Illustrator & Animator Lo Harris
About this episode…
ILLUSTRATOR & ANIMATOR LO HARRIS
When you work for a news organisation you're not allowed to let your personal thoughts out in your work. So when 2020 happened - the pandemic, George Floyd and beyond... Lo needed a way to express what she was feeling.
She chose Instagram. And it wasn't long before big named brands chose her. Amazon, Adobe, American Express, The Ellen Show, Disney, Hulu, United Nations. All in her first year?!
While the world locked down, it had suddenly opened up with freelance life to Lo. She was free to explore the expanding 'Lo Harris Universe'.
Read the highlights in the next tab.
TIME TO TAKE THAT RISK
The ‘Lo Harris persona’ was picking up on Instagram. Things were spreading. Big brands were approaching her. But all of this was outside of her 9 to 5…
“There was just this incongruency in how I was being treated in the workplace versus outside of the workplace. At work, it was just like, 'oh yeah, you know, whatever, it's just Lauren'. But when I was Lo Harris, it was like, people really sort of paid me respect and it was just so nice. So, once I paid off those loans, I was like, I think that I can take the risk. I owe it to myself to take a risk..”
TIME AND PLACE FOR HUSTLE
None of us want to burn out, but sometimes you know when it’s right to be putting in the hours…
“Typically I don't like hustle culture. But there are times and places for that when you know that you're investing in a very particular thing. You're setting yourself up for something very specific and you should allow yourself to put as much time into whatever you want to.
For me, I really buckled down. Yes, I put in extra hours, but where was I going? We were in a pandemic. I had nowhere to be. I'd roll up to work and then put in my hours there and then 6:00 PM hits and then I'm whacking away on something for a big brand. And then I get a big check and then I'm like, great. I can sleep at night..”
HAVE THE AUDACITY
How did Lo cope with saying yes to such big brands in her first year?
“I felt like an imposter. But I've reprogrammed myself where every time I want to say no to something, I try to find five reasons to say yes. And if I can't find any reasons to say yes, then I probably shouldn't be doing it. But you know, intimidation is not a valid reason for me. I would always be the first one to shoot myself down and be like, oh no, that's too big. I'm not the person, you know?
And it's like, no - that's not a valid reason. That's just a sign that I need to go for it. Have the audacity to go for it.”
TAKING BACK CONTROL OF ANXIETY
Lo is totally on top of her finances. But that’s no fluke…
“I feel way more in control now. The way that I kind of prepared myself for my freelance career is that I kind of took inventory of like, what are the things that make me anxious and what are the risks associated with it and what can I do to kind of plan for those risks?
So one thing that I was worried about was inconsistent access to money. So if I know that that's something that makes me anxious and I want to avoid those feelings of anxiety, what is something that I can do for myself tomorrow that will set me up so that I have options if I'm ever in that situation?”
BE YOUR BEST ADVOCATE
When it comes to chasing payments…
“I have a little spice in me. I have a little kick. Obviously still be professional, but you can't be afraid to come with your facts and step on a couple of toes if they need some stomping, you know? Cause with money, they're not personally motivated to make sure you get paid on time, you're personally motivated. So you have to be your best advocate. You are your best advocate.”
FIGURING OUT WORK AND PLAY
Talk about ‘scheduling life first’ - Lo’s bought a bunch of plane tickets and she’s out of here…
“I feel like I have so much more to learn about just living. And so one recent thing that I did to really hype up the work play balance in my own life is I bought a bunch of tickets to different places over the course of next year and I'm going.
And I have something where I'm looking forward to this at the end of this month, I'll be in Mexico. And then in March I'll be in London and in May, I'll be in Lisbon and then Florence. And these are things that I would have never, ever, ever, ever, ever done. Especially back when I had to ask for permission to even take a vacation, so right now I'm in that season of my life where I am trying to get comfortable with the idea that I don't constantly need to be spiralling and working and having things that I need to be stressed about in order to feel like I'm making progress in my career.”
