Satta Sarmah Hightower opens up about the evolution from being a skilled freelancer who took good opportunities as they came… to becoming a more intentional business owner who chooses work based on where she wants to go.

At first, she did what many freelancers do: she followed the money. After layoffs and instability, survival mode made that feel sensible. But over time, she realized that good income and a solid client base were not the same thing as strategic growth.

One of the most useful parts of this conversation is Satta’s “monkey bar strategy.”

Instead of trying to leap blindly into a brand-new niche, she explains how freelancers can use adjacent experience to move from one bar to the next — from healthcare to healthcare tech, from financial services to fintech, and from familiar work into more valuable, better-aligned opportunities.

We also get into the identity shift that often separates advanced freelancers from plateaued ones.

Satta talks about what changed when she stopped primarily seeing herself as a writer and started thinking like a solopreneur and business owner. That shift made her more intentional about what work to accept, how to position herself, and how each project could support the business she wanted six months down the road — not just the invoice she wanted this month.

There’s also a strong thread in this episode around sustainable growth.

Growth, for Satta, does not mean going wider and building a giant machine she does not want. It means going narrower, deeper, and getting clearer on what “enough” looks like. We talk about mindset, gratitude, recovery time, and the planning practices that help experienced freelancers grow without burning down fast.

And if you’ve been thinking beyond client work, you’ll appreciate the final part of the conversation about IP.

Satta shares why she wrote The Forever Freelancer, how she thinks about intellectual property as a durable asset, and how building assets like books, newsletters, and other owned work can expand what a solo business becomes over time.

This one is for freelancers who are no longer asking, “How do I get work?” and are now asking better questions:

What kind of business am I actually building?

What direction am I choosing?

And how do I grow on purpose?

Key Points

• From survival mode to strategy: Satta admits she was not especially strategic in the early years. She was following the money, building from available opportunities, and doing what many freelancers do after instability: taking solid work when it appeared.
• The monkey bar strategy: Rather than reinventing yourself from scratch, use adjacent experience to move into stronger niches and better-paid categories of work. Think bar to bar, not cliff dive to cliff dive.
• The identity shift matters: Advanced freelancers often hit a ceiling when they keep identifying only with their craft. Satta’s growth accelerated when she began to think of herself as a business owner and solopreneur, not merely a freelance writer.
• Intentionality changes decisions: Once she embraced that business-owner identity, she became more deliberate about what work to accept and how each engagement served her longer-term trajectory.
• Gradual change is underrated: Satta makes a strong case for evolving slowly and intelligently rather than blowing up your whole business in the name of “transformation.”
• Growth is not always bigger: For her, growth means going narrower and deeper, not building an agency or chasing “more, more, more.”
• Mindset and recovery are business tools: Gratitude, space to reflect, and her “For Me Fridays” practice all support sustainability and clearheaded decisions.

Notable Quotes

• “It’s about evolving from reactive freelancing into strategic business ownership.”
• “I own my trajectory and my business growth and my professional growth.”
• “Growth, at least for me at this stage, it doesn’t necessarily mean going wider. It means going narrower and going deeper.”
• “You have to know what your enough is and you have to know what growth looks like for you.”
• “You need to treat your business like a business.”

Resources Mentioned

• Satta’s book listing for preorder: https://tinyurl.com/sm9z59my
• Satta's Book landing page to subscribe for updates: https://www.sattasarmah.com/book
• Satta's Instagram: @sattasarmahhightower
• Satta's TikTok: @sattasarmahhightower
• Substack: https://substack.com/@sattasarmahhightower‍
• Freelance Cake Community: freelancecake.com/community

Watch This Episode

Transcript

00:00

I think you just sometimes you need to pause and reflect. It's easy to just go, go, go. But I think having a dedicated day, hour time to yourself, to just sit and think about stuff and not always think about work is helpful too.

00:19

Hey there, welcome to the freelance cake podcast. I'm your host Austin L. Church, founder of the freelance cake community. The goal of this show is to help full-time, committed freelancers get better leverage. As the sworn enemy of busyness and burnout, I have no desire whatsoever to see you work harder. So I reveal the specific beliefs, principles, and practices you can use right away  to make the freelance game more profitable and satisfying. So chill out, listen in, because the best is yet to come.

00:58

Welcome to another episode of the Freelance Cake Podcast. At a certain stage of freelancing, the challenge stops being  how to get work  and it becomes how to grow with intention. Maybe your income is solid, so is your client roster, things look good from the outside, but  internally, you know there's another level available. One with less chaos, more alignment, one where you build  smarter with better opportunities. That's exactly what this conversation is about. My guest is Satta Sarmah Hightower. Satta is a former journalist turned B2B content marketer who has built a multi six figure freelance business serving companies in government tech, climate tech, and fintech.

