Free Time to Spend as You Wish Is Everything! (Sophie Lizard)

Welcome to Making It. This weekly show explores the lives and stories of entrepreneurs as they share their unique perspectives on their success and the path to making it. 

Episode summary: A feeling of constant restlessness has always been a driving force for Sophie Lizard, the co-founder of Be a Freelance Blogger.com. Unless she found the work meaningful, she would move on to the next job within six to twelve months and not commit herself to anything.  

    But when the economy hit bottom in 2008, she lost her job. Now, what should she do? The precarious situation forced her to commit to the one thing that’s always been important—writing. In this episode of Making It, she shares her story of what ‘making it’ means to her.

“Your own voice is really not as relevant as your ability to write in the voice that is needed for the work you're doing. So that's an interesting split there between people who are going to blog for themselves and people who are going to blog for clients.”

– Sophie Lizard

Guest Bio: Pro copywriter and blogger Sophie Lizard is here to help her clients make money with words. She’s the founder of Be a Freelance Blogger.com and specializes in copywriting, blogging, and non-fiction ghostwriting. Her favorite topics are science and technology, culture and subculture, psychology and design, and the spaces in between. And she’s been told that she is "like a one-woman TED conference without any breaks." 

     For the past few years, Sophie has made a living blogging on other people’s blogs. Her blogging income supports her whole family, even though she only works part-time. 

     How did she do it? By becoming an expert in freelance blogging. So if you want an intelligent writer and editor who never stops connecting the dots, that's her.

     Sophie has worked with lots of awesome entrepreneurs—Stever Robbins, Melinda Cohan, Danny Iny, Tom Poland, Chris Brogan, Ron Friedman--as well as global brands, exciting startups, and a couple of confidential celebrities.

• Resources or websites mentioned in this episode:

MiraseeSophie’s website Sophie’s Be a Freelance Blogger Sophie’s LinkedIn Sophie’s Twitter

Credits:

Guest: Sophie LizardHosts: Danny Iny & Abe Crystal Producer: Cynthia Lamb Executive producer: Danny InyAssembled by: Geoff GovertsenAudio Post Supervisor: Evan Miles, Christopher MartinAudio Post Production: Post Office SoundMusic soundscape: Chad Michael Snavely

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Music and SFX credits: 

• Track Title: Sweet Loving Waltz

Artist Name(s): Sounds Like Sander

Writer Name: S.L.J. Kalmeijer

Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

•Track Title: The Sunniest Kids

Artist Name(s): Rhythm Scott

Writer Name: Scott Roush

Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

•Track Title: Arches

Artist Name(s): Aaron Sprinkle

Writer Name: Aaron Sprinkle

Publisher Name:  BOSS SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

Episode transcript:

     I'm Sophie Lizard and you're listening to Making It! I run a business called Lizard Creative Chaos and I'm a copywriter for people with something to teach. 

     From my point of view, I had to jump to get somewhere. I had to catch the trapeze, otherwise I would fall when I jumped instead of getting somewhere. My life has always involved a certain amount of getting a brilliant idea, running after it, falling over and then getting back up and starting again. So my career was really no different to that. I started college, dropped out of college, got a job, went back to college repeatedly. I did all sorts of random jobs, data entry, market research, lots of small things. And often they didn't last very long because I just was not fully engaging with them. And after a while I kind of settled into a rhythm where I would get a job of some kind, usually in an office and I would work it for six months to a year. But sooner or later I would just get a feeling of absolute restlessness there and want to move on again. I never found something that I wanted to go like, yes, this is it. This is what I want to do. 

     And the only thing that really made me even think about freelancing was when the economy absolutely fell out of the bottom in 2008 and I lost my job. So I was just like, oh, okay, what do I do now? And it was only really casting around for 'how do I rescue myself from this joblessness,' that made me think, "What are the things people have ever actually told me I'm good at?" And the answer was before letting me go from my previous job. My boss had told me that the one thing I was brilliant at was writing the messages that got sent out to the customers, she said I've done that so much better than anyone else ever had and perhaps I should consider a career in writing. So I thought, okay, career in writing. How does one go about acquiring one of those then? And I was incredibly lucky, it was complete fluke, that I happen to have the BBC news on. And there was a new story about the peopleperhour website which just launched back then and it basically said this is like Ebay, but for people who want freelance work and I said, "oh right, you are." And immediately went and logged on and within a week or so I was working, I had become a freelance writer on the click of some fingers, literally without having planned any of it in advance. 

     It all comes down to you have to commit yourself to it. Whenever I didn't commit myself to something, I didn't do very well at ...