Crafting a Music Career

Part 1: My Strange Path Through the Music World

My career in music has unfolded in ways that I’d never have predicated.

I’ve had times when I’ve been on top of the world, followed by stretches of deep frustration and discouragement.

I’ve failed more often than I’ve succeeded.
Time after time, I’ve forged a new path, built a career, and become “successful” (whatever that means). Then I’ve intentionally set fire to everything and gone down a different path.

I think that a lot of musicians “find their level” in the world and basically chug along on that level for decades. Maybe that’s an orchestra job. Perhaps it’s a university teaching position. It might even be a freelance career built around the same set of gigs.

Regardless of what it is, I see so many musicians operating in job paths that resemble what our parents did.

Work in a job for 30 years.
Put in the time.
Get the pension.
Get the watch.
But these paths are eroding all around us, and not just in music. People don’t stay in jobs for 30 years. The average American doesn’t even keep the same job for five years!

I’ve spent the last 20 years trying to find my level. I started out freelancing. I added in university teaching and private teaching. I took on a fairly standard freelance life and chugged away at this for seven years.

But it always felt like wearing tight shoes.
I was always looking left and right to see if there was a way out. What else could I do?

I felt trapped. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

So I got out.
At least, I tried to get out.

I went back to school. For music education, of all things.

I never really wanted to do this. It was never my calling. But there was light at the end of the tunnel.

A traditional job.
Pension.
Benefits.
Maybe even a watch if I stayed long enough!
But a funny thing happened during that period of transition. Isn’t that when the most interesting things happen in life? John Lennon once sang “life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” I think about that quote a lot.

I started a blog. I started to vent my frustrations. I organized those frustrations into pieces that resonated with people. I started to build a platform. I just didn’t know that was what I was doing.

But it was too negative! There was no light at the end of that tunnel. Only more darkness.

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So I started a podcast. It was positive!

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I talked about people’s experiences in music. We geeked out. It felt good to do this. It resonated with people. The platform continued to grow.

People saw value in what I was doing. They wanted to exchange value for value. They wanted to advertise with me. They wanted to hire me to work on their project. Or give them advice. Or come talk to their group.

I thought that I had self-immolated my career by writing critically about it.

But people liked it!

They hired me for better things than I’d been doing. Trying to hack my old career into pieces kicked me a few rungs higher up on the musical ladder.

Jason & Francois
Weird.
Meanwhile, I was banging away at this music education degree.

Why was I doing this? I almost quit.

But by dad talked me out of it. Why throw away all that time and money when I was 75% of the way done with the program? Why not just finish?

So I finished. And I got a job.
It was a good job! I’d never really had a “job” job before. This was new.

I had a salary! Money magically appeared in my account. What did I do to earn the money? I didn’t know! I was so used to trading specific time for specific money. This concept of money for your overall service was foreign.

I had benefits! I could finally go to the doctor.

But I was busy. All my time disappeared. I didn’t know what I was doing with the new job. I had to learn. But learning was fun!

I set fire to the blog and podcast.

Well, not really. They just kind of faded into the ether.

People kept telling me how valuable it was.

But I ignored them.
I quit logging in online. I deleted all the emails people sent me.

Now I had a boss. And he had a boss!

I got evaluated.
Everything I know, do, and love was reduced to a series of ratings. That was strange.

My colleagues had been at this job for 10, 20, and even 30 years. It was like my parent’s generation.

I had to take tests on bullying. My day was divided up into tidy increments of time separated by school bells.

But I liked teaching! And I liked feeling like I was a part of something. Part of an organization. Part of a team. Shared goals… at least on paper. I’d never felt that freelancing.

So I embraced my role as a team member. I worked hard at my new job. I studied scores, conducting, and tips on managing hordes of teenagers.

It was fun.
Challenging, but fun. I was learning new skills. I was growing as a person but also as a musician. This was surprising!

Another job opened up. I took that job. More money. More demands on my time, and the job was, well… someday I’ll write more about that job.

Then I got another job. This was a really good job that everyone in my niche wanted. Or a lot of people wanted, anyway. It was the kind of job you stayed in long-term if you were in this career.

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I was making more money with each new job. Now I was making “a lot of money.” At least, by my standards. I got more and more side gigs. People hired me to guest conduct. I was teaching university. Lots of clinic gigs. All this in addition to playing gigs.

