The Freelancer's Guide To Less Anxiety with Chris Brogan & Ada Calhoun

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I'm more errands melee and this is the anxious achiever 2026 marks my 20th consecutive year

of self employment.

I can't believe it's been that long.

I always joke that I have a lot of titles for various memoirs I would write, but one

of the titles would be free on Tuesday because yeah, that's my life.

It's been my life for as long as I can imagine.

I mean, me and often a bunch of retirees hanging out at Pilates at 11 o'clock on a Tuesday.

Now I always ask myself the question too, am I an entrepreneur because of my mental health

or did my mental health contribute in a positive way to being an entrepreneur?

I think it's both and if you've listened to my interviews with Dr. Michael Freeman, you

know that self-employed people and especially scaling entrepreneurs over index on some

kinds of mental illness and certainly neurodivergence anyway.

I love being self-employed, but anxiety is a piece of it.

Whether you have an anxiety disorder or not, it is stressful to be self-employed, to only

be able to depend sometimes on yourself or at least it feels that way.

Today is a very, very human and really good conversation with two entrepreneurs, Chris

Brogan, who's a pioneering social media thinker and author and Ada Calhoun, who's a writer

and she wrote a great book called Why We Can't Sleep, which also could be a theme for entrepreneurship.

So freelancing, self-employment, entrepreneurship and mental health.

You wrote, and I'm going to quote here, people with depression can be successful.

Now read that sentence again, I'm not saying successful people can be depressed, although

that's true. I'm saying that people who suffer from depression can be successful even though

they are depressed. A, I couldn't agree with you more, but B, why Chris did you want to

sort of reframe the sentence to say that people who have depression, who are depressed, who

have chronic depression, that it can be successful.

Well, I deal with a minor case of major clinical depression. So my diagnosis is major clinical

depression, but I have kind of like the lower end of that scale. And a person who's done all kinds

of work as an entrepreneur, as an author, as a keynote speaker, I do a lot of consulting with

big companies and these two things coexist. And I guess a lot of what I do sort of as a

way to help people figure out who they want to be when they grow up is I try to look for

excuse removal systems. You know, I'm always looking for what excuses are in somebody's path.

And so someone will say, well, you know, can't be this ideal with clinical depression,

clinical depression, different than feeling down in the dumpster depressed or whatever,

clinical depression. It's just a chemical thing. It's the same as diabetes. So some people take

medicine for it. Some people take specifically insulin for it. Others just try not to eat too much

cake with depression. It's the same sort of thing. You have to deal with some meds most times.

You have to deal with some lifestyle changes. And then beyond that, you can actually live whatever

life you think you need to live. I mean, I mostly agree with you, but hasn't there surely been a time

when you've been in a more severe, you know, away from what did you say mild?

When you've been in a more severe clinical phase where just getting out of bed has been hard.

Absolutely. And, you know, the same with anyone with any kind of a medical difference or whatever.

So someone with diabetes can go through a bad bout because, you know, something changes or they

don't get their food in the right time frame and whatever. With depression,

there are definitely days where the bed is the best place for me to be. But it doesn't mean you

can't have your career. It just means that you have to take extra steps, you know, and there's

things that happen. You know, driving around with the brake on is kind of how I like to explain

depression sometimes. Sometimes when I'm dealing with depression, it's like ripping that parking

brake up as high and tight as you can go and then still trying to drive your car. It groans and it

barely gets anywhere and you're like, oh, well, that's how it is. With depression, what happens is,

you know, everything is a lot harder to do. Everything is slower to do et cetera, but you can

still get it done. And, you know, I've given keynote speeches in the midst of like some bad

depression. And what's happened is, you know, I didn't sleep very well the night before and I

didn't go to every one of the meat and greets. And I've become the absolute best person in the

universe at the Irish exit. Sometimes I'm so good at it. I don't even enter. You know, people just

think I was there. You use the hashtag, right? Like people, you tweet, you use the hashtag,

you were there. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And I'll be like, hey, I'm over by the dips. Where are you?