More from LO HARRIS
Lo’s website - Lo Harris Universe
Lo on Instagram
More from Steve Folland
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and Freelance Illustrator & Animator Lo Harris
Steve Folland:
As ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Lo Harris:
It was a situation where the opportunity and the preparation just met each other in the best place possible. I'm 25 (soon to be 26) and for most of college and after college had been working in the journalism space in digital journalism. I've had internships at the New York Times as a motion design intern, worked at other companies. And most recently, right before I went freelance, I was working full time at NBC news during one of the most traumatic news years possible, which was 2020. It was a very specific sort of job because we had to have these design sensibilities - I was working with this team of very talented animators.
Lo Harris:
And we were designing things very, very, very quickly based on the news. And that was a bit of a stressful job. But during that time, I also sort of decided that I wanted to make an art Instagram to sort of explore my creative style because I've always loved to draw digitally specifically when I was in middle school. I remember when I bought my first Wacom tablet and I used to try to draw with my mouse. I mean, digital, like layers. Like I really figured that stuff out when I was younger. And I looked at the iPad cause one of my coworkers had one and I looked at her iPad and I was like, man, if I had access to this tool, when I was in middle school, I wonder where my work would have gone. So that was enough motivation for me to sort of embark on this personal illustration journey to kind of figure out what my style is, what I like.
Lo Harris:
And it almost felt like an expedited process for me because I already had those client-facing design sensibilities through my work in news, but then kind of taking my own twist on it and learning how to let go and be a bit freer and be myself was really the challenge for me, more so than the technical aspects of what looked good and what I could do. So I ended up making my art Instagram, having fun with it. And during the summer of 2020 and George Floyd and everything - that was kind of the one outlet I had to kind of express how I felt as a black woman. Because working in the newsroom, we were pretty much discouraged from having an opinion..
Lo Harris:
I just felt like my voice was hidden. And I just felt very lost in that newsroom space and, you know, drawing was that outlet for me and people really resonated with the work that I was putting out so much so that I ended up overnight amassing 20,000 followers on my Instagram. And it was very scary and I called my parents and I said, 'I'm turning off my phone for a little bit because it won't stop moving!' I couldn't get any sleep, it just kept vibrating. And that was kind of the birth of the Lo Harris art page, the Lo Harris persona. And it was kind of cool because brands started to approach me and they were essentially paying me to be myself and to say it with my chest to really say what I mean and mean what I say.
Lo Harris:
And I thought that was such a rare opportunity. And, you know, at first I was kinda playing it safe. I didn't want to quit my job, actually. I kind of hoped that I'd get fired first so that the universe could make a decision for me. But you know, eventually when it got to the point where I was able to pay off my student loans using art, and there was just this incongruency in how I was being treated in the workplace versus outside of the workplace, like, at work, it was just like, 'oh yeah, you know, whatever, it's just Lauren'. But when I was Lo Harris, it was like, people really sort of paid me respect and it was just so nice. So, once I paid off those loans, I was like, I think that I can take the risk. I owe it to myself to take a risk. I've paid my debts, I owe it to myself to take this risk and to see if I can keep this going. And even so even if I have to go back to working a nine to five, I'm sure that I can get a much better position than the one that I had.
Steve Folland:
Oh man, I love this. So when you decided to start on Instagram - sharing your work - was it a daily thing? What was the sort of rhythm involved and how were you sharing it?
Lo Harris:
Sometimes I'd just be hanging out and it's like 2:00 AM, and then I'm like, I feel inspired and then I'll draw something and then I'll vomit it out into the universe immediately after with no regards to algorithms. I still don't. I have no faith in the Instagram algorithm personally, because it just does not serve artists, especially, and, you know, darned if I do darned if I don't - so I just post whenever I want to. I just post what I want whenever I want. At this point, I'm not growing through playing with the algorithm I'm growing through getting cool projects. But actually there was one project that I did that people really latched onto. I challenged myself during February to do what I call 29 Queens.
Lo Harris:
It was a leap year. And basically every day of February, I would draw a different black woman. From largely US history really in celebration of black history month. And so I draw just different people like a Grace Jones or Maxine Waters... I just do my little hashtag #29Queens. And that was my first sort of quote unquote 'project' where I was challenging myself to post consistently every day for a month. And even though at the time those pictures, weren't getting a lot of traction as I was posting them. I think that when people finally latched onto my work, that was a springboard for how they sort of tried to wrap their heads around what I do and who I am. So it was a very bespoke personal project. So that was like the only time where I posted super often.
Steve Folland:
And so in general, you weren't trying to play the game as it were with tags. It was just certain things got picked up and then they got shared and it took off.
Lo Harris:
I tried it a little bit, but I'm just not like... Like me and networking in person, I'm such a bad schmooze. I'm so bad at like networking conversation in person. But yeah, I didn't really go in with the intention of tagging and Instagram growth. I didn't approach it that way. Initially, it was just a way for me to document my progress really.
Steve Folland:
And to give yourself an outlet that was more you, than the stuff that you were creating at work.
Lo Harris:
Absolutely.
Steve Folland:
What then happened - when the first potential client reached out to you and offered you a commission? Did you know what the hell you were doing?
Lo Harris:
I felt equipped actually. I felt like, you know when people have babies, they want to put them in swim school immediately because while they're a baby, they have no fear and they kind of already have the chops from leaching off of their moms for months. And so they can swim. So I almost felt like a baby that was tossed into the water and I still had the swimming gene in me. And I was able to kind of paddle my way through, because I already had like that client facing... like I knew how to work with producers and I knew how to work relatively quickly. I think I'm one of the faster working artists. I know some artists take a little bit of time and more power to them.
Lo Harris:
Just, for me, because of the way that I kind of was raised in the industry, like I look for efficiency. I try to be as efficient as possible. So I just felt extremely equipped for the kinds of projects that were coming my way, which it was high stakes, like Amazon, but we need it done in two days and we'll pay you this much and you need to solve this design problem. And I was all over it. I was definitely working double time, putting in a lot of hours, and I do value rest - I think there are times and places for that quote unquote 'hustle'.
Lo Harris:
Typically I don't like hustle culture. But there are times and places for that when you know that you're investing in a very particular, you're setting yourself up for something very specific and you should allow yourself to put as much time into whatever you want to. For me, I really buckled down and I would get these kinds of projects and they really lent themselves to the kind of the efficiency that I learned how to work in journalism and, you know, yes, I put in extra hours, but where was I going? We were in a pandemic. I had nowhere to be. So I'd just do my thing and then I'd roll up to work and then put in my hours there and then 6:00 PM hits and then I'm whacking away on something for a big brand. And then I get a big check and then I'm like, great. I can sleep at night.
Steve Folland:
Was Amazon your first client?
Lo Harris:
It was either Amazon or Cosmopolitan. They were both around the same - they slid into my DMS and I was like, hello!
Steve Folland:
That's so cool. Like, honestly, what did you think? You said about the baby into the water - did it just seem perfectly natural?
Lo Harris:
I felt like an imposter. I've reprogrammed myself where every time I want to say no to something, I try to find five reasons to say yes. And if I can't find any reasons to say yes, then I probably shouldn't be doing it. But you know, intimidation is not a valid reason for me. I would always be the first one to shoot myself down and be like, oh no, that's too big. I'm not the person, you know?
Lo Harris:
And it's like, no - that's not a valid reason. That's just a sign that I need to go for it. Havethe audacity to go for it. But I was terrified and I didn't want to let anyone down. I didn't want to say no. I want it to start building relationships with different clients. And I was lucky in that, like, you know, my family is probably the most supportive family you could have if you're a creative person. Like, I don't know. I feel like I've never felt pressure, you know, growing up to do something like be doctor, be a lawyer, be a teacher. My parents kind of had faith that I would be fine regardless.
Lo Harris:
It's not even like I had a financial safety net with my parents. I stopped asking my parents for money in college, you know what I mean? But my family was just really good at being supportive and one of my uncles has a good business sensibility and he would help me figure out how to negotiate and he was such a big help in really figuring out my prices because I think that if I didn't have that supporting guidance for something like an Amazon project, you know, I'd probably look at everything and be like, oh, a thousand dollars versus like $20,000, $30,000. And once I had that sort of confidence to ask for those amounts of money in certain situations, it was like, oh, okay, this can be a sustainable thing for me. So it was just like having that support and having people in my corner who could kind of say like, this is what it is, you know what I mean? That was really helpful.
Steve Folland:
Can you remember what your uncle said to you? What key nuggets would he have?