I was a baller. Sort of, anyway… in some vaguely lame way.

But I had no time!
I was commuting from 35 miles away. My wife had a job in the city. I was working in the suburbs. Her job was “more serious” than mine. So I took the commuting hit.

I spent 3 hours a day at least driving. Often much more. This is what I hated so much about freelancing. Oh no! My old patterns repeating themselves.

Why can’t I break free?
My wife got hooked up with the best medical residency program in the country for her specialty. But it was in San Francisco. Oh no! All the castles I’d built! I can’t leave them.

So I stayed in my job. My wife moved thousands of miles away. Now I was lonely. Oh no! What did I do? What was really important in life?

I kept tending my castles, but my princess had left. So what was the point of staying? Was it ego? There are big egos in music and big egos in education. Sometime I’ll write more about that. But not now!

OK—I decided to move to California.

Wait a minute… that sounds pretty sweet! Goodbye, horrible never-ending winters. Hello, palm trees!

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I started looking for teaching jobs in San Francisco. Education is really weird out there. Where are all the high-paying orchestra jobs? Oh no! What to do?

But then I had a moment of clarity.
I looked back at the past 20 years of my life.

What felt right?

Was it the teaching job? I loved it, but was it my passion or did I just bring my passion with me from job to job?

Part 2: Building my Freelance Career

It wasn’t until years later that I realized how lucky I was in terms of freelancing.

Several regional orchestra positions opened up simultaneously just as I was graduating from my masters degree.

During the spring and summer of 2000, I landed the following jobs:

Position Approx. Yearly Salary
Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra $5000
IRIS Chamber Orchestra $5000
Elgin Symphony Orchestra $6000

These dollar figures totaled only $16,000, which sounded disturbingly low, but I was only paying $300 a month for my apartment. I’d said to myself that if I could bring in at least $1000 a month, I wouldn’t worry about trying to get a job and would just focus on taking auditions.

I had student loans, but I deferred these and lived on a diet of peanut butter and jelly, pasta, coffee, frozen pizza, and Miller High Life. It wasn’t until my mid-30s that I started to eat a bit healthier!

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The good news with those three jobs is that, miraculously, none of the weeks conflicted with each other. This was the only year in my freelance career where nothing conflicted!

I’m glad it played out that way, though. It was a calming way to start a freelance career.

Other Work
In addition to that $16,000 base, I was called as a regular sub for the musical Forever Plaid. The regular bass player had three shows per week that he couldn’t play, so I had at least three shows a week on the calendar. The pay wan’t very high, but there was a bass waiting for me at the hall and I could take the train. It sure beat working a minimum wage job!

I also got called to teach electric bass at a music school in Chicago. Again, the pay was modest but it was within walking distance of my place. Another piece in the freelance puzzle.

Finally, I had made the finals of the Grant Park Symphony that spring, which put me on some really good sub lists, so within a few months I was getting called by some of the better in-town work in Chicago.

My first freelance season (2000-2001)
I ended up bringing in about $1600 that first September, and then $2400 in October. November was around $2000, and I made over $3000 in December.

In hindsight, I realize that my move into the freelance world was really easy for me. Most people don’t land a series of gigs like I did right out of school. The pieces came together pretty well for me.

My Problem with Success
In a way, I think that my early success was a detriment.

Why?
Because I lost that hunger for more.

I was so thrilled to have an actual income that I lost the urge to take that next step.

I kept taking professional auditions, but I was weighing everything I took against staying in Chicago and freelancing. And that option didn’t seem so bad. I mean, my girlfriend (who would later become my wife) was in Chicago. Things were going well for her in school and they were about to go quite well for her on the freelance scene.

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Squirreling away for the summer
After that first season of freelancing (2000-2001), I discovered one of the painful truths of the classical freelancer life: summer

Simply put, the earning potential drops off precipitously in those summer months. The regular gig seasons end. Summer gigs don’t pay as much. Students go on vacation.

That summer period often stretches into 4-5 months of underemployment or downright unemployment.

In the freelance game, it’s all about feast or famine.