And, you know, I'm in my bedroom, you know, rocking back and forth. So I mean, you can do it. And

I guess I just wanted to point that out to humans because I think a lot of times we're looking for

somebody to come and, you know, stamp a stamp on us somewhere. This is you don't have to do this

because you are somehow flawed or dented. And I just think we can all operate with a little bit of

dents in us. I agree. And I think that one of the things that I always try to convey to people

because I have anxiety and depression, I think you do too. I was like, I'm a professional dammit.

Like I, how I feel on the inside is not how you will get me if you're paying for my time.

And I have mostly learned over the many years to fake it.

You know, a lot of the best comedians and entertainers have some level of depression in their life.

They have, you know, clinical depression. Robert Williams famously did and, you know,

passed away, you know, related to that. But most of the people you think are the funniest people

in the world also deal with that. One of the things that you kind of get free of charge with

depression and anxiety is a lot more self-awareness, a lot of self-deprecation. There's a lot of

opportunity kind of look down at your belly button and explain to the world in which ways you're

flawed. You know, let me tell you all my flaws. They're free. And so I think that the, I think these

can all be superpowers though. I think that we can operate with these and people who don't deal

with depression don't understand how to get up from failure. People with depression, we fail like

every day. So you might as well just keep going because it's just, you just kind of expect it and

you're just going to keep going. It's a, it's a yes and not a, oh wait a minute. I'm going to

reframe that because I don't want like a bunch of haters to email me and be like, what you're

saying that everyone who doesn't have depression or, you know, they're a bunch of whims. I'm with you

that I think that mental illness, like any disability or difference, gives you a resiliency

that is really important. Sure. I don't disagree with that. And I'm, I'm so, I'm, I'm just so

there with you on so many levels, you know, sometimes performing when you're in a bad state is

actually the easiest thing you can do. Going out to dinner with a friend is the hardest, right?

I mean, that's, I mean, that's a very good point too, is that really intense one-on-one interaction

is a lot more challenging than standing around on stage. Some are blurting out your dumb things.

And I mean, there's just so many of our jobs that we can do that we can sort of do not necessarily

on autopilot, but you know, we can kind of chug through them and get through the discrete tasks.

But sometimes it's human interaction that's really tricky and other times it's, you know, for me,

like when I'm dealing with depression forms, I mean, I'm looking over at mail that just came in

today that probably won't get open for a few days just because for whatever reason that's not going

to work. Bills aren't, you know, that helpful when you're kind of down in it. But, um, you know,

work work is the thing that we do. Have you always been depressed? Like, can you remember when you

had your first bout of depression, even if you didn't know that time? I don't, I don't know when I

really caught up to the diagnosis of clinical depression. It was, it was very later in life. So,

I don't know if I was just lucky before then or what, but I'm pretty sure I probably had the

black dog all that longer. But the first anxiety instance, I was, I was pretty sure I had a hard

attack. I don't remember, I was on public transit somewhere, I forget where, and I felt like a cold

sweat just shoot down the inside of my body. And, you know, you hear the people say that it was a

cold sweat and it came out of nowhere. But like legitimately, this felt sort of like someone took

a cup of water and poured it down the inside of me. Um, and I went, oh, that's weird. And so,

I went to the doctor to the hospital, actually, emergency room. And it was really weird. Like,

the reaction I got was going, you didn't have a hard attack. You make stupid idiot. And I was like,

well, that's not a really good, you know, you, I think you want me to come in, not just guess that I

didn't, you know, and that's when someone taught me what anxiety attacks were. And I was like, oh,

and so after a little while when I finally went and saw a shrink and, you know, you do some

diagnosis work and all that, they're like, nope, you get that, you get depression. And when we sort

of went through a whole bunch of questions and some work, he's like, well, it's kind of a severe

one, but you have sort of the lower end of that. I guess they sort of split it into two. And,

and I don't ultimately know because there's no numbers that go with it. It's a little bit of an

sort of bloodshed. You know, it's funny that because I was going to ask you about that later,

but I'm going to bring it up now because you, you say a lot, like I have mild clinical depression.

And you've already said that twice in our interview, it's almost like you're minimizing your

depression. 100% downplaying it. Yeah. And you're kind of funny about it. You have silly names for

it. Yeah. Like why? Well, so the challenge, I think, again, you know, I never say I'm depressed.

I say I deal with depression. I just interviewed a guy who was in his last few days with cancer.