Lo Harris:
Well, it wasn't necessarily certain sayings, but I would consult him in the beginning, anytime someone approached me, I'm like Uncle Rod, what should I be asking for? And he was the one who really taught me. 'Okay. Like here are the main things to really think about when you are trying to price yourself, you need to think about licensing. You need to think about turnaround time. Really things came down to how big are you as a client? How big of a company are you?
Lo Harris:
And then if you're a huge company asking me for something in perpetuity over like a two day timeline, that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. So, the way that I kind of like add up, you know, how I do my projects. I mean, now I kind of have like a working range that I've kind of developed for myself. Oh, this is a smaller company or, oh, this is a larger company and here's how much it is per picture. Um, that's how I kind of worked. But you know, keeping those things in mind - I mean, as an artist, especially, we don't think about our contracts and we don't think about licensing a lot. I think a lot of artists are a little bit scared of the contracts and the idea around the license. They just want to create. And I think that it's really important for artists to get their hands dirty. And I think that they also rely maybe a bit too much on agents because what I found is sometimes agents don't really work as hard for you as you could work for yourself. You know what I mean? Cause they have so many other interests. And also some of the things that they're looking at are things that you could be looking at yourself with your own two eyes and it's better that you have that knowledge, you know, to negotiate for yourself.
Steve Folland:
So when's Uncle Rod's book coming out? It sounds like I could do with it.
Lo Harris:
(laughing) Oh no - I should ask. I should bully him into writing a book. I don't think he would. I think he'd really just bully me right back.
Steve Folland:
What killer advice to get and to have somebody in your corner that way. Did you know other freelances as you went into this?
Lo Harris:
So my perception of other freelancers - I'm in Brooklyn and when I got to college, I would intern at these different places and my exposure to freelancers were people who were like video editors working in news. Be at the table for a few months and then jump to another company. I was very attuned to the world of permalancers who literally just come into a company and sit inside of the company and then leave three to six months later. And I had never really met anyone who was working from home as their own boss. It's weird because technically you are your own boss if you're a freelancer period, but I think it's an interesting difference between people who go in and work anonymously in a company as a freelancer, like not necessarily as themselves, it's like, you're a part of the team for a few months on a contract and then you do another contract versus like, 'I'm a name brand, this is my business'.
Lo Harris:
So I didn't know a lot of people in that latter category, but I knew a lot of people who were in that former category. So that was the extent to what I knew about freelancers. And I was always averse to that because I, I am a stability queen. I love stability. And I was just like, man, I don't know how y'all do it, you know, running around Bushwick with your mullets and your contracts. It couldn't be me, but I respect it. But yeah, that was what I knew of freelancing at that time. And as I've kind of fallen into defining it for myself, obviously my perspective has changed and it's not nearly as scary as I thought it was.
Lo Harris:
And it's made me feel a lot more resourceful. Because like, even if I feel something's a problem, it's really all in my hands. And there are many ways where I can address my problem, like my mindset versus when I was in my nine to five - like, oh, if I get fired, that's the end of my world, I don't know what I'm going to do. Like my fate is in the hands of HR departments and resume systems, hopefully picking up the words in my resume. I feel a bit more out of control.
Steve Folland:
So now you feel more in control..
Lo Harris:
Now I feel way more in control now. The way that I kind of prepared myself for my freelance career is that I kind of took inventory of like, what are the things that make me anxious and what are the risks associated with it and what can I do to kind of plan for those risks? So one thing that I was worried about was inconsistent access to money. So if I know that that's something that makes me anxious and I want to avoid those feelings of anxiety, what is something that I can do for myself tomorrow that will set me up so that I have options if I'm ever in that situation? One of those things was paying off my credit cards and getting my credit score up and actually applying to multiple high capacity credit cards. So that I know that if push comes to shove, I have ways to kind of spread my money out and sort of manage my money in different ways.
Lo Harris:
So I like do a lot of things off of credit cards and then I like pay those credit cards off, versus going straight into my debit account and kind of being out of money and then forced to use a credit card, if that makes sense. Yeah, do different financial strategies and just different things that I can do to be like, okay, let me make sure, because like there are some months where I'll get paid literally 40 grand and then the next month I'll get paid like one grand or $498. Like, obviously I don't want to have that month, but you know, money's not coming in.
Lo Harris:
You sometimes you have to chase checks for a really long time. I had one client, I chased a check from them and they were a large client. I chased a check from them for four months, almost half a year, you know, chasing a what is in retrospect, a menial amount of money, but it means the world when you're like a person just trying to live your life. But it's just like, you know, having access to a good source of credit, having a financial advisor, having a robust savings plan. I have a specific spreadsheet dedicated to - whenever I get paid, I can alter the percentages and put them into each of these different buckets based on my savings goals and how I want to manage my life.
Lo Harris:
Whether it's saving for a home, saving for retirement, you know, saving for my financial advisory, you know, my emergency savings, my rent, you know what I mean? My bill payments, I even have a little thing called the bougie fund, which is dedicated to things I want, but don't need travel as a priority for me. So I have a little travel fund and I disperse my money that way. And I alter the percentages based on what my savings goals are at a given time. And that helps me feel sane. It's like I'm working with what I have versus trying to push myself into making a certain amount of money to feel okay. Like I think my motto before was, oh, if I could just make this much money a month, I'll be okay. But that's kind of a stressful way for me to approach it. So instead, I would rather manage what I actually have coming in and put those in those different buckets.
Steve Folland:
In respect to that particular client who you were struggling to get the money out of, how did you chase down that payment?
Lo Harris:
So I sent like a series of emails. It's like, Hey, Hey, what's going on? Hey. And I would literally email them once a week. Every week. I was like, hello, hello. And then finally, you know, I have a little spice in me. I have a little kick, you know, I was professional, but I just kind of sent an email. Hey, like, you know, I understand, you know, with COVID things are happening, but this is unacceptable. I've never had a client big or small, stiff me like this. Like, you know, essentially. Um, and I'm very much losing trust in your company and your business practice. Um, and this isn't acceptable.
Lo Harris:
And then they just silently sent me my money. No apologies. Just cash, which is honestly fine. I don't need any apologies. So it's just about being persistent. I mean, obviously still be professional, but you can't be afraid to come with your facts and step on a couple of toes if they need some stomping, you know? Cause like with money, they're not personally motivated to make sure you get paid on time, you're personally motivated. So you have to be your best advocate. You are your best advocate.
Steve Folland:
Just to rewind in your story then. So you've got your first couple of clients slide into DMs. What happened after that? Is that the way work continued coming your way or has it changed?
Lo Harris:
I've been tremendously lucky in that I feel like I've gotten the right opportunities to come into my DMs, which then got me larger exposure to other companies, which then slide into the DMs. Now they know to come to my email. And I have like a bespoke portfolio where it's like, you can find me and also LinkedIn. If you're creative, you need to be on LinkedIn. That's another thing. But yeah, I've been lucky in that. Like a lot of clients have found my work through Instagram, like a lot of the right people follow me on Instagram. Like I think like I might not have the largest following ever, but a lot of my fans are people who work at specific companies who, who take note of my work and want to use me and other things.
Lo Harris:
I always ask my clients, how did you find out about me? And a lot of them still say, oh, we found out about you through Instagram. You know what I mean? And of course, you know, when you're doing all these social media based Instagram campaigns with like these different larger platforms, it's a lot easier for people to find you that way. So I've been fortunate enough that that's pretty much like how a lot of my clients find me either. They've seen my work, they're familiar with my work word of mouth,. LinkedIn - cause I already have a pretty interesting and robust network and it's extremely easy if you have a good network for your stuff to go viral on LinkedIn, you know what I mean? Cause your friends work at all these different places and their friends will see that they interacted with that and they work at all these different places. And then, you know, suddenly you have like, you know, a sports team. That's like, Hey, you know, this is a little bit different, but we want to do something with it. I would have never thought to go to that sports team, you know what I mean? But they found my work and it's kind of like, oh, okay, this is cool.
Steve Folland:
Let's talk about LoHarris.com, because when you started all of this, it sounds like you didn't have your own website - it was all instagram, is that right?
Lo Harris:
So I did have a website, however I went to journalism school and with multi media journalist it's this almost frantic pressure for students to be a Jack of all trades in a bunch of different things. So like, oh, I can do video packages and I can do podcasting and I can code some CSS and I can.. And essentially I was kind of in that camp where for me, it created this portfolio of like piecemeal.
Lo Harris:
Like I had good clips but they didn't tell a story and they didn't make sense. They were just a collection of things that I had done, not necessarily a reflection of the things I wanted to be doing. It was pretty generic. It didn't really reflect Lo Harris - it was not reflective. I didn't even want people to look at that website because I was like, oh, I have an opportunity to really tell people what they need to be hiring me for and to really choose my projects. And the last thing I want is for someone to like look at my website and see a project where I kind of took that project because I felt like I needed to for money or I could do this.
Lo Harris:
I don't want to, but I could do this and then continue to replicate, you know, those jobs with me. I didn't want to replicate that. So it was incredibly important for me to get a portfolio together that not only demonstrated the work that I wanted to be doing, but also created an immersive space for it. That was bespoke to my personality. I wanted to show personality and I wanted to show what my work could be. So, you know, my newest website, which, shout out to my friend Raydene Hansen, who's an art director, but also creates websites. Raydene was really helpful - it was nice talking to her and having someone on my side to do the website. Like I could have put something together on Squarespace, but it just wasn't the same, you know, it was really great having another person who was invested in that process so that I could focus on my day-to-day work and not feel like I have to rush through a new portfolio website. So it was just like a really great investment for me.
Steve Folland:
It is an investment. But sometimes especially when we're starting out, it can feel tough to hand over our money, frankly, when you could build your own Squarespace website, but what you've ended up with is something which is so extraordinarily you.
Lo Harris:
Yes. I completely understand that. Like paying for things when you're so used to being a MacGyver, especially, and kind of like, you know, like getting your stuff together, it's so difficult. But also it's weirdly liberating because I'm, I'm so used to just doing everything by myself and not leaning on other people. I'm so used to just doing everything myself that I spend a lot of time doing things that I don't care about. I used to spend a lot of time doing things that I really don't care about and it was just noise and it really distracted from my ability to make the best content, to do one thing incredibly well, to make sure the foundation is there.
Lo Harris:
So I kind of understand both sides of it. And it's been an interesting thing for me to do cause I hate paying money for things, but it was just so good. To be able to just like throw it on to someone else and to be able to focus on high level stuff instead of spending three days, getting frustrated over a line of code and then just giving up, cause I want to be done and need to just be as efficient as possible,
Steve Folland:
Has it made a difference to your business - having that website?
Lo Harris:
I think it has. First, I think that people still know me a lot from Instagram. However, I think that loharris.com provides a very great... Like one time I was talking to an art director and they were kind looking at my old website and they're like, oh yeah. Like I think, you know, you could do this or this or this or this. And then he looked at the new website and was like, oh wow, this makes me see your work in a whole other... You know what I mean? Now I see so much other possibilities for your work. Like it puts people in the headspace.
Lo Harris:
To kind of think bigger. Plan for even bigger things with the work. Like you can just see so much more potential based on the way that you present your work. Like when you just have your work on like this white screen, it feels almost contained. Versus the way that I chose to kind of display my work in these like overlapping sort of like images and these like full bleed colors and these waves and the stars and planets. Like I want people to feel like they're stepping into an experience - an efficient experience, like not too many bells and whistles, but I want people to feel like they are drowning in my essence in like the most nonviolent way possible. So, so that's what I want.
Steve Folland:
You have a 'work' section and you have a 'play' one?
Lo Harris:
Yeah. The play section is really just stuff that I've made on my own time that slaps - like literally it's just stuff where I'm like, man, that was good. That was a good one. A lot of my gifs live there.
Steve Folland:
So you keep work and play on your website, but how about work and play for you in life?
Lo Harris:
So work-life balance is something that I've been actively trying to improve on. Since I left NBC news, I genuinely felt like I had an inability to relax. There'll be times where I literally would have nothing to do work-wise and I'm like, there clearly is something I need to be doing. And then I'll just get up at 1:00 AM and start working like, and like, you know, transitioning into this kind of work, I had to kind of teach myself that it is not normal for me to constantly be drowning in client emails and stuff. Because when I first started, I was working a full-time job and I was drowning every single day. Some wild, big client would email me and I'd be like, yes, yes, yes to everything.
Lo Harris:
And constantly I had something to do. I'd be boom, boom, boom, boom. Working, working, working every single day, like actively working every single day. And then as I got settled into my freelance career, I started to notice that, oh, I'm not as pressed as I used to, but I think that's a bad thing. Cause I think that means that people don't want to work with me anymore and I'm not getting work. And then as I was looking at my numbers and I'm like, no, I'm getting work. I'm still getting paid. I'm just not spiraling. And then I'm like, do I like spiraling? Like, what's up with that? That's not normal. I don't want that. And so I've had to like actively, like right now, I'm trying to challenge myself in this season of my life to start leaving my apartment more, to go sit in a cafe, do a little bit of work out there, but to really like get out there and like, I've been trying to be a bit more social.
Lo Harris:
I've been trying to just like get out there and, um, spend time with friends. And like normally anytime someone will be like, Hey, a social situation is coming up. I'd went a little bit, like I'm a social person, but the idea of getting up to go be social stresses me out. So I usually I'd be like, oh no. Um, but now I'm like, okay. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. Let's go. I feel like I have so much more to learn about just living. And so one recent thing that I did to really hype up the work play balance, you know, in my own life is I bought a bunch of tickets to different places over the course of next year and I'm going.
Lo Harris:
And I have something where I'm looking forward to this at the end of this month, I'll be in Mexico. And then in March I'll be in London and in May, I'll be in Lisbon and, and you know, Florence. And these are things that I would have never, ever, ever, ever, ever done. You know, especially when I back when I had to ask for permission to even take a vacation, you know, so I'm really right now, like I'm in that season of my life where I am trying to get comfortable with the idea that I don't constantly need to be spiraling and working and having things that I need to be stressed about in order to feel like I'm making progress in my career. Because what I found is that the things that are supposed to come to me in my career are going to appear when they're supposed to and the things that come to me and they don't work out - there's probably a good reason why it didn't work out.
Steve Folland:
But you really have tickets to all those places?
Lo Harris:
Yes. Like I I'm on my eat, pray, love stuff, you know? I'm ready to live.
Steve Folland:
That's so cool. Now you're full-time freelance, how are you managing juggling the actual creating and the running the business side of it?
Lo Harris:
I would say that my business runs pretty light because I mean, what do I really have to worry about? Like, you know, my taxes, documenting my income and sending invoices and negotiations through email? I'm a talker. So I already have, you know, the negotiations, the emailing, like I can handle that, the meetings I can handle that, the taxes I do. Like, you know, one of the things that I invested in early on, cause I was really insecure about what it would mean for me to handle taxes was I paid for a financial advisor who not only helps me set up my 401k and my IRA and my budgeting plan, but also connects me with a tax person who works with me throughout the year to pay quarterly taxes. I've developed documents for myself to document my payments and my expenses.
Lo Harris:
So literally I have like a handy dandy document that's labeled by the month where I plug in the amount of money I got paid by a client. It auto-populates into my yearly income. It auto-populates into my monthly income, same with the expenses. And I'm able to refer back to that, to track, you know what I mean? My income flow. And then of course I have a simple Google doc for invoices where I just make a quick invoice, send it over. And I like reading contracts. I actually like reading the contracts cause it makes me feel much more equipped and I feel more comfortable.
Steve Folland:
You've not been freelance for that long really, but if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Lo Harris:
Follow your own script. Just do what you want to do, how you want to do it because at the end of the day, none of this matters. So you might as well have a good time. I feel like we're kind of trained to feel like we need to lay ourselves out on the cross for companies and what my experience and what this pandemic has taught so many people is that you need to take care of yourself. First work is not your life. It is a fraction. It should be a fraction of your life. And even when you're doing something that you love, it's still a job. So it's important. You know, even though I'm like, I can't allow myself to psych myself into thinking, oh, well I draw for a living.
Lo Harris:
So I should be working harder. I should feel the burn more. Cause like, you know, I have it easy. Like it's a job, like any other job. And I deserve a vacation. I deserve to like chill out. I deserve to have a moment because it's work at the end of the day. And my success is only defined by what I set up for myself. I don't need to follow someone else's career trajectory in order to feel like I'm doing something or I'm being somebody.