Earnings for Freelance Season No 1: $36,000 minus expenses
positives:

I surpassed my minimum (albeit poverty-level) requirement of $1000/month by 300%
I had established a diverse set of regular gigs – if one went away, I wouldn’t lose everything
lots of time during the day to practice
negatives:

my nearest regular gig was 40 miles away, and my furthest was 600 miles away – lots of driving
many months of little to no income – the need for saving during the “good months” became clear
no assurance that I would be offered the same level of work next season
feelings of anxiety and helplessness surrounding future employment
ESO bass section better contrast
My Mental State
It’s amazing how clear things become in hindsight. I vividly recall how anxious I was about each coming month. OK–I had a great September…

But what about October?

I was obsessed with what others thought of me. I hoped for validation at every turn. This was subconscious, but it permeated every moment of my days.

My Freelance Orchestra Musician Mentality
Orchestra gigs became my safe zones. My gig family. The folks I hung out with.

But I was always looking to show them how great I was doing. I felt like I had to constantly prove that I was, in fact, a good player.

Good player = good person = life choice validation

“Yeah, there’s talk of [insert group I play in here] going full-time. You know, if I don’t get something else, I’ll be full-time there anyway.”

Full-time.
Those words were like magic to me. I felt like I could see a magical aura around any friend (or frenemy) of mine that landed a full-time gig. Even if that gig really didn’t pay a living wage.

They had made it.

I wanted to make it too.

I spent my first few years freelancing worrying that everything would come crashing down.

What if I looked at the conductor the wrong way? Should I smile more? Smile less? How are my pants? Are they too cool? Not cool enough?

Jason Heath in recital on the “Amati”
Please think I’m important!
Ahhh, hindsight.

That phrase: please think I’m important…

That right there is toxic thinking.

Those thoughts didn’t help me in any way. In fact, they clouded my ability to absorb the great experiences that I was having.

Freelance Season No. 2 (2001-2002) – Adding teaching to the mix
Outside of some electric bass lessons, I really didn’t teach that much that first year out of school.

My teaching really ramped up my second year out of school.

This changed everything.

A colleague from my college days called me about teaching bass at his high school. I agreed and found myself with a nice studio of bassists that fall up in the suburbs.

I also got a paid principal bass position in a local community orchestra just down the road from that high school.

Working out the $$
Combined, the teaching and the community orchestra gig paid about $200 for the day. I was still living cheap in terms of rent, and I had no car payment and low overhead. I realized that this weekly pay would cover my rent and expenses if I were to live cheaply. Everything else on top was, in a sense, gravy.

Now I was adding $800 a month to my income just from teaching and that community orchestra gig. That was the equivalent of one extra week of typical work a week. And all that just for going in one day a week. How cool was that?

Also, after I adjusted to the shock of having to wake up early one day a week and go teach, I found myself enjoying the experience of working with bass students. I had several talented students even in that very first crop, and it was satisfying to watch them progress.

2001-2002 Gig Portfolio
I played the following gigs regularly that year. I also started to work for several contractors in town. The contractor work was more sporadic but paid better and was closer to home.

Elgin Symphony
Milwaukee Ballet
IRIS Chamber Orchestra
Rockford Symphony
Lake Forest Symphony
Chicago Philharmonic
Chicago Opera Theater
Grant Park Symphony
To cancel or not to cancel?
Every successful freelancer has faced this issue:

The [insert amazing group here] calls.
“Can you play next week?” they ask.
You look at your calendar.
You’re booked… but it’s the [insert amazing group here] calling!
What do you do?
Do you leave your modest but regular gig for the amazing but infrequent other gig? What are the long-term ramifications?

If only someone would invent an app that could calculate that. They’d be rich.

Actually, they wouldn’t be rich, because we’re talking about freelance musicians here. Zing! Sorry.

My personal rule was never leave anyone high and dry. If I really felt like I had to cancel gig #1 for gig #2, I’d secure a possible sub first. Then I’d call the contractor and explain the situation and that person x could play.

If it was less than a week until the gig, then I never bailed. But that was my rule. Every person and every situation is different.

Earnings for Freelance Season No.2: $43,000 minus expenses
The teaching bumped up my earnings for the year, and I discovered the power of having a consistent revenue stream from students. All of a sudden it made sense why my other freelance colleagues taught.

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Figuring out the freelance formula
I discovered the power of two gigs per day. If I could get two gigs a day, I could work five or six days a week and actually have a day off.

I counted a gig as anything that brought in dollars. That included my private teaching.

A typical day would look like this:

Weekday:

teach 3 hours: $120 (I didn’t charge much in these early days…)
play rehearsal/concert: +/- $120
Weekend:

gig or teach in the morning: $120
evening gig: $120
If I could double up like that, I was making more like $240 a day. Multiply that by 5, and I was bringing home $1200 a week.

