgmental, I'm just very wary of talking about groups in this way at all. It's not useful or factual to say that "women are men's superior in every way" -- if I were even in the business of saying which people are superior to which other people (I'm not) then I have to imagine it would be a big muddle of both genders.
We are first individuals, then we can be split up into groups by gender, origin, age... lots of factors, but we are individuals first.
So I still don't like talking about characteristics of "women" as a whole, as if they applied to all women (including specific, individual women you encounter in comment threads). It's not fair to the socially awkward, mighty-intellect women for one thing, and I don't think it's very helpful even to naturally warm and giving women either -- it praises them and limits them at the same time. If a person's gender gets credit for how wonderful they are, the individual doesn't.
It's better to praise the specific women in your life, I think. I seem to have ended up with most of my close friends being female, but that doesn't mean I like every woman I meet, or dislike every man. They're all individuals first, right? We're all better off working to avoid making assumptions based purely on something like gender, and simply dealing as much as possible with individuals.
Usually it's the consultants who hire the "freelancers" to do the work they proposed in their consulting.
Still, sometimes I find myself saying "I solve business needs with technology." Means what it should to the people who will sign my cheques, and I don't care to explain what I do to anyone else.
Since a consultant isn't the first thing people might assume when they look at me, I think it's important to remember it just comes down to being likable, genuine, curious, responsible, and caring enough to follow through. Respect is my currency and assholes filter themselves out.
Call yourself whatever you want, if the project was completed above my expectations, I'll gladly pay you whatever you asked for for the next project.