And I had no idea that he was in his last few days because the last time the doctor said he had a

few months to live. He lasted another whole year. And so this time they said it and they said,

well, we really mean it this time. He said, well, we'll see. And when I interviewed him,

I put the whole interview up and called it, I'm dying. And he sent me a message. He goes, hey,

can you do me a favor? Can you change it to from I'm dying to facing death? And I was like,

oh, my gosh, that is so he's like a super Buddhist. And I was like, oh, that totally makes sense.

Because he's, you know, dying is throwing a label on you. I'm not depressed. I just deal with

depression. I downplay it because I don't want it to be given a bigger role in my life than me.

My ego won't allow that. And I think I'm much more successful than my depression. My depression

has has stopped me far fewer times than my ability to fight with it has let me get to where I need

to go. Same, same more about that because I I truly believe that my anxiety has made me who I am

and that I am awesome because of my depression. Like it's truly a gift in my life mostly. Except

when I'm at the ER thinking I'm dying. So, so how has learning to fight with your depression or

negotiate with it made you better? See, negotiate would be closer. I mean, I carry it with and I'll

tell you there's an example of this. Yeah, you travel. There's everything. It's part of who you are,

right? Oh, my gosh. I wish I could leave it somewhere. I tried half a bus stations everywhere.

There's a book by Dr. Matthew McCay called Self-esteem. And it's a it's a really old timey book and,

you know, it's worth reading even though it's super bigger than it has to be for a book. And in

Self-esteem, he talks a lot about the inner critic and he basically kind of labels this concept of

inner critic that we all know. We just didn't know it had a name and inner critics, the person that says,

like, I don't know why you're going to start this new thing. You always quit. And that's the inner

critic. And that's a real like it's a phenomena that we can we can't put it, you know, can't touch a

part of your brain and find that critic, but it's in there. And he said, what the inner critic is best

anyone can tell what the inner critic is trying to do. It's trying to save you from feeling bad or

dumb or stupid or some other negative thing. It thinks it's protecting you. So this part of your

brain that we call the inner critic or this part of your, you know, programming or operating system

is saying, I'm going to make you feel bad before someone else does because we think that's a better

idea. And what Dr. McCay says is he says, also true. Well, you know, you know, our inner critic is

always looking for people to back it up to. So Dr. McCay says, but the only way to beat it is not

to fight it. He says, you have to thank it. You have to say, ah, man, thank you so much. I so totally

get what you're trying to help me with here. That's so good. Thanks. I'm going to do my own thing,

but thank you so much for that. Talk us through what your depression or not day to day sort of work

life looks like. Like you don't show up at an office that someone else owns and report for

duty at the same time every day. Like what is your, what does your work life look like?

Thank the sweet Buddha. I don't know. I'm fairly unemployable at this point. I run my own company.

I run two different companies. One's called owner media group and one's called Chris Brogan media.

In my roles, the one real challenge that I've put before myself is that all the things that you

professionally require an immense amount of creativity. So I do business advisory work. I do digital

marketing work, content marketing work. I do lots of content creation work. And you know,

when it comes to that, like creative stuff writing, you know, sometimes when you're down in it,

that's the thing that you really, you know, you feel a little tapped about. And people, creatives

have different ways that they kind of interact with people when it comes to what their output is.

And you know, money for sure is one of, it's probably my number one trigger for outward things that

make me feel depressed because I just keep reminding people, it's chemical. Like I don't get a

choice. Some days, everything's great and I still am feeling it. I'm still going to feel it.

But you know, kind of a circumstantial things. Money is one. The other is, you get a lot of

opportunities as a creative person to feel like a kid at their seven year old birthday and no one

came. You know, you sent out the invites to all your classmates and no one shows up. But you

get that feeling a lot when you make creative stuff. So you asked about my day. My day is mostly

creating stuff. My days are never super full and busy on purpose. I schedule my days to about 40

percent. And that's a, that's a skill that I put together to say, and I advocate for this

to people who don't deal with depression. I think everyone over schedules themselves immensely

so that they run into these weird, crazy situations where they're all talking about how busy they

are. How did you learn the hard way or did you learn the hard way about what worked for you and

what didn't in terms of managing your time, running your business as someone who gets depressed.

Like a lot of things I've done in my life, it's, it's error and error. You know, I don't know

that there's any trial. I think it's just I just fail all the time. And so what I figured out was

when I say yes to somebody when I'm feeling let's say neuro normative to make it sound scientific,

when I feel like a normal human being probably does, I just do the thing when I don't feel like that.

You know, I'll give you here's a real world example from this week. So a couple three days ago,

someone pings me and says, Hey, can you record this video? We're going to all of these people are

going to get together. We're going to make a little virtual conference and we're going to do it

right now. And I just eat 20 minutes. I'm like, yeah, sure. I'm glad. You know, and I get over

to start to do it. And they say, Oh, one thing we needed to have a white background. And I'm like,

you know, I have a studio and it has a blue background and it has bookshelf and stuff. It's,

you know, it doesn't look like that. So I'm like, now I'm going to go find a thing. Depression

is everything you think right after this just was supposed, I was just supposed to push record

and be done shortly after. Depression is like, and now I'm going to have to do this thing. And I

right back this little whiny email like white. Why does this is so hard? Yeah, exactly. I got them

what they wanted, but I complained to the whole way and felt grumpy about it the whole way because

depression. So that's how it works. I mean, for me. And so what I learned was, you know, if I can do

more of the things that I really want to do. And if I could be, I'll give you one super

sound of secret because everybody can know it. The thing that gets me out of depression faster than

anything in the world is just helping other people do something. If I help other people and like,

lift them up in some way or make them feel better, that gets me out of depression. But I, let me put

like a little asterisk in a warning and you got to go read the bottom of this label. This doesn't,

it's not the same as love. You know, I have to like love yourself before you can actually love

other people. It just doesn't work right the other way. You can help other people while you're

still depressed. It's okay. You know, I tend to be a pretty reclusive and introverted person on a

good day. And when I'm feeling really depressed, I will totally withdraw from people. I will be

mean to the people who love me so that they get angry at me. And then I will just disappear from

my work world. And if I didn't, if the people that I work with closely didn't know that I had

depression, I could be in real trouble because I, you know, there are days sometimes. And again,

I mean, I run a business, I drive business development and sales for this small company that pays for,

you know, a bunch of people. If I'm in bed, not able to do something really small, like answering

email, that has, that has ripple effects, not to mention the fact that I'm a parent, but I have

found it necessary for my team to know. And it doesn't happen often, but there have been times where

I have had to say like, I'm sorry, I'm really depressed right now. And they know to say, okay,

can I take this over? And I'll be back to them in two, three days because God bless, you know,

anti-depressants. But I've had to employ that level of radical transparency. And I'm curious

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achiever free. It took me a long time before I realized that I didn't have to finish my work day

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achiever. Oh, I see stuff like that all the time, but I don't have any sense of self-preservation

when it comes to any of that. Like I don't I don't think and I can be totally wrong. Like maybe

the entire business world has like a little asterisk next to my name and like, you know,

Disney says, well, you know, we worked with him in the past, but now we know he deals with depression.

We won't call him this week. Maybe that's happening. I don't know. There could be a secret black

ballast, but I don't feel like it's true. And I feel like every time I tell people I do a depression,

the only thing I end up having to do is sort of explain to them what that really means because

the side challenge is that they accidentally think it means like I'm saying I'm down in the dumps.

So I don't mind telling anyone I deal with depression. What I always say is I said, I

very, very quickly rattle out. It's a lot like diabetes for me. You know, I just have to take my

meds, do smart things and I'm good. But you know, if I slow down, I'm going to let you know I'm

slowing down. It happens about once every 16 months in any kind of way that anyone else will

really notice it. What routines keep you on track when you're in a down cycle? None.

I have none. Business development is, I mean, I probably need a better routine for business

development. That's for sure. But I tend to, I have a system that I created was one of the courses

that we built called the 20 minute plan jumpstart. And in that thing, I have a system where I work

three hours a day every day on my business. I guess as the closest I have to a routine, but

that's three hours. It's pretty technical and good. Yeah. Well, except there is no specific time

a day. It is essentially nine checkboxes every single day. And it's like, if you drew kind of like

a flattened wide side of a Rubik's cube. So it's nine squares, basically. I write, and those nine

squares account for 20 minutes each. So those three hours is broken into three sets of three 20 minute

blocks. Makes sense. So I book those three hours to grow my business in some way, develop,

you know, the stuff around my business in some way, but they can happen anytime. And every now

again, I can fudge one and just say, you know, at the way the day is going, I think eating a sleeve

of Oreos instead of the entire package is going to be a win. But, but I'm so with you. I mean, and who

cares? I mean, are there times of day that are better for you generally? Yes. So when I'm dealing

with depression, you know, late morning starts happen, whether or not I want to. So I'll wake up

really early, but I will get, I won't really get anything done until at least 10 a.m. When I'm not

dealing with depression, I wake up early and I get a free extra few hours that way. I don't,

I'm not a creature of habit. I think because this, I think this comes from sort of the discipline

of my writing. So I write a lot. The one thing you could say that I do for sure is at least 2,000

words a day and a day. And the way I do that is I make it completely requirement proof. Someone

will say to me, I have to have this exact paper and this kind of pen and this light, or I can only

write it coffee shops and I can only write if no one's making noise and all these things, I can write

anywhere. I'm like a military person. I, you know, how they sleep 20 minutes here and there,

whenever they need it, I could do that with writing. And so that's the one only one thing I can say

is systematic, but nothing I do is time bound. I guess that's what I say when I don't really have

great discipline. I have nothing that's time bound. Well, and I'm reflecting again because what you're,

what you're describing to me is someone who's really disciplined. I mean, to write 2,000 words a day

to take your little Rubik's cube blocks and work on your business, takes tremendous discipline.

You're totally downplaying it. Yes, I'm an unreliable narrator. And I think that's true. But no, I think

the reason, the reason I say that too is that, you know, we hear this term virtue signaling a lot,

you know, so you see someone standing around with their 20 dollar bill that they're

hitting over to the Salvation Army person or something, but they don't let go of that 20 until

enough people see it go in. And that kind of a thing. Well, I think that people that are really,

really into productivity, for instance, I call that noble masturbation because it feels good

and it seems like it's a good idea, but you know, it's not the same thing as real work. And so I,

I don't tell people I'm into productivity. I'm not into productivity. I'm into getting my work done.

I love that. The last thing I want to talk about, we talked a little bit about money at the

beginning, but I want to hear your advice for listeners who may find themselves freelancing,

who are warriors, who have anxiety, who have occasional bouts of depression, and who are saying,

I can't be a freelancer. I can't pursue my creative passion. I got to stay employed by someone

else because I'll never be able to manage the uncertainty. Well, the weirdest thing about this,

and I'm sure everyone says something very of the same, is that if you are trusting one employer,

that's the opposite of feeling certain, because that one employer makes choices to have nothing

to do with your merit. We accidentally think that we're employed by the grace of our hard work,

but we're not. We're just employed because someone needs what we do at the point, or there's

enough money that to afford the something that we do, or that there's a worthwhile expense

or whatever, but letting one human entity, or one small group of people decide your future,

is a lot less easy to manage than having the money you need to live split across five

different clients, so that if any one of them leaves you, you still have 80% of your revenue.

Diverse portfolio, yeah. It's always been surprising to me that people think that,

well, I'll give you easy real-world example. My mom worked for the telephone company

for 29 and three quarter years. At 30, you could retire, and when you retire, you get your full

pension. They let her go at 29 and three quarter years. They stuffed it in her face. My mom

who had been nothing but fiercely loyal to the phone company. It's terrible. My mom who thought

I should follow in her footsteps and do that same kind of job. I said, are you crazy? They just

bit on you. I've had multiple bosses for a while, and guess what? Sometimes I run out of money

entirely like bank account down to two digits or three digits, but unlike a job job, where you only

get the money you get every week or two weeks or whatever they decide to pay you, I could just go

find some way to make some more, and I think that that's the beauty. My advice is you're a lot

safer if you have the controls to earn. So cashflow planning is not something that keeps you up

at night. I'm taking it. No, because right now as of this interview, I'm at the bottom of where I've

ever been in my finances, the bottom bottom. I had a two and a half year stint of depression,

just draining away all my savings, and me being like, well, I still have a little money,

and I wouldn't have to try so hard for clients. Well, now I'm at the point that's like, who do I

have to kiss around here to get a job? Because I'll do it. And so what will you do? Just earn money.

I'll just go find people I can help. It's the way of business. Business is, I know something that

you don't know. I'll help you do it. I can help you set up the thing. I'll help you do it. There's

a lot of people suddenly thrust into working remotely and marketing remotely, who I've been teaching

one form of podcasting or another since 2006. Now they want to be podcasters. So 14 years after

I started doing this, they're like, oh, how do you do that? And so I'll show them. There's just

always ways. There's always things you can do. And people forget that the thing that they do

easily is the thing that's really hard for someone else, and that's where money comes from.

Chris Bergen, thank you so much. It was so much my pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

Someone else who understands the trials that come with the freelance life, even when a certain level

of success has been reached is Ada Calhoun. I sat down with Ada to talk about the pros and cons

of self-employment and working remotely. And what it means for your success and your mental health.

I wanted to start because I think I think you talk about this. We both were the same age. We both

grew up working in media. And I think that we both worked for powerful women older than us

in media and observed them certainly. And they sort of, I don't know if this was true for you,

like they seem to have it all. I was the executive assistant when I was my very first job out of

college for a film company, very chic job paid nothing. And I was the executive assistant to the

vice president of publicity and marketing. And Sarah Eaton, she was a great boss. I admired

her so much. And she went to screenings and she had lunch with the New York Times. And she got

her hair done at a very fancy salon. And I booked it all. And I just was like, wow, this is who I want

to be. And that's what I thought I would be. You know, like I was starting out as an executive

assistant that path forward just seemed pretty clear. And that world just sort of

vanished, right? Like those, those VPs don't have certainly don't have executive assistants anymore.

It's much harder to get a great job with the great benefits and have lunch with the New York Times

or have lunch with anyone in media. Yeah. What's your experience been? Does that resonate with you?

It does resonate with me. I started out as an intern and then worked my way up. I got to

editor-in-chief of like an online magazine was about, I guess, 15, 16 years ago. And that was what

I expected, right? Like you, there were these very clear things like you go from assistant to associate

to editor to senior editor. And I don't see those jobs existing anymore. That latter, I feel like

has totally collapsed. And now it's like everyone is doing everything. And it's all from home.

It's all freelance. There are no benefits. There's no ladder. Definitely nothing that takes you

into a place that has any kind of security net. There's, I mean, I don't, I don't think I know one

person I know a lot of people in me who has like an office with a door you close and then the phone

and the assistant, all of that and health insurance and dental insurance. It just feels like it's

like a madman era relic almost that idea. Everyone's just on their own in their own little bubble,

taking care of everything. And it's a little scary. One of the things that you were very brave

in talking about was the embedded fear. And the fear that sort of didn't go away even though,

I mean, people can look at you and you're, you're a name, you're a bestselling author.

But you're very open, I think, still that there is a fear that goes along with the freelance life

of a writer, the freelance life of anyone, frankly. Can you, can you talk about that? Are you still

scared even though you just had a really successful book come out? Um, unless scared, write this

minute about that. I mean, there are many other things in this world, write this moment to be

very scared about. So it feels very surreal, like just to be talking about anything else.

But I do feel really lucky that I had that book happen when I did because I've, I've never had

money in the bank before, like the last couple of years. I never was not paycheck to paycheck.

I didn't, you know, I've actually gotten rid of credit card debt and all that and that feels,

it feels much better. I know that sounds really obvious, but like it does, there is, there is

some comfort in it, but I don't feel that far away from it. And I feel like in a year, it could,

it, the stability and the cushion coat I'll be gone. And that was really what the book came out of

was I had had this summer where I had had three freelance gigs fall apart for different reasons

all in a very short period of time. And that was the money we were going to use to pay off our

credit card debt and get us through the next six months. And it just wasn't there. So suddenly,

we had all this debt. And we had, I had no way to make any money. And I asked my editor of my

previous two books, which had done okay. I mean, they for kind of an indie or an independent publisher

and all that. They had, I thought, done pretty well. And they got a lot of press. But he, he said,

this thing, he said like sales track is sales track. Like we love you. Of course, we'd want to do

something else. But you know, the last book didn't really do. We thought it would. So then I was like,

Oh, great. Well, that was like, my plan was to sell another book. And I was like, Oh, now we can't

won't be able to do that. I don't know about this ghost writing thing. If I freelance, it's like

$200 a piece. And, and it was really, I thought it was over. And that moment that was like 2017.

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I'm just pausing because I'm feeling I'm feeling that anxiety.

I'm feeling that anxiety with you. Were you still the breadwinner?

Yes. Yeah. I mean, I have a wonderful husband. He's really supportive and fantastic,

but he is also like a performance artist and musician. And he has many jobs. I mean, he teaches.

He works as a box office manager. He does front desk stuff other places. He has many, many jobs,

but none of them pay very much and they're all freelance. So it was sort of, I've been the one

who's brought it and most of them on every year. Did you ever feel like you needed more structure

in your work life? Was that at all ever part of the motivation to look for a corporate job?

Or is that something you just never needed? Yeah, everyone's in a while. It was daydream about it.

I would have these fantasies of like going into the break room and getting a cup of coffee and

going back to my desk and sitting at the desk and having my like landline phone and my like desktop

computer. And I would dream about it and having co-workers you'd banter with. And I mean,

it's been so long since they did those things, but I still remember them in a fond and romantic way,

which is one might look back on an idyllic childhood in the countryside or something. But it

doesn't feel real. It doesn't feel like actually something within reach.

If you don't mind me asking because you've been open about your anxiety and your mental health,

as a freelancer, you don't always have the best insurance, right?

How do you handle therapy, mental health, paying for self-care when you are a freelancer?

How has that been? Well, I did therapy for a while like 15 years ago and then I've gone back

for short periods of time. And I've said like, yeah, because it's of course not covered by insurance

for me. I've said like, oh, I can afford to come like five times. Please help me try to fix this

major problem as best you can in five times. And I fortunately have the most wonderful

therapist. I love her so much. And she really gets a lot done in a short period of time. And I've

I'd gone back more recently and she's just been she's been great. But I pay for my own insurance.

We have like the bronze plan from the state exchange. It's $1200 a month for the whole

family. And it's, you know, and it's not great. Like there's a high deductible and it doesn't

cover things like mental health care. So again, it's been pretty catch as catch can where I can,

you know, I can go if I have a little money, you scrolled away to do something like therapy,

you know, self-care stuff. Like I don't actually just wrote a piece about self-care and how it doesn't

actually work a lot of the times like a lot of it feels rather lonely to me. And what really

helps me the most is is being with other people, helping other people doing things that feel kind

of slightly virtuous like that to me actually is is is more of a mood booster than like being in a

getting in manicure or whatever. So I want to talk about about midlife because the real thrust of

your work is new because we hear a lot about how difficult it is and it is very difficult for young

people just starting out to get their footing financially and career wise for all the reasons we've

talked about the gig economy, the lack of security. I do a lot of work in my day job with ARP and

there's also tremendous data about financial insecurity for seniors. Yeah. There aren't pensions

like there used to be, et cetera, et cetera. You and I are both Gen Xers. We're in our early 40s

and we get ignored. We're often called the middle children, you know, the the the stunted

middle children of the generation. The San Brady generation. What is your position on and I want

to zoom in on anxiety about the effect of our current financial high wire acts on our mental health

and what did you learn in your reporting journey talking to so many midlife people?

Well, I talked to a couple hundred middle aged women around the country and almost all of them

had anxiety about money and anxiety about work and they just felt like the the pressures on them

to take care of other people were were massive and then the pressure on them to bring home

enough money without a lot of support or I guess help like I feel like a lot of them talked

about their employers not offering flex time or benefits or or or just kind of any sense that

they were safe or could rely on the company to have their back if there was an illness for example

or if they had to take leave to go have a baby or take care of an aging parent or whatever it was

there was so much fear and and it was sad to me to learn that actually a lot of the fear was very

well found it looking at the numbers looking at what what employers were offering were not crazy

if we if we feel like there's no stability in our jobs or if we feel like there's a ton of

pressure on us it there just is and I think that there's a tremendous psychological component here

you know you actually talked about ACEs adverse childhood events this is again in my day job

I run a cause marketing firm we work with CDC and the American Academy of Pediatric on trying to

socialize this term ACEs it's a mouthful but the basic idea is the adverse childhood events

has far reaching effects and ACEs are everywhere there aren't certain kinds of families

that have ACEs when you wrote about a lot of us growing up in the 70s and 80s growing up

with ACEs that went unacknowledged I went back to my numerous ACEs and you know from the time

that I was you know sent off on my own to summer camp at eight by my parents who were not speaking

to each other and the last hit on a train to you know a van blowing up at another summer camp

you know to to just the numerous things because frankly even though my childhood was was technically

fine there was no conscious on coupling back then my parents waged war with me that just parenting

was different and I think kids were often collateral damage and so for me you know my father

which is not send money to my mother when he hated her so today when I as someone who runs my own

business I guess I'm not technically a freelancer anymore I own a small business you know today with

something like coronavirus where half my contracts dry up yeah even though I've done lots of therapy

there is that feeling of dad's not paying the mortgage this month right is that unique I

I the risk of sounding like a stereotype of a a whiny white middle class middle-aged lady like is

that is that unique to us how is it something we carry is it how do we work through that because we

you know I can't stop coronavirus I can't change my childhood I can try to observe it and work with

I mean I think we can acknowledge that that all of us and this this goes for for people who are

you know every race and every every level of income and all that this it doesn't mean that you

didn't experience trauma in your childhood aces are everywhere that's I mean that is I'm

going to do a PSA for the CDC aces don't discriminate right no it's right every family often

or any kind of family and the study that this came out of was was done at Kaiser Permanente and it was

done with people who had enough money to have jobs in this in this area and and you had health

insurance and and what they did in the study as you know is they looked at these childhood

adverse childhood experiences against the medical records it was like 10,000 people it was like

some huge number that they studied and these were mostly middle class people and if they had more

than four traumatic experiences their rates of things like diabetes heart disease depression

suicide all of this went up and up and up exponentially I think it's like the more than four aces

I think it's you're like 1200 times more likely to commit suicide and it's it's not because

people can't like handle it or you know or that they they're weak or something it's because these

things take an actual physical toll on your body and your brain and they rewire things when they

happen and it can and it's something like you know having uh being sexually assaulted or um or

that sense of we don't have any money or divorce or fire or whatever it is and I just think we have

acknowledged that that is playing a big part in every aspect of our lives in middle age

that that lingering trauma it just it doesn't just go away it it's haunting um and I think it's

especially haunting sometimes with money it um I remember my mother used to say like

very second wave feminist type of thing she used to say um and you have to make your own money

no one else is gonna help you and it was not bad advice right she didn't want me to rely on a man

for money she felt like she'd had to learn that lesson herself and she'd made her own money and

she was proud of it and she wanted that for me but the message that I got was that if I didn't make

my own money I was just doomed like I was doomed and then once I had a family I was like they were

doomed to my baby was like gonna starve everybody was gonna wind up on the street if I didn't

get enough reliance work that month and it it it just gets down into you and so many of the women

I interviewed they I would ask them like what would be enough and they had a lot of trouble

telling me what would feel like like it would be enough like they would be safe money wise

so if a very godmother came down and waved their magic wand and said okay Eda I'm gonna give you

that that cushy corner office and an executive assistant lunches in the condin ask cafeteria

would you take it now? I don't think I would take it now I think I think I mean ask me again

in a year and it might be different um but at this moment in time I feel like because I've had

to make my own life and my own career um cobbled together from all these different things like

freelancing and ghosting and teaching and writing my own books like I feel like I've been able to

to to to say all the things I want to say in the world it one in one form or another and I feel like

that's a great that's a great gift as a writer to have that those outlets and um and to feel to feel

heard and seen and um and like you know I get messages every day from people who read things

I write and and most of them are grateful and um and that's that's all I could ask for

that's it for this week's show if you like the show follow us and tell your friends and please

leave us a review it really helps the anxious achiever get found by people just waiting

for our content I'm your host more errands melee lots more to come in the next episode