01:55

She's also the author of The Forever Freelancer, a book about building a long-term, sustainable solo career on your own terms. I've been looking forward to sharing this conversation because Satta has such a grounded perspective on what growth really looks like after the early years. This isn't a conversation about hype, overnight success, or chasing trends. It's about evolving from reactive freelancing into strategic business ownership. Sada and I talk about the shift from accidentally following the money to intentionally choosing your next move. She shares her monkey bar strategy for using adjacent experience to move into better niches and more valuable work. We also get into the identity shift from seeing yourself as a freelancer defined by your craft to seeing yourself as a business owner who can shape your trajectory on purpose.

02:59

Sometimes growth means going narrower, going deeper, and getting clearer on what enough looks like for you. Growth also means gratitude, recovery time, mindset, and the systems that help experienced freelancers keep growing without burning out. And if you've been thinking beyond client work, you'll appreciate our conversation about intellectual property, why Satta wrote her book, how it fits into her larger business strategy and how freelancers can build assets that create value beyond billable hours. If you're ready for more intentional growth and a business that truly supports your life, this episode is for you. You can learn more about Sada and join the wait list for her book at sattasarmah.com/book. That's  SATTASARMAHdotcom forward slash book in the show notes. We'll link to that along with her Substack and everything else we mentioned. And now please enjoy my conversation with Satta Sarmah Hightower.

04:14

Satta, I have been looking forward to this conversation for a number of reasons. One, because I have a lot of respect for you. Two, because you wrote a freaking book. And three, because you have such good perspectives  on  like the whole spectrum of topics that more advanced freelancers face, must consider, that sort of thing. Let's start not at the beginning, but maybe  at the last two to three years, for those folks who don't know you, don't know about your work, give us  the snapshot.

05:00

I am a former journalist turned a content marketer and I specialize in B2B content marketing for tech companies. So primarily government tech, climate tech, and fintech companies. So my work day to day, I'm on the phone a lot interviewing executives and officials, people with fancy titles or really deep technical expertise. And I'm either writing executive bylines. So ghostwriting for executives or writing white papers, uh eBooks, long form stuff, doing a mix of content strategy work, depending on the client engagement.

05:40

So lots of conversations that then become content.

05:45

Correct. Yeah. I feel like I use my journalism muscle in this job every day. I couldn't do the work I do now if I wasn't a journalist first and if I didn't have storytelling skills that I've built over the course of my career.

06:00

So, and I know a little bit about this, but again, I'm going to ask you these questions just to help. You didn't just jump right into that. I'm guessing there was some, there was an iterative process that helped you arrive at this focus. Can you talk a little bit about that?

06:19

Yeah. I think when I first started freelancing, because I was a journalist, I thought to be a freelancer, I had to do freelance journal journalism. So I just start  doing  reporting as a freelance writer, as a journalist. One of my first clients, believe it or not, was the magazine Fast Company. And they still exist  today. It's a business magazine. I go, I ended up going on contract with them because my former colleague ended up working with them as an editor on contract too. And he hired me, which is typically what happens in freelancing. When you kick off your business, it's people, you know, it's working your network and these people give you opportunities. So I started doing oh mostly journalism and then I gradually started doing content marketing and then doing sort of like internal comms. And then I just, to be honest, I went where the money went, where the money was and where the opportunity was because I saw that content marketing was growing. I actually managed an in-house, back then it was called Native Advertising, which is like the precursor to content marketing. I managed a Native Advertising studio for AOL. And a big part of my job was doing content sponsorships with Fortune 500 clients and big brands. So I already had that foundation, but for some reason it didn't click and I managed freelancers in that job. But it didn't click to me when I became a freelancer. Oh, I can be on the other side of the table  and producing the content and making money that way too. I think because I was a journalist, I sort of went with what I was comfortable with.

07:53

There's comfort on the one hand. And then there's, I followed the money. I know this is probably not a single event, but more an evolution over a period of years, but What went on in your mind when you started to follow the money? What was your thought process?

08:17

I mean, I don't think I was as strategic as I could have been. You were, I was in survival mode. I'd been laid off twice, back to back. And now I was working for myself. So I just, if there was an opportunity and it paid well and there was a chance to build a long-term relationship with a client then that's what I went with. And then I built from there. Over the years, I'd say in the last four or five years, I've become a lot more strategic in my business. I think I talked to you about this last year during the, what was it, Freelance Without Burnout Summit about the whole monkey bar strategy, like going from one monkey bar to the next. Like I landed in enterprise tech by accident. Like I started doing like healthcare writing for a hospital, major hospital in Orlando which is where we lived at the time. And so I have that healthcare foundation. And then I got a new client who wanted me to write a white paper that was in the healthcare tech realm. So because I had that like foundation of healthcare writing experience, I parlayed that into healthcare tech. And I've done that with other things. Like if I'm writing financial services, parlay that into FinTech, there are all these different, like I would say vertical or horizontal alignments between things and industries that you can use to grow your business.

09:40

So was there a specific time  when your growth shifted from being more accidental to more strategic to more monkey bars? Like you see the next bar and then you see the bar after that. And then I'm guessing you make a plan to move from one bar to the next. Was there a shift?

10:04

Yeah, I think around 2021, 2022, I felt like I had plateaued, like I was making a significant income. You know, I had quadrupled my last full-time salary within eight years. I had a multi-six figure business. Between 2015 and 2023, my income grew on average like 22% a year, but I still wanted more. wanted... not just more, I wanted to go deeper. I wanted to do different things. So I made the decision to hire a coach, our friend who you know, Ed Gandia. And I think he really shifted my perspective, you know, to really see myself as more of a solopreneur, a business owner, and to bring more of a strategic lens to my business. And I told him, I'm doing a lot of this work now, but I want to do more of this work. So we created a plan. I was in his coaching program called Boardroom for a year.

10:58

And that was great because I could have one-on-one sessions with Ed. There were other freelancers in the program  and we would bounce ideas off of each other. So I think making that investment in myself and getting that outside voice and that outside view  really helped to shift my mindset. Cause as you know, a lot of this, especially when you work for yourself is a mindset. It's not just about doing it's about the thinking part of it too.

11:23

Was the title or identity, you mentioned solopreneur, was that important? Help me better understand,  you know, Satta, as someone who's accidentally building a freelance career to Satta as solopreneur who's making strategic moves in her business to build a lifestyle that she wants. Like how important was pulling yourself something to yourself?

11:57

I don't think it was the conscious decision right away. A lot of freelancers, especially when you're a freelance writer, you identify yourself with the craft and not with the business you're in. So we'll see ourselves as writers or designers or  editors or what have you. But we don't often see ourselves as business owners right away. And I think it's important just in general, that there's a whole spectrum of entrepreneurship. And often it's painted as either you're  a brick and mortar mom and pop shop type business, or you're a billion dollar unicorn. But there's whole spectrum in between. And I think we as freelancers and as solo business owners, we sit on that spectrum. So I think calling myself a solopreneur, which I've started to do lot more recently, was important for me bringing, really treating myself as a business and thinking of myself  as a business and acting accordingly, rather than just saying, oh, I'm a freelance trader. I'm a freelance content marketer. No, I am  a business owner. I am a solopreneur.

13:04

What changed like after you started thinking of yourself as  an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a solopreneur and not, and some people may not be able to see this, but I'll put this in air quotes instead of "just a freelancer," what changed for you?

13:24

I think I became more intentional about my business. What work I would and wouldn't take. And if I did take  on a certain project, it was like, I'm doing it for this specific reason. This can serve me in this specific way,  three months or six months down the line. Not just doing things that for lack of a better term are willy nilly. Like, okay, you want me to do this thing for this much? Okay, great. I'll take it. Thanks. You know, I'm so appreciative. Thank you. I'm so grateful. It became, no, I own my trajectory and my business growth and my professional growth. And I'm going to be more intentional about the decisions I make to get to that growth.

14:13

That intentionality is so important. That said, and I know that this show is primarily for more advanced freelancers. Let's say that there are some folks listening who are more advanced and don't actually know that about themselves yet, right? What advice would you give to people who  maybe still are in their willy nilly era and need to move into their intentional era? Like, can you identify some of the things that you felt or some of the things, some of the thoughts that you had where you finally needed to fully own and be intentional about being a business owner, going all in, so to speak?

14:57

Well, I don't think it's just the thinking. I think it's the doing. Like I always say, you need to treat your business like a business. And I think what that means it's we can take signals from what enterprise big enterprise companies do. They do strategic planning. They have SOPs, have processes and defined workflows. So I think it's important as freelancers that we adopt some of those same practices and sit down and do a strategic plan. And that can even just be one page or sit down. Maybe this is part of where the thinking comes in. Think about  what do I want? And maybe that's, you know, during your slow periods, because we all have them from time to time throughout the year, or Q4, the start of Q4, you sit down and be intentional about it. Maybe take a weekend, a Saturday, a Sunday. I've heard this thing with founders that they love Sundays, like Sundays are their planning days. It helps them get ready for the weekend, set it up. So I think maybe take a Sunday and sit down and say for two hours, I'm going to think and brainstorm about what I want for my business within the next three months, six months, a year.  What are some of my personal professional goals? You can put them into the business bucket, into the passion project bucket and go from there. But I think you need to memorialize what it is you want to do and put it on paper so that you can have something to refer back to.

16:21

Two hours is so achievable. What do you do with that piece of paper or those pages in your journal? Do they sit next to you on your desk? Do you  reference them  once a week? What happens afterwards?

16:38

I do everything in Google docs all periodically look at things and sometimes things don't go according to plan. Sometimes you have to go with where the mark, where the winds of the market  are going, you know, to maintain your business and keep it resilient. And honestly, I don't look at those things as much as I should, but I think having them is important.

17:03

I think your track record proves that just having them, even in the back of your mind is better than never taking those two hours, gathering your thoughts, maybe even more than your thoughts, gathering your wants,  right? But I want to go back to something else you said. You decided to hire a coach that was really helpful  for getting outside perspective. Sounds like it was also helpful for you articulating, I want more of this type of work. At what point  did your outreach and your lead generation and your process capture begin to attach to  the type of work you really wanted instead of the type of work that was just coming to you? Speaking of intentionality.

17:59

Yeah, within two weeks of crafting the plan that we developed together and implementing it, within two weeks I got a client. They're turned into  a long-term client because it was about like repositioning and messaging. So that's what I did on,  you know, my website on LinkedIn, anywhere I had a brand presence, a quote unquote brand presence.  I did that. I told us consistent brand story. Then within two weeks, I had a client that turned into a long-term client that I generated multi six figures in revenue from over several years. So yeah, it worked right away.

18:39

I think that takes courage. Did you doubt the past?

18:45

I mean, of course there's some skepticism. Like, this really going to work? But I, you know, I had a fail safe. still maintained my current client base. have a client that I still work for to this day that I've been working for the last 10 years. I've been a freelancer for 12 years. They're not my only client, but I have that base on which to build from. I wasn't, at a safety net, I wasn't like taking this leap and abandoning all my old clients. It was gradually moving more toward the type of work I wanted to do or the type of work I wanted rather to incorporate into my business to diversify more, into more aligned with the things that I was interested in in that moment and going forward.

19:25

That just sounds so much  more humane and so much kinder. And I don't know that that approach gets talked about enough. You use the word gradually. You did it over time. Why do more people not talk about the gradual approach? And this is me going off script. I'm just curious what your thoughts are.

19:50

I think because people, when we think of the word transformation, we make it seem like this big bang change or shift in our lives or in what we're doing in our business, what have you. But I think transformation is often incremental. I think for you to de-risk it as much as possible, as much as is feasible, it has to be incremental. You can't just blow up your whole business because the mortgage still has to be paid. The kids still have to be fed. You have to make it gradually. And also you have to pressure test whether that shift is actually right for you, whether the direction you're moving in is actually what you thought it would be. Because sometimes you get there, and it is, and it's like, Ooh, I thought I wanted this, but  no, no thanks. So yeah. So it has to be gradual.

02:39

That is such a good point. And I think  the idea that I have to know for certain that this is what I want actually prevents people from being intentional when in fact, it's better to think of any new direction as an experiment. Why would I go all in if I don't know I like it? So, did you, how did you think about testing a new direction?

21:08

I think you just take it project by project, client by client. And if you like it, you continue on and you say, oh, maybe I tried to go further down this path or get more clients in this realm. Because there's natural, when you're a freelancer or a solo business owner, there's natural attrition. Like clients fall off, things evolve. And so when those opportunities present themselves, you have a path in your mind for what you want to replace it with. So it's just, again, that gradual approach and gradual process and thinking through, okay, where do I want to go next?

21:47

So I want to pull together some threads and give you a chance to respond. In your career, it was a whole lot of accidental and following the money until eventually you shifted to being more intentional. And part of that shift came when you hired a coach and  then you  stated or articulated, I think I want more of this type of work. You put together a plan. That plan required you to change your positioning. I'm guessing maybe you tweaked some offers too. Is that right?

22:34

Well, the way I work and know this may be taboo. I don't do like a product ties offers per se. I'll do like a custom proposal because it varies by client. So no, so tweaking my offers wasn't part of it because I didn't have set packages on my website. That's just never been a part of the way I work, even though I know there's value in that.

22:58

So toss that out. There's positioning, but then within two weeks you had quote unquote published your positioning. You'd gone public with it. And then you were giving yourself a chance to see how much you enjoyed this new direction or that type of work. That strikes me as a pretty smart and repeatable career development past for experienced freelancers. What else would you add, especially for folks who are more advanced and yet  need to be more intentional?

23:42

I think one of the biggest mistakes I've made in my freelance journey is not investing in myself sooner. Like I think I had career PTSD or trauma from being laid off twice and having, you you have these fancy degrees from these big name schools and I have found myself working for $10 an hour in a testing center. And that does something to you even as you progress from that and you advance in your career. It makes you hoard resources. So I got to a point where I was making a significant amount of money more than I had ever made before. And I know there are probably a lot of freelancers who will listen to this or watch this and be in the same position. But I was hoarding resources. I was over saving. I was like, this if this happens to me again, I'm going to be even more prepared. I'm not gonna find myself working for $10 an hour. If I have to, I'll do what I need to do. So I would say if you are making enough money and you are fine, you have a roof over your head and food in your belly, take those resources and reinvest in yourself and your career development in your business. Businesses, large enterprises do this, they make strategic investments. They do R&D. They are always looking ahead for what's next. So you have the resources, use those things to propel your growth. And that's what I did with coaching. That's what I've done with my book. So find those opportunities that thread the needle between profitability and passion and invest in them.

25:20

So good and also harder than it sounds, right? When you still have that scarcity mindset. And I think the challenge with scarcity mindset is people don't walk around thinking, I have scarcity mindset.

25:37

No, no, they just behave that way.

25:40

So rational to not afford, but conserve resources when you know what it's like to not have enough, but before we shift gears and talk more about the book and maybe even building your own IP, I want to invert the conversation we just had. This is going to sound negative, but I think it will be interesting. What does growth  not look like when you've been self-employed for a long time?

26:12

That is an awesome question. And I would say growth, at least for me at this stage, it doesn't necessarily mean going wider. It means going narrower and going deeper. So I think there's a tendency when you're in any type of business, whether that's a solo business or a big business that reaps millions in revenue or billions in revenue to think more is growth. Like more clients, more revenue, more customers, more, more, more. And for me personally, I've never aspired to be like an agency and like build a bigger business in that way with employees that I have to manage.

26:48

Like when I was in a full time role, I had to manage employees before. It's not for me. It's not something that I aspire to. I trust myself more than I trust anyone else. And maybe I'm a control freak in that way.  But I think you have to know what your enough is and you have to know what growth looks like for you and how you define more before you proceed with anything else. You need to know yourself.

27:18

That is so true. Cause otherwise  how easy is it to listen to a podcast or have a conversation with a successful friend and they say, Satta, you, you need to build a team. And if you didn't know yourself, you could be convinced of that. Cause that is a good path for some people. Yeah. Right. Okay. Let's talk IP. Why don't we start with IP in general, the way you think about it specifically for freelancers and solopreneurs. And then we'll talk some about the book.

27:59

Well, I think for me, IP, intellectual property is something you own, something that is a durable or evergreen asset  that you can continue to derive value from even when you're not touching it every day, oh essentially it's making money. It's something that helps you make money in your sleep. This is how I look at IP for the most part, even though there are different forms of it. And for freelancers, that can be something like a newsletter, sub-second newsletter that you've monetized. It can be something like freelance cake, which you've done and create a whole community for advanced freelancers, or it can be something like I've done and written a book that, you know, hopefully will, it won't necessarily be evergreen in terms of 20 years from now. It'll still be relevant. I will have to update it and different additions, but for the foreseeable future, it will be relevant and people can continue to purchase it and derive value from it.

28:56

When did you become interested in this?

29:00

Why I've always wanted to write a book. I think anyone who becomes a journalist always aspires to write a book one day. You know, this isn't the book I thought I would write, but it's the book I was meant to write. I really feel, and I felt comfortable now, 12 years in, well, when I started writing the book, was 11 years in, to feel like that I had something to share and wisdom to impart and that I had a message to share that was bigger than just, become a freelancer. To me, it's the message I'm sharing is much bigger than that.

29:36

Well, now you've piqued my curiosity. What's the message?

29:40

So my book isn't just about how to freelance. It's about why to freelance and why and how women can design a career on their own terms that's purpose-built for their lives and that provides more flexibility, financial agency, and autonomy. So I really view self-employment as an avenue to get there um because I think we are living in a world now with return to office mandates, layoffs. You know, think during the pandemic, people thought it was like this great recalibration. Like they got a taste of working from home and some of that independence and honestly working more productively. And they figured I would love to do this going forward. And then you see now employers clawing back on that or, you know, there's a lot of contraction in the market. And I think people just want more control and more ownership, not of just their careers, but of their own lives. So I think this book is really timely in that way.

30:36

So women who are going to be forever freelancers, what are they doing differently than  women who  will end up going back to  working for someone else and maybe be frustrated by that?

30:57

Well, I think the book is really geared towards mid-career women. So they're using their skills as leverage, as the ultimate leverage. And they also, mindset is important in this. You have to stick with it even when it's hard. Like this is a practical, honest roadmap. It's not like overnight success promises. Like, be a freelancer and you'll  make $100,000 in your pajamas within a month. That's not what I'm selling here. It's about, again, the intentionality of it, being very strategic, using your network, using your skills, and, you know, creating something of value for yourself and your family that will leave a financial legacy for those you love.

31:40

How important do you think having a motivation that ties to other people is?

31:45

It's so important. It's actually the first chapter in my book. It's named your why. Because, I was, I became self-employed four years before we had our first son, our first child. But I'm so glad I did. But I think having children has crystallized for me why it's so important to continue on this path. I applaud women who work a full-time job and commute every day. I used to have when I lived in New York, one hour and 10 minute commute each way every day from  where I lived in Westchester County to New York City where I worked in the Flatiron District. There is no way I could sustain that now as a mother of two, you know, with young children. So I think having that why, whether it's, you know, you want to live a certain kind of lifestyle, autonomy is very important to you, or because you have children that you're caring for, aging parents that you're caring for. A lot of us are in the sandwich generation too. I think having that why can sort of be your North Star to keep you going when things get hard, when you have a pain in the ass client or when there's oh some funniness in the market. Like we're experiencing now with AI and an economy that on paper looks like it should be good, it's kind of very unstable underneath. So I think having that why can keep you going and keep you motivated. And I'm not saying, know, sometimes people, they're freelancers and they take on a full-time job or a full-time contractor for three months and then they come back. There's also room to do that too. In my situation, I haven't done it. I've been a full freelancer, full-time 12 year straight, no chaser, not, you know, taking a full-time job, but there are things, you know, there are ways to pivot within this too.

33:42

So  talk to me a little bit like beyond why, how does Satta manage her mindset?

33:51

Hmm. It's something I'm still working on. It's constant  work and progress. But one thing I'm focusing on lately is gratitude. Like I joined Substack, started a Substack to promote my book, foreverfreelancer.substack.com. But as a byproduct of that, I have seen so many other substacks that are of value that have such great content. And one of them, Alex L, she's a New York Times bestselling author and she has a subset called Gratitude Journal. And it's about like establishing a gratitude practice. So that's something I'm just in the early stages of, but like just reminding myself to be grateful and look at how far you've come from where you started from. Being laid off and not knowing what you were going to do, working for $10 an hour in a testing center, grading standardized tests to, you know, creating a multi-seven figure business within a decade. Like anything's possible. So even sometimes we're in the valley or in the plateau of our freelance business and it can be so easy to wallow there, you know, and to wallow in self pity or like, Oh, you know, what is going on? Things aren't great right now. But things will be better. It's just the business, the business life cycle is cyclical. It is a life cycle. So you have to be prepared for ups and downs.

35:13

Do you journal gratitude or is it more just thinking about it?

35:19

Yeah, it's just thinking about it. I should journal more. I've tried. My, my penmanship has gone to, so I will journal.

35:31

So does anything else come to mind  with managing mindset? I meditate sometimes and do some Peloton meditations. That helps. I think you just, sometimes you need to pause and reflect. It's easy to just go, go, go. I also do what I like to call "For me Fridays." And I use that day to rest and recharge. And usually it's Friday. Sometimes I have it, have to pivot like this week, was Thursday. It took, you know, that I didn't do any client work. Um, but I think having a dedicated day, hour time to yourself, to just sit and think about stuff and not always think about work is helpful too.

36:18

Do you schedule that  or is it more just you feel like your week isn't complete until you get that one or two hours in? How do you, how do you approach it?

36:29

It's the Fridays, the for me Fridays are my day to do that. And it may look like, oh, I'm going to get a massage today, even though I don't get them as often as I should, or I'm going to go to this event during the day and meet other people. Because working  by yourself can be very isolating. So that's my way to recharge and to connect with other people. Or I'm going to focus on my creative projects today, you know, that's how I started writing my book. I used all those Fridays to write a book. So it's doing something for myself, whatever that looks like, to sort of keep going, to sort of take a breather, rest, and then get up and keep going.

37:17

I mean, when I put together the three or four things you mentioned, it starts to sound powerful and effective. Taking a couple hours, once a quarter, or least a couple of times a year to say, what do I want? Where am I going? What do I need to do? Gratitude. For Me Fridays seems like all of that would contribute to clearheadedness, which would then help you with like intentionality.

37:50

Yeah. And those are all things that have implemented within the last few years. Cause when you're building a business when you're in the mud and the muck and mire, you're not thinking about balance or how do I personal growth or mindset. You're just trying to like  get a steady paycheck and stabilize your income. You're not thinking about all these woo woo, quote unquote touchy feely things. But I think as you grow your business, as you become an advanced freelancer, those things are so important for making your business sustainable long-term.

38:26

Well, I've never talked to an advanced freelancer who didn't graduate in part because of intentionality and that intentionality necessarily bled over into mindset. And I think that's what's so frustrating for people who want to go from like, you know, let's say less than 60 to $75,000 a year. They're below that and they see this glass ceiling and they're like, I want to break through that. And all the more advanced people are talking about mindset and they're like, like what can be more frustrating than hearing exactly like what's, what could be more frustrating than hearing people who seem like they're at the level above you talk about mindset. And yet, I mean, beyond mindset, it's kind of like, what else is there? Now there's like incremental gains in skill, but anyway, before I get off on a rabbit trail, talk to me about the book. What is it called? How long did you spend writing it? When is it available? And what's next for you?

39:43

So the book is called The Forever Freelancer. And I named it that because I think so often people view freelancing as transitional or a stopgap. And I really wanted to signal loud and clear that this is a viable long-term career and way of working. So I started working on the book in February, 2025. I got to, can we curse on here? My shitty first draft, in seven months. So by the end, by September, actually, my shitty first draft was in July. And that was really, I finished the first draft of the book in July, but...

40:20

That's impressive.

40:21

Yeah. But then when going back and looking at it, I'm like, oh, I need more reporting here. I need to interview other freelancers. So it was like a minimal viable draft, MVD. So by September I had a really good  working first draft  that I turned over to my developmental editor. And then the process really got started. um And I think I underestimated because I've been a journalist and a professional writer for 18 years. I thought the process would be more straightforward than it is, but writing a book is an entirely different  beast. It requires an entirely different skill set than being a freelancer and doing client work every day. And I had to learn that. I had to learn this new skill as I was writing the book. So I finished the book in a year. It's gone through several edits. I've built what I've called a solo publishing house. So I've hired other female independent business owners to help me bring this book to life from my book coach, again, coaching, again, I realize the importance of that, my developmental editor, my copy editor, proofreader, audio book producer, designer, I have a book marketing coordinator, all women that I've worked with and collaborated with to bring this book out to the world and to readers. So the book comes out in June. Exact published a TBD. We started marketing it. It is going through, the final round of edits. It's being laid out now and then it'll be proofed, but yeah, I'm really proud of it. I'm excited for it. It really does provide a step-by-step roadmap for how to build a thriving solo creative business, but it also includes that mindset step, you know, stuff that includes, thinks about balancing caregiving and freelancing and being a business owner, achieving true work life integration, because it really is focused on women. And these are some of the things that are unique to us that we deal with as we are trying to build our careers.

42:28

Things that don't get talked about nearly as often, right? We often, maybe men are especially prone to this, talk about building a business as though it's something that can happen in a vacuum, as though you're never going to have health challenges  or as though you'll never have to be the one to go pick up the kid at school who's  sick, right? Did you record the audio book yourself or did you hire voice talent?

43:03

I am recording it starting April 13th. Okay. Or sorry,  I'll have to go,  go back. But yeah, I haven't started recording it yet.  But  I am doing it myself and I feel I would not want someone to narrate it for me.

43:20

Number one, I think it's awesome that you're doing it. Number two, I agree. I want to record my own audio versions. And number three, I have not recorded an audio version  of free money because I didn't get around to it. So I'm really glad you are. Can people...

43:45

If you need a recommendation, I have someone  that you can use. I'm going up to Vermont actually to record it.

43:50

Oh, that's smart. So knocking it out.

43:54

Yeah. In three and a half, four days, she said it would take,  and that will translate into about a five to six hour audio book.

43:59

Which is so much more manageable than trying to, it doesn't sound manageable, but it just seems smart to block out three or four days, go do it, and then it's done. Yeah.

44:13

And she also had a remote recording option. So you're outside of Nashville. Like she would partner with a studio and you could just go there to record remotely and she would kind of like dial in and guide you through the process over the same like three and a half, four day time period. I'm just choosing to go to Vermont because I'm in the Boston area. It's four hours away.

44:35

And it's also Vermont.

44:37

Yeah. And if I'm going to do a book, let me do a full, full gusto, know.

44:42

So  this is another investment that you are making in yourself and in your career, without letting the cat out of the bag. This book is a big piece of IP that you will have. Yeah. Do you have plans to do more with that IP? Will it expand or is right now the book just going to stay a book?

45:13

No, I think the goal with the book, I have multiple goals. I want to build a thought leadership brand around women in the future of work. So this is sort of the first piece in that, you know, three legged stool or whatever it is. But I also  want to do pivot into book ghostwriting and author building my own author business. And it's like a chicken or the ad syndrome where it's like to ghostwrite a book, you have to have written a book, you know, to, you have to prove you've done it before. So that is one way I'm doing this. And this obviously that will help my base business, the business I've had for a long time to make that more resilient and to diversify that business. But then I'm also building a personal brand, which is funny because as freelancers, we help our clients execute their vision and their strategy and we can sort of hide behind that. um But now like building a personal brand or a thought leadership brand, I have to bring myself more to the forefront. And that's been, I don't want to say disconcerting, but eye opening in a way. It feels you feel exposed when you are putting yourself out there. And I'm sure you've had this experience when I'm putting myself out there on Instagram or TikTok or sub stack and writing about things. And you're like, you're like, people reading? Am I getting views? Am I getting the lights? And you can't do it for that reason. You really have to do it for yourself and keep going even without that external validation right away.

46:54

It has been uncomfortable for me to build the brand.  was always so...

46:58

Doesn't seem like it Austin.

47:01

Well,  but I guess I've been doing it since 2019, so I'm in  deep enough now where it's gotten at least more familiar, but it's still strange when you're thinking I need attention in order to spread messages that I care about that and ideas and messages and ideas that I think can transform other people's lives. But I still have maybe a conflicted relationship with the need for attention. And I'll just, I'll just leave it at that. I have one final question before we just talk about where people can find you. Okay. There have got to be people listening who have a book in the back of their minds and it seems so daunting. What advice would you give just about the process of making a book? I mean, you mentioned hiring a book coach. You mentioned hiring a developmental editor, you mentioned building a whole team, but with the actual writing of it, what advice would you give?

48:11

I love this question, Austin. I think one, you need to work and write to your rhythm. I am a morning person. I've been a morning person since I was five years old. I am not good after 9 PM work wise. So I know knew that to write this book, I had to do it very early in the morning, especially alongside my client work. So people aren't going to like to hear this, but I would wake up 4:30 in the morning regularly, Friday through Sunday to write this book, to get my two hours of writing in.

48:43

I would also say tell people what you're building or what it is you want to do. Make them stakeholders in your dream. Help them buy into your dream. I could not have done this without my husband and my mother and my sister helping with childcare, especially my husband. Like, you know, Cheryl Sarenberg says, like, who you marry is the most important decision you'll ever make for your career. And I could not have written this book without my husband who also is a journalist, by the way, and a writer. So he understood. So if I needed extra writing time because I didn't hit my goal, and I said, you know, on Sunday, I need to like three hours of writing time, can you take the morning shift? No problem, thought. Always. Never complained once. So I think, so I think you need to know what your best writing hours are and make room for them in the midst of your paying client work because you still have a business to maintain, help other people buy into your dream and help you along in the process to create time and space for you to do these things. And I think just go for it. There will be no perfect conditions. There's no such thing as certainty. You have to just go for it anyway. Don't let your dream sit idle. If you want to write a book, the best time to do it is now.

50:08

Schedule your dreams.

50:10

Yeah.

50:11

And then invite other people into them and give them a chance to care about your dreams, which again can feel vulnerable and just like building a personal brand.

50:21

Yeah. And one other thing I will add, you cannot use the same framework you use in your client work to writing a book. It's not going to work. Like, you know, I'm really focused in my client work on being ruthlessly efficient and, getting things as close to a perfect draft as I feel as possible before I handed into the client, because I want them to have to do as little work as possible to make it a viable product. You can't do that with creative writing. You have to sometimes let things sit. Sometimes you have to be okay with the words that are coming out on the page. This draft is crappy today. It's terrible. I can't believe I wrote this, but you need to go through that to get to the good stuff. Like I have a doc called chapter leftovers. There's whole sections of my book that I wrote that didn't make it in there, chapters that didn't make it in there, complete chapters. I rewrote  several times and it was so frustrating to me. I was like, this is so inefficient. Like  what is going on here? But that is what the creative writing process entails. And it's different from business writing or freelance writing.

51:33

That's such  good advice. If you don't check your expectation around that, you will find what is an ordinary and natural writing process to be very dissatisfying. You'll think you're doing something wrong. It sounds like. Satta, thank you again for chatting with me. This was so rich  and fun. When people  hear this and they're eager to get a copy of this book, where can they go to join the waitlists? We'll put that link in, also put the link to any final book page. We'll put the link to your Substack in, but where do people go to find you beyond what I just mentioned?

52:20

So the best place right now is sattasarmah.com/book. And that is  everything about the book you'll find there. There's also a prompt where you can put in your email to get a book launch updates and join my email list. So, and then once you go there, you'll see all the link to my Instagram, my Substack, the LinkedIn, all of that, all my socials.

52:43

Perfect. We'll make sure to link out to that. And again, thank you. And I have to believe that the best is yet to come.

52:51

Thank you so much, Austin. Thank you for  having me. I really appreciate it.

52:55

Hey, before you go, let me invite you to join our community for more established advanced freelancers. It's called the Freelance Cake Community. One member named Michelle had this to say, I'm just so impressed by the quality of the conversation that's happening in the group. The in-depth questions, experiments, and thoughts being shared are just so refreshing. And the other communities I'm a part of, it's all beginner questions, which is fine, but it's awesome to find a more advanced space where it's okay to ask more advanced questions. Thank you, Michelle.

53:30

Here's a little more about the community. Each week we do live group coaching and live coworking. You get access to a massive resource library and obviously the community itself, which we host using Circle. Of course, the people are the best part of all this. It really helps to surround yourself  with smart, accomplished, and optimistic people who are out there taking risks and building the businesses they really want. If that interests you, visit  freelancecake.com/community to learn more and apply. You can find that link in the show notes. I hope to see you there.