That dollar figure went up if I got better paying gigs. Also, some of my gigs paid more than that.

The flexibility of lesson income
The beauty of teaching lessons is that I had the ability to schedule them in the gig gaps. I kept a policy of “I’m flexible with you if you’ll be flexible with me.” that way, when I had a really busy gig week, I could reschedule or even cancel my students for the week.

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My teaching hack: have more students than I could actually teach
I realized something early on. This might sound strange. But here’s what I realized:

It’s OK to have more students than you can actually teach
Strange concept, right? But here’s the thing.

My students would cancel lessons. They’d get sick. They’d be out of town. Unforeseen conflicts would arise.

I’d never teach all my students every week. That simply wouldn’t happen.

It’s kind of like owning too many clothes to actually fit into your closet. If all of your clothes were washed, you couldn’t do it. But some of your clothes are always dirty and in the hamper waiting to be washed. So it all works. A bad analogy perhaps, buy you know what I mean.

Freelance Season No. 3 (2002-2003) – Adding Adjunct University Teaching
I got an exciting email during the summer of 2002. One of my Milwaukee Ballet colleagues passed along the announcement of a double bass adjunct faculty position opening up at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. I applied for and got this position, and I was thrilled at the opportunity to get some college teaching experience on my resume.

As a freelancer, I had an inferiority complex about institutional affiliations. I didn’t like the feeling of being so unattached. I liked saying “hi, I’m Jason Heath from _ University!” That alone made a university gig of any sort attractive.

I threw myself into building a bass program at this school, and it was a resounding success. I went from 3 students to 11 students by the end of that first year, and I was teaching bass classes, playing recitals, and doing all sorts of things at the school.

My Crazy Schedule
For most of my time at UW-W, I sent up for one incredibly long day of teaching. At my busiest, I taught 10 1/2 hours in an 11 hour block. I used that precious half-hour off to walk to the local sandwich shop and eat my sandwich as I walked back to my office. Man, were those long days! Driving up in the Wisconsin winter snow was not a fun experience either.

This job added a solid $11,000 to my income that first year and was a core component of what I did until I made the decision quit.

Earnings for Freelance Season No.3: $56,000 minus expenses
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My Final Few Years of Freelancing
I continued to freelance until 2007, when I made the decision to go back to school and do something else. My income continued to grow throughout those years, however, largely due to the following four factors:

taking more in-town work
eliminating low-paying contracts that locked me in schedule-wise
raising my rates as a teacher
attracting a higher quality of private student
I ended up making between $70,000 and $80,000 as a freelancer my final few seasons. This was before expenses, but it wasn’t a bad living for a freelance musician ten years ago.

Here’s how these factors helped to solidify my income:

Taking more in-town work
In a large metropolitan area, the best-paying gigs tend to be in town. The further you leave the center of the city, the worse the gigs pay. You end up driving further (which costs $$) for less money… and usually with a lower-quality group!

Luck and persistence raised my “gig profile” over the years, and more in-town work came in as a result. Lyric Opera Orchestra and other such high-end sub work helped a lot. There was always the struggle of keeping my regular contracts while taking the better-paying sub work, but that’s the life of a freelancer.

Eliminating low-paying contracts that locked me in schedule-wise
I held onto several contracted gigs way longer than necessary. I was terrified of giving up guaranteed income.

But when I gave one of these gigs up, the next year my income was always higher.

Why?
Because those lower-income gigs limited my ability to take better work.

When you’re starting out, playing in a low-wage community orchestra or per-service gig can be a good move. But over time, these gigs can hamper your ability to move forward. I had more time to do other things when I left some of these groups, and my income and happiness levels benefited.

Raising my rates as a teacher
I have always undervalued myself as a teacher. It’s a complex I have. I think “I’m not worth that” and I always undercharge. Sadly, I still do that. But I’m getting better!

But when I finally did start raising my rates in Chicago, I saw the massive impact that this had on my bottom line. Multiply a rate raise of $10 over the nearly 50 students that I once taught (I’m insane, I know). Then multiply that over the weeks and months you’d be teaching them. It’s a major boost in income!

Attracting a higher quality of private student
After for or five years of teaching, I ended up being the private teacher for many of the top bassists in the local youth orchestras. Referrals from parents in those groups led to more students, and before long I was teaching most of the bass students in these groups.

