Our Final Season: Catch Up with Hosts Kaleigh and Emma!

Emma: Hi listeners, Emma here. It has been a long time since we have done a season of freelance writing coach and that is partly because Kaleigh and I have had a zillion things going on.

We have a ton of episodes about a ton of topics, so we felt like we only wanted to do a new season when we had something to say, and now we feel like we do.  So we want to start the season by talking a little bit about what is going on with us, what we've been up to, what is going on for us personally and professionally, and what we're thinking about freelance writing today.  And we as friends haven't caught up in forever.

So Kaleigh, you have had a big year, a big six months. What is going on with you?

Kaleigh: Yes, I have had a big year, and for people who follow me online across the various social platforms or are on my newsletter, you probably heard me reference it's been a big year of change. It's been a lot of self-exploration and just kind of like trying to find my way. I have not come out and said exactly what has changed, but I feel like for the listeners here this is helpful context. You and I talked before we hopped on the phone about how we're not going to get in the weeds on anything, but the TLDR version is I got a divorce in October of last year, and I moved to a new city.
I've been traveling a lot, and it's been a lot of change I also want to make the disclaimer: I've been very hesitant to talk about all this and to come out and say like hey I got a divorce (for a lot of reasons) but one of the biggest ones being like I'm a pretty private person and I do have a little bit of fear that I come out and say I got a divorce sometimes that feels like advertising, and that's absolutely not what I'm trying to do. So I say it here to just be super candid with the audience and maybe anybody who's out there who's going through something similar or is thinking about separating or is going through a difficult process within a romantic relationship.  I just say it to share that's where I'm at right now. And so it's been really hard. It's been a lot of change. It's been wildly uncomfortable,  but that's been my past year. And that's one of the reasons too, I think that you and I haven't caught up and we haven't recorded these episodes because we've both had a lot on our plates. So that's, that's a very short version of my, of what's going on with me, but I'd love to hear what's up with you.

Emma: What is going on with me? So I just feel like knee deep, actually more accurately like over my head deep with raising my children and managing my family, and although I have been working away on freelance writing and I hosted a really amazing retreat called New Narratives which took place last November and we're going to do another one in May and that was just like an amazing experience.  I just feel like my life is interrupted constantly by the needs of my kids and for those of you who don't know although many listeners you know who've been here before do I have a five-year-old and a two-year-old and my five-year-old has some special needs and like not I not similar to you Kaleigh in that like my family is separating butt, there has been a lot to manage with him and particularly getting him set up for public school. 

So in California, we have transitional kindergarten, which is the year before kindergarten, which is the year he's in, and we had to set him up with an IEP, which, again, for those of you who don't know, is an Individualized Education Program. So it's basically like if you have a child with special needs, they have a right to free and appropriate education in the public school system. And it's all kind of like in this master docent but called an IEP. However the process of getting the IEP set up and working with the school to make sure he has the services he needs is often very contentious and difficult. So I spent all of last spring and much of last summer basically arguing with the school district about what he needed. It took a ton out of me personally. And I just feel like I didn't have the bandwidth in the same way for, like, recording this podcast or like reaching out to friends who weren't in my immediate world or just like work.

I'd like to continue the conversation with you, Kaleigh, by saying that you've gone through this extremely big change and are entering this very big new world, which I'm sure is extremely overwhelming. So I am curious: What has that meