Being Freelance Podcast LIVE at IPSE's National Freelancers Day in London 2019
This week, we’re LIVE in London at IPSE’s annual event, National Freelancers Day.
Steve chats to past IPSE award winners, Iona Bain (Freelancer of the Year 2018), and Harvey Morton (Young Freelancer of the Year 2018).
Taking part in a school enterprise competition aged only 13, Harvey was given £25 to start his own company. He launched the IT Support business that’s been his side hustle throughout GCSE’s, A-Levels, and university. He now runs Harvey Morton Digital, a marketing agency based in Sheffield.
Iona Bain is the founder of Young Money, an informative blog that helps young people understand personal finance. When a piggy bank theft left a 22-year-old Iona with no savings, she committed to getting serious about money. She launched the blog as part of a portfolio career, also taking on work as a journalist, speaker, radio presenter, and consultant.
Hear how both Harvey and Iona have got on since winning last years’ awards.
MORE FROM IONA BAIN
MORE FROM HARVEY MORTON
LISTEN TO LAST YEARS LIVE EPISODE AT NATIONAL FREELANCERS DAY 2018
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TRANSCRIPT OF THE BEING FREELANCE PODCAST WITH IONA BAIN, HARVEY MORTON, AND STEVE FOLLAND
Steve Folland: Welcome to a very special episode of Being Freelance. We are live in London, at the IPSE National Freelancers Day, 2019. And not just one guest, but two guests. We have got Harvey and Iona who won at last year's awards, the National Freelances Awards last year, as well. Harvey, how did you get started being freelance?
Harvey Morton: My journey in to kind of the world of freelancing enterprise started in 2013 when I was 15 at school. I started my own IT support company through a school enterprise competition, where teams got 25 pounds to start the business idea, which isn't a lot.
Harvey Morton: But it was about seeing which teams were most successful over two school terms. Then after winning numerous prizes in that competition, I kept the business going through my GCSE, A levels and uni, just about. Then, yes, I've managed to build up a reputation. I'm doing web design, social media management.
Steve Folland: As in, when I was about 15, and we did the enterprise thing, we put some sweets in a box and flogged them for 50 pips. You started, and that's your company, which then has become into your actual company, company?
Harvey Morton: Yes. It has, and that's not why I intended when I started, but it just kind of really took off more than I imagined.
Steve Folland: Wow. Did you do A levels, or any or college or anything else? Or did you just crack on with this?
Harvey Morton: I'd did A levels and then uni as well. It's always been kind of part time alongside studies. But yes, I originally started off doing IT support. I'd go out and sell iPads and stuff to people. But, since then it's kind of forged into mainly social media management, both web design as well.
Steve Folland: Amazing. From 2013. You're 21?
Harvey Morton: Yes. That's it, 21.
Steve Folland: Iona, how about you? How did you get started being freelance?
Iona Bain: Wow. Well, Harvey puts me to shame and I don't know how I'm going to follow that up. Well, I started life as a musician. I was a classically trained musician and thought I was always going to end up in music. And I went to university, studied music and then when I left I wanted to do music as a performing and recording artist.
Iona Bain: Then do some music journalism on the side. I thought I was really living the dream at the time. I was in my early twenties, but there was also fears after the financial crash. It was quite tough environment for a graduate. I could see all my friends were really worried about the future. I was really worried about the future and I didn't know if I'd ever get on the housing ladder. If I'd ever be able to save money, if I'd ever be able to earn very much money.
Iona Bain: The real watershed for me came when I was doing these gigs in Glasgow, and I would put all the earnings from these gigs in a piggy bank. I kept this piggy bank in my bedroom, in my parents' house because I couldn't afford to live out on my own at that time. And when I came back one evening, I discovered my room had been burgled. Somebody had gotten to the house and had, guess what, stolen the piggy bank.
Iona Bain: It was about 600 Pounds worth of my earnings and now, which is a lot of money when you're 23. It's a lot of money any age, but it was everything to me, age 22-23. I just remember having to give the police officer who was investigating it, a statement later on describing what the piggy bank looked like, and saying, "I think it was pink." And he was like, "Does it have a tail?"
Speaker 3: I was wondering.
Iona Bain: I think it a tail, yes. Well, obviously I never saw that piggy back ever again. But it just made me realise I need to sort this out. This is such an important fundamental aspect of all our lives, and yet I'm completely clueless about it. I started the Young Money Blog, just kept at it all the time that I was doing various jobs in financial media.
Iona Bain: Then a few years ago I realised there was so much more interest in the whole agenda of young personal finance. I thought, I think it's time to really pursue this. And the best way to do that I realised was going freelance and I've never looked back.
Steve Folland: Amazing. Now you've got the Young Money Blog as part of your business?
Iona Bain: Yes.
Steve Folland: And then you were a journalist, or what were you?
Iona Bain: Yes. I'd say that the Young Money Blog is really at the centre of my career, and it's nonprofit. I don't have any advertising or guest posts on there, which is quite unusual for a blog. I find that there are lots of opportunities that have arisen from me writing the blog. I decided to subsidise it with all that other work. Yes, I'm a journalist, I contribute to the Financial Times and other national media titles.
Iona Bain: But I also, am a speaker. I'm doing a lot more public speaking and I've presented some programs for Radio 4, and I do a bit of consultancy as well. I talk to financial companies about how they can connect with the next generation, which is something that very fortunately they are starting to take more seriously.
Steve Folland: Cool. The music, that's...
Iona Bain: The music, I still do. In fact, I'm part of a group, and we do gigs very often. In fact, my brother's here. He's the musical director of said Group, and it's such an important thing for me to feel financial journalism and money blogging isn't the whole picture. I think that's one of the joys of freelancing. You can be this well rounded individual, that's doing a lot in society and in the community and you're not just in that one category, in that one pitch and all.
Steve Folland: Harvey, when you were finding your first clients beyond the... Go and mount some of this... fix that light, that sort of thing. When you decided to actually make it more of a business, how were you finding your first clients?
Harvey Morton: When I started, I actually tried everything just to get my name out there. I actually did a lot of free work, which looking back now I wish I'd never done. Because of my age I didn't have the confidence to ask for payment. But, it did help me to get my name out there and I find that what works for me at the time, was networking and sharing the story of how I got started.
Harvey Morton: Now I mainly do networking and social media advertising. Fortunately, now I'm in a good position where I've got quite a lot of word of mouth recommendations. It's easy to manifest out, but, I think my age didn't hope for a start. It was mainly just getting my name out there, doing lots of lethal jobs just to build up that portfolio, really.
Steve Folland: Then as you were leaving university, and you realise actually now, this can't be a thing on the side. This is my job-
Harvey Morton: Well-
Steve Folland: Did you do anything different?
Harvey Morton: I actually finished uni a few weeks ago. I'm so caught up in that stressful situation about what do I do now? Because I've always ran it alongside some thing else. That's where I'm at.
Steve Folland: That's happening now?
Harvey Morton: Yes. But it's always been alongside my studies, and it has been difficult. People have said to me all along, you should be focusing on your grades. But now that I've been successful with the business, they're all pretending that they knew that what I should have done all along. It has been a strange journey, really.
Steve Folland: And are a lot of your clients local to you, or?
Harvey Morton: Originally, it was mainly working with start-ups and small businesses in Sheffield where I'm based, but now that I've grown a profile and kind of spread all over the UK. Which is the better side, I still love travelling around, which I enjoy. Yes, it did start off locally and now is more on a national level.
Steve Folland: How about you Iona? How did you convert what you were discovering yourself with your blog into being paid for that, I guess personality and brand that you are creating?
Iona Bain: That's a very good question. It's very difficult to pinpoint that moment in time where I had figured out exactly what I needed to do in order to make the Young Money Blog a sustainable career in its own right. I guess, I totally relate to what Harvey was saying before about working for free.
Iona Bain: Because, I now look back on a lot of my early experiences and realise that, especially when you create something from nothing and when you are trying to get a brand out there, that some people don't think is particularly important or necessary. Then they think they're doing you a big favour by giving you a platform or giving you an opportunity.
Iona Bain: If you're not very confident or well established, then you buy that narrative. What has to happen very, very quickly is you have to realise your value and assert it and say, "Hang on, this has got value. That's why you're asking for it. Why else would you want me if it didn't have value?"
Iona Bain: For me now my policy is, unless it's an educational establishment or a charity, I'm more than happy to do pro-bono work for those kinds of organisations. If it's any kind of commercial organisation, the very fact that I say to them, "What's your fee? We need to have a conversation." Then, it almost it vindicates their decision to ask me because I wouldn't be a very good Young Money blogger, if I wasn't able to actually ask to be paid.
Iona Bain: I think it was just understanding that I could get paid to do things like speaking, and so on. I think it's also helpful if you put yourself out there. I do a lot of media. I do radio, TV sometimes, and it's not easy because often you're asked ridiculous questions by people who've studied the brief like two minutes before you go on air.
Iona Bain: You have to answer these unanswerable questions. Sometimes you do get nervous, you do lose your thread and you do find it a very unnerving experience. But when you get yourself out there, especially in broadcast media, that's when it opens doors because suddenly people see, "Oh, you've been on the BBC. Oh, you've been on radio. Oh, you've done this."
Iona Bain: It tends to give you that legitimacy and that air of being an authority. That really matters for the private sector if we're getting more of that business work life, I'm guessing as well.
Steve Folland: How are you creating those opportunities? Is it a case of emails and lots of people at the BBC, or?
Iona Bain: I tend to find that the one that is not being done well, hasn't been done at all. I think any young person who's prepared, who's bonkers enough to go on TV or radio and talk about money, people just think it's amazing. Even if you're, as I was in the beginning of my career. Not actually that knowledgeable about a lot of these subjects, you just have to say yes and figure out how to do it later.
Iona Bain: I think once you start doing one or two of those appearances, thankfully, so long as you equip yourself perfectly well, then you do tend to get asked again and again. It does help that I'm a woman as well.
Iona Bain: I think that perhaps now there's a realisation that in order to close the gender pay gap as well as the gender pensions gap, the gender insurance gap with gender, everything gap when it comes to finances. One really powerful way of doing that is to have more women in public life talking about money.
Iona Bain: That has really helped me to get my message out there, not just about Young Money, but also how young women can perhaps feel more in control of their finances.
Steve Folland: How does your work life look now? Are you working Harvey, from home? Do you have an office? What's your setup?
Harvey Morton: I was in a co-working space, but I've got quite a young dog, so I used to work from home to look after her. Been working from home primarily, but I do prefer to be in a space where there's also the people around just because it's quite difficult working from home sometimes. You don't speak to anyone at all day in person or over the phone.
Harvey Morton: Because of the nature of what I do is online, I find that most of the time I'm just emailing and it's quiet. I suppose one of the challenges I've had since working from home is the work life balance. It's easy to get carried away. I keep on working into the evenings when actually I should be saying, now is my time now to just switch off.
Steve Folland: How have you found getting on, making that happen for yourself?
Harvey Morton: I'm very digital, actually. I found that I actually writing things on my to do list, in my free time, whether it's go to the gym or for a coffee, the cinema stuff like that. If I write it on my to do list, I feel I've actually got to do it. Rather than just thinking I'll leave that until another day. I think being freelance, obviously does have a quite big impact on your mental health. You've got to kind of know those boundaries and be prepared to make a change if you need to.
Steve Folland: How about you Iona?
Iona Bain: That definitely would work for me if I had a to do list that said, "Let's go to the cinema, the gym, the pub." I would definitely prioritise that every day in my work. That would work for me. But, I still struggle with it. I think that freelancers very seldom reach this perfect destination, where they have absolutely established rock solid boundaries between their work and their personal life, because that's not what freelancing is like.
Iona Bain: And as much as I think we'd like to have that, sometimes more than others, we also do have to be quite flexible and have those porous boundaries too. I think it's more about a mindset, and it's about taking your work seriously, but not taking yourself too seriously.
Iona Bain: Then also, just having certain rules about your interactions with other people and also, yes, having some rules for yourself about time that you take off. Recently, I've decided to take Fridays off for the most part, and work on Sundays instead. And the reason for that is people are constantly pestering you. I'm sure you get this as well, Harvey.
Iona Bain: You get what I say, pestering you. Offering you work and things as well. Then obviously when I say pester, I mean that towards the end of the week you can start to feel... I start to feel very tired. You have to understand your own energy cycles.
Iona Bain: For me, I get really tired. Like, this point late on Thursday, I'm starting to flag. I know that taking Friday off makes sense for me. Then working on Sunday, I don't get anybody emailing me. I can get all that deep work done. The writing, the strategising, everything that I need to do and that always seems to be pushed to the bottom of the priority list. You have to realise what's urgent and what's important. It's an ongoing process, shall we say?
Steve Folland: Yes. You mentioned strategising. Are you somebody who plans?
Iona Bain: I've gotten much better assets. I used to be a lot more reactive in my career because you go through a period when you're a freelancer where you think, "Oh my God, people want to pay me to do things. It's amazing." You say yes to pretty much everything, whether it's paid or unpaid. Whether it works for you or it doesn't work for you. Obviously, then over time you start to realise what works for you and what doesn't work for you.
Iona Bain: Recently, I've wanted to start working on the second book, All About Investing, and books don't write themselves. Unless you're really strict and say, "Well, I have got to carve out that time for myself and it might not be yielding me income in the here and now, but it's really important for my long term career."
Iona Bain: You just have to keep telling yourself that. And that's all about being a freelance. Right, you have to be your own boss. You also have to be your own editor. Your own HR manager forcing you to take time off when you won't. Your own therapist, your own accountant.
Iona Bain: You have to serve all those roles for yourself. Sometimes you served them well, and other times you're a bit lax. I just have to figure out what's in my long term interests, whilst keeping enough of my short term projects alive so that I can actually eat.
Steve Folland: Have you found now since saying, yes, to everything, you're getting better at figuring out when to say, no?
Iona Bain: Yes, very much so. There is that period that you go through where it feels very uncomfortable saying no to something, especially when it's paid. It's a lot easier to say no to something when it's not paid, but when it is paid, it is hard. You just have to push through that pain barrier, because actually what you think is going to happen is that it'll all dry up. Therefore, you'll be pining for all those opportunities that you've said no to.
Iona Bain: But you realise that once you get to a certain stage, things will keep coming in. There will be a spectrum and you want to hold that for the best work that you can. But also be flexible enough if you have to perhaps bring in a bit more income any given time.
Iona Bain: That yes, you will do certain jobs and it may be a little bit more for the money, but actually I don't do anything where it's just for the money. I've never been like that. I don't think I'd be doing the job that I'm doing, period, if it was just about the money. You've always got to weigh up all those different considerations.
Steve Folland: Cool. Yes. Do you have anybody who helped you business wise, be a mentor or a coach, is there anybody in your life who's helped you? I don't know. Maybe it was your maths teacher when you started. Maybe you figured it all out yourself. Is there anyone?
Iona Bain: No.
Harvey Morton: Yes. Well for me, I've had a few mentors along the way, but I've not had anyone who's been constantly there, if you know what I mean. I think like what Iona was saying it, most of it you just kind of have to figure it out on your own. It's just knowing how to ask for help when you need it, really.
Harvey Morton: For me, I tend to get other freelancers in to help me, either when I'm really busy or if I want to go on holiday. I'll get other people to do stuff for me while I'm away, so that I'm not coming back and doing all the work that I've missed. Yes, it's just knowing when to ask for help. I used to be really bad at it.
Harvey Morton: Then I felt that a lot of people along the way, they do naturally want to help. You see it's just having the courage to say, "Hey, can you help me with this? Or, put me in the right direction of someone who could do this for me.
Steve Folland: When did you first make a decision to hire somebody else? How did that go?
Harvey Morton: It was early last year actually. I'd been putting it off for a while because I like to be in control of all of my work. But then I actually realised that sometimes people can do an even better job than you. I'm glad that I did make the decision to trust someone else with some of my tasks, and it has been a great help. Just to take pressure off me for those light admin tasks that I don't like to do.
Steve Folland: Is it mainly admin stuff that you've get done?
Harvey Morton: Yes. And because I do mainly do social media management, it takes someone to help me with writing the content. Because I go through periods where I might have more clients or I'm really busy with lots of other deadlines. Trusting someone to write that content for you has been key for me, really.
Steve Folland: And you find it's a real challenge to kind of outsourcing, as in to manage somebody else?
Harvey Morton: It has been. I've had a few experiences where people have not been as good as they portrayed themselves out to be. But, I think if you find someone that you know is really good there, and you can trust them, then that's easier to hand over the work. Because I found when I started doing, I once wasn't free. In control all the time and checking on them. But once you trust someone, I suppose that you are just happy to let them down with that.
Steve Folland: Now, both of you won here. Lots of work. Congratulations by the way for you. How has that made a difference? Over this past year, that have you noticed any difference since winning the award?
Iona Bain: A huge difference, because it really helps to vindicate the work that I'd been doing through Young Money. Because I think it had been a bit of a Cinderella subject up to that point. Partly, because the financial industry has had such a long track record of really neglecting young consumers.
Iona Bain: But also the mainstream media has been pretty patchy at providing really good, fair balanced, sympathetic coverage of personal finance issues from my generation. I felt that with IPSE's Award, because I knew going into it that it was impossible to put freelancers side by side.
Iona Bain: Every freelancer is so different. It's like comparing apples and pears. In a way with awards, you have to say, I know it's so cheesy to say that everyone's a winner. But it is true to say that everybody who put themselves forward, are completely, equally deserving of the award.
Iona Bain: You just feel this great responsibility to want to take that title and use it for some good. And I think another thing that's been really beneficial is that it's really shone a spotlight on freelance finances. We all know how important keeping on top of your money is when you're a freelancer.
Iona Bain: But right now out there in the wild, there's a massive misunderstanding about who freelancers are. And sometimes a bit of a mean unfair perception that we're all freelancing to try and avoid tax, and do sorts of dodgy things with our money. But actually, in many ways we are the backbone of the UK economy.
Iona Bain: We contribute so much. We take on so many risks. We are so self sufficient and reliant on ourselves and therefore, we need to make sure that we have a system that represents that contribution. That recognises that contribution.
Iona Bain: I've done a lot of work on freelance finances over the last year and thanks to the IPSE Award. That's been a hope, a hope that's been really helpful for the freelance community.
Steve Folland: Winning gave you confidence in yourself, but also gave you an extra platform, an extra excuse to contact people and you're now there?
Iona Bain: Yes, that's true. That's true. And because I suppose I hadn't necessarily identified very strongly as a freelancer up to that point, maybe. I think a lot of people find that they fall into freelancing, or it finds them rather than you find freelancing. Therefore, once that award happened, it kind of allowed me to feel much more comfortable in that identity. And to show that actually this isn't some accidental stop-gap, because especially in journalism, it's very unusual to find what, maybe not now, but it used to be when I was a freelancer starting out. It's very unusual to find young women who weren't mums.
Iona Bain: It may be seen as unusual. Why wouldn't you just go into a newspaper, or go into a website and work your way up. That provides you with way more job security. It was good once I won the award to be able to show that, it's an option for everybody.
Iona Bain: It's not just an option for this kind of person. It's an option whether you're young, whether you're further on in your career, whether you're a parent, whether you're not a parent. There are all sorts of personal, philosophical, spiritual reasons why you might be a freelancer. I think it's been really good to highlight that with the diversity of the winners, both last year and this year too.
Steve Folland: How about you, Harvey? How about your past 12 months?
Harvey Morton: For starters, it kind of gave me a stamp of approval. It did give me a big boost in confidence because, they must have been, I'm really good at what I do. It's been really good in terms of being able to take on bigger projects, which people might have not come to me for that sort of thing before.
Harvey Morton: But also, I re-branded recently with the IPSE prize money that I got. That's something that I wouldn't have had the confidence to do if I hadn't won the award. It's kind of pushed me into offering a more premium level service, and knowing that I am good at what I do. Just gave me that confidence to be more selective of who I was working with as well.
Harvey Morton: But I've also used the award to do more speaking and to go into schools and to say, I was here a few years ago and this is what I've gone on to do, which has been really important for me.
Steve Folland: Awesome.
Iona Bain: Also, it's amazing for putting you in contact with other awesome freelancers. I was really lucky. Like Harvey, I invested some of my prize money in revamping my site, which I thought was quite important. If you're going to have the Young Money Blog at the centre of what you do, you want it to be a good experience when people go on there.
Iona Bain: One of the other finalists last year did my website for me. I think up to that point, I'd taken the attitude that I could do everything myself. It was really humbling to realise, no, I can't actually. And there are some people that out, they've got awesome skill-sets. Why not take advantage. This did a great job for me and that was such a huge advantage in winning, as well.
Steve Folland: Nice. On the podcast, I always say, get three facts. Two true and one a lie. Let me figure out a lie. Today, we're going to do it slightly differently because we've got two guests. They have got to facts each. Only one of them is a lie. They have figured this out themselves. I know nothing about it. I'm with you guys in figuring this out. We're going to have four facts, two between you, two each. Only one of them is a lie. Harvey, let's start with you. What's your first fact?
Harvey Morton: The first one is that I once had lunch with Levi Roots. It was a bizarre experience. But yes, that's my first one.
Steve Folland: Iona, what's your first fact?
Iona Bain: My first fact is that I pretended to be my own agent, Anita Rice, for about three years.
Steve Folland: Your second fact?
Harvey Morton: I once got kind of stuck at the top of the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters. It was a building so high up there. But I really wanted to see the roof. I went up to the top floor and didn't know how to get back down.
Steve Folland: And your second fact, Iona?
Iona Bain: My second fact. When I was a musician, and I was in a band, we did a gig. In a men's urinal, and during the gig, a man walked in and used one of the urinals.
Steve Folland: Where did you meet Levi Roots?
Harvey Morton: I did a talk at Westminster, Kingsway College. I was the warm a party, for him. We dropped down for lunch afterwards.
Steve Folland: Nice. And he's the Reggae Reggae Sauce thing?
Harvey Morton: Yes, if you're listening to this Around the World, he was like a big online Dragon's Den, Shark Tank type of show. He was-
Steve Folland: Wow. But, you also decided to, whilst touring a building, go AWOL into a building site just to see the roof?
Speaker 3: Yes, it was the first time I'd been in there and I was at an event that was on one of the high levels of the building, but it didn't have a good view. But I thought, "Oh, I wonder what looks like up at the roof." They'd obviously not finished building their headquarters properly.
Speaker 3: Me and a friend went up in the lift and then when we got there, the floor was just like, it hadn't been finished and then the left won't then come back up. We were thinking...
Steve Folland: Did you winch to yourself down? Like in a bucket down the shoot? When the lift breaks down.
Iona Bain: I imagine that RBS could afford to put on a helicopter go get them down.
Harvey Morton: Thankfully, eventually just after pressing the lift several times, indeed after about 20 minutes, decides to come back up. I don't think they were meant to allow any one to the top floor.
Steve Folland: You pretended to be your own agent? Does that mean you were actually on the phone or on emails pretending to be someone else?
Iona Bain: No, I avoided the phone as much as possible. In fact, that used to be the case that if someone would call, it would be like, "Oh, you just wanted to catch me, the actual talent." But on the email, yes, there would definitely be a pseudonym.
Steve Folland: What was your pseudonym? What was your-
Iona Bain: It was Ashley Smith.
Steve Folland: Good name.
Iona Bain: I thought that was quite well. I thought it sounded suitably glamorous and showbizzy.
Steve Folland: And what happened after playing a gig in a urinal?
Iona Bain: Well, that's a very good question. I think it was a festival in Glasgow, where we were doing gigs in all these unusual places. We've got obviously, the very glamorous option of the men's urinal in a bar. There was a notice on the door saying, "There is a good going on in here. Try not to use the loos." But of course, when you've got to go, you've got to go. This chap came in and he's just like, "Sorry, sorry."
Steve Folland: Nice.
Iona Bain: And he just did his business. The gig went on, and I think people were pleased.
Steve Folland: Well, I don't know. What do you think? We're trying to find the lie. Remember, if you think Harvey's lied, one about Levi Roots, is a lie. Clap whatever it is no. If you think Harvey's lie is the one about getting stuck on the roof.
Steve Folland: Iona. If you think her lie, is the agent Ursula, from under the sea. Oh, that's quite popular. Or, the playing the fiddle. Somebody having a piddle. Well, I'm torn there. Harvey, they clearly think Levi Roots is true. I'm going to say based on there, I don't think they believe the riddle. And yet, I sit there thinking you'd be weird and sick to make that up, but they clearly think you're weird and sick, so that's the lie.
Iona Bain: It's the fact that, well, I didn't have an agent. I didn't pretend to be my agent for three years. The urinal is true.
Steve Folland: You didn't pretend. Did you just make that, yes?
Iona Bain: Yes I did. I did. It used to be a kind of name that I would use for like alternative accounts based on friends. Obviously, baby sister.
Steve Folland: Not when you're trying to fraud me. At least I wear money from my head.
Iona Bain: Why don't you just do it?
Steve Folland: Now, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be? Harvey?
Harvey Morton: For me, it would be to stay in your own lane. When I was starting out, I was looking at other people who I knew earned online, and think they've got it all together. Actually, I always wanted to be like two years ahead of where I actually was. It made me quite down, actually. But, it made me realise that I just need to focus on myself.
Harvey Morton: One thing that I've realised is people that I used to look up to who I felt were really successful, they've quit now and no longer freelance, and I'm still here. It's just kind of focusing on yourself, because then good things will come from that. Obviously, I'm still here, it stays where it's all right.
Steve Folland: Nice. And how about you, if you could tell your younger self one thing?
Iona Bain: I was going to say, when you all saw Harvey's still the youngest... you're already still young. But, yes. I think I would just tell my younger self to go for it. I didn't wait for anybody to give me permission to start my blog. I just did it.
Iona Bain: But at the same time, I think in the back of my mind, I did always have a feeling that I needed some approval, some external approval to do what I was doing. I wish at times I'd been a bit freer in a bit more liberated to just go for it and not worry too much about what the consequences might be.
Iona Bain: What if it doesn't work out? Obviously, understanding that the fear of failure is something you live with as a freelancer, all the time. But it's natural. It's almost something you just have to price in to being a freelancer. I'd say to my younger self, relax and just go for it.
Steve Folland: Nice. Now, does anybody here in the room have a question, that you've been sitting there thinking? But it's popped up, because we were pretty much on time. If there's anybody got a question at all? It's fine if you don't. Oh yes. Is there any lemon juice or cake left? It doesn't count.
Speaker 4: Which pub in Glasgow?
Steve Folland: Which pub in Glasgow?
Iona Bain: You know what? I think I might remember what it's called. I think it was the Captain's Rest.
Speaker 4: Before you wrap, that is me.
Iona Bain: You're the captain?
Steve Folland: We won't ask you to prove it. Guys, thank you so much. Congratulations on your win. Glad to hear it's all going so well, since. Sorry if we didn't arrange with your brother for you to play this out.
Iona Bain: All right.
Steve Folland: But all the same. Yes, thank you so much. All the best being freelance. Give it up for, Iona and Harvey.