These students were motivated. They wanted to be there. They practiced what I assigned them. They cared. They didn’t cancel.

Those are fun students! Do you notice how an hour-long lesson can feel like five minutes with a great student. Doesn’t that same hour-long lesson feel like an eternity with other students?

My studio moved more and more toward the “awesome” category. As a result, I started to love teaching more.

In fact, these positive lesson experiences were what pushed me over the edge. After years of successful freelancing, I decided to torpedo my career and totally change gears.

Part 3: Sinking my Freelance Career

Like most significant decisions in my life, bailing out of freelance life happened as a result of a conversation with my wife.

We were both freelancers.

Fairly successful freelancers, actually.

My wife’s music career had really taken off after getting her masters in harp.

She was subbing regularly with the Chicago Symphony and the Lyric Opera of Chicago
She had contracts with two regional orchestras
She taught Suzuki harp at two music academies
She had built up a busy wedding and event business for herself
As a freelancer, she was crushing it.

But she didn’t set out to be a freelancer. She wanted to play in an orchestra full-time.
Putting it mildly, there aren’t a ton of full-time orchestra harp positions. During her five years of freelancing, only one job opened up…and that was for the Army Band!

I also wanted an orchestra job. I thought I did, anyway.
But that ship seemed to have sailed. As I drifted through my twenties, the idea of a full-time job seemed more fantasy than reality.

I had settled into my freelance life. For a few years, I was paranoid that everything would fall apart and I’d never get called again.

Eventually, I realized that everything was going to be OK.
Gigs would come and go
Students would quit and new students would show up
Something would fall apart and something else would work out

My career karma had built up enough that I always ended up doing well, even though my schedule would look different from year to year.

My wife sent off her resume for the Army harp job. She made a tape and made it to the finals.

Before going to the finals, she had to go to an Army recruiting facility and stay overnight for a barrage of physical fitness tests.

Her roommate that night was a 17-year-old girl basically running away from home to join the Army.

She passed the tests, went to the audition, but didn’t get the gig. Surrounded by a pack of hyper-competitive harpists, she came to a realization.

This life stinks.
She can home and told me that she was quitting music to go to medical school.

Time to become a doctor.

At this point, we were both bringing in a decent combined income as freelancers. We had more or less “entered the middle class.”

A humble aspiration for sure.

But a real achievement for many musicians.

The path from musician to doctor is, to put it mildly, long:

3 years of pre-med
1 float year taking the MCAT and applying to medical schools
4 years of medical school
1 year of internship
4 years of residency
1 year of fellowship
We were looking at eight years of her earning little to no income, followed by six years of fairly modest income (good freelance income but horrible doctor income).

The realization that I’d be the breadwinner for the next decade got me thinking:

Do I like what I’m doing?
Really, do I?

50,000 miles a year of driving.

Constant anxiety about slipping a few rings down the gig ladder.

Driving to a $75 gig in a snowstorm.

Working every evening, weekend, and holiday.

No benefits.

No health insurance.

No savings.

No pension.

I had just turned 30. I looked down the road at my 40-year-old self. Playing the same gigs. Hoping to impress the right contractor. Worried about losing my steady work.

To me, the freelancer lifestyle felt like sitting in a waiting room for the next step in life. That next step never came, however.
The years went by. Wrinkles began to appear. Fresh faces kept appearing on my regular gigs. I used to be the first person at the hall and the last to pack up. Now I was one of the last to arrive and the first to get out of there.

Did I want to keep doing this?
No!
But what the heck am I qualified for?
I felt lost. I also felt the looming financial pressure. We had to pay our bills. That would be mostly on me. Our finances were about to take a dive.

I made a list. What could I do? I flailed around.
For some reason, I went on the FBI website. Join the FBI! That sounds interesting.

I looked into it. Hmmm… maybe no FBI for me. That seemed a little intense.

I looked into some other jobs. Nothing seemed right.

OK–I wanted to do something else. But I didn’t want to start from scratch. I had expertise. How could I use that expertise?

Education was the only thing that felt acceptable to me.

Both my parents had taught in the public schools. I knew that world.

In a state of total doubt, I sent emails to two close friends who were music educators. “Does this make any sense for me?” That was my question.

Both responded enthusiastically. They were so encouraging. They pointed out all the benefits:

Satisfying job
Salary schedule
Benefits
Pension
Time off
Career advancement opportunities
This sounded so appealing after years of freelancing. I met with the music admissions director at DePaul University.

He laid out a clear plan for me that would allow me to keep my freelance career going and finish off a music education degree in about two years.

I chatted with a couple other DePaul faculty members that day. I hopped on the train that afternoon with a clear plan and a genuine smile on my face for the first time in months.

I felt like a great weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.
Those feelings of anxiety about freelance work fizzled and died.

I stopped worrying about what everyone thought of my bass playing. Would I get called again? Did I use tooo much vibrato? Not enough vibrato? Too friendly to the contractor? Not friendly enough?

I no longer cared. I was bailing.
That was around the time that I realized this hard truth.

I was so worried about what people thought of me. Really, though, nobody was thinking anything about me at all.

This was hammered home when I started to tell my freelance colleagues that I was going back to school for education.

I was convinced that all the gig calls would dry up when people learned about my decision to go back to school. To quit. To admit defeat.

People’s reactions were quite the opposite, however:

They congratulated me
They were curious what the job looked like
Many people told me that they were secretly planning exit strategies themselves
The gig calls didn’t stop. If anything, they picked up!
I had started a blog around the same time as making this decision. It was basically a resource dump firmly students. At the time, I had nearly 50 private students at two colleges, three high schools, plus my private studio.

Organizing all of those students was super-challenging. The blog became a place to post lesson summaries, music to order, and favorite recordings to check out.

The blog grew organically.

I started a links page. I started to write a few posts about advice for buying an instrument. Over time, I added posts about strings, extensions, summer camps, and the like.

People started to link to my site. They left comments. Offered recommendations for resources. Sent me messages. The trickle of web traffic became a steady flow.

As I prepared to go back to school, I began to write more and more. All that worry over auditions, freelancer hierarchy, and career uncertainty had stunted my creativity. Making the decision to change careers opened the creative floodgates.

Ideas were flowing like crazy. I became fascinated with two different creative threads:

My experiences trying to “make it” as a freelancer
Crazy gig stories from my past
Both of these resonated with people who found my blog. My readership began to grow exponentially. I began putting out more and more content.

My first couple of years blogging changed my life markedly:
I was featured in several publications.
The International Society of Bassists brought me on as a board member.
DePaul University hired me to teach bass and music education.
Every gig I played, musicians came up to me and shared their own gig stories and freelancer experiences. I had become like a minor celebrity!
Several organizations hired me to help develop a web presence.
Advertisers were approaching me for sponsorships.
I wrote a book on freelancing which garnered much critical acclaim.
I was getting hired as a speaker for events.
I started a podcast and began interviewing famous bassists from across the globe.
At the same time, I was taking undergraduate music education courses and cramming in students and gigs in every spare moment. I was sleeping 4 hours a night at best and was running on coffee and junk food. The podcast and blog were eating up 20-30 hours a week on top of everything else.

I saw two trajectories for my life:
Go full-force into this blog/podcast/consultant/speaker life
Stay the course and go into education
Clearly, there was momentum behind the projects I’d started. The opportunities were increasing for me in this arena.

My concern was that this new path would just be a different form of freelancing. I had gone through such a cathartic moment giving up (in my mind, at least) the freelance thing. I was reluctant to chalk up the education degree as a mistake.

At the same time, the education courses were bumming me out. It was frustrating working these creative new projects and sitting in elementary music education methods classes with 18-year-olds.

I was on the verge of quitting the music education degree.
A conversation with my father talked me off the ledge. I decided to compromise. I dropped down to part-time at DePaul, which extended my coursework by six months but opened my schedule up a lot.

In the end, I decided to make a go of the education career. These reasons tipped me in that direction:

I really wanted, for once in my life, to have an actual full-time job.
I liked the social nature of public education. I wasn’t sure about sitting in front of a computer by myself all day. The idea of working live with large groups of young people appealed to me.
The idea of being part of a full-time faculty appealed to me.
I was obsessed with having a salary and benefits. I’d spent years dreaming about having these.
I wanted to be a member of a “tribe.” Freelancing felt fuzzy and alienating to me.
The idea of a clear career path with professional development opportunities was compelling.
I didn’t want to work seven days a week anymore and was worried that this was what life would continue to look like for me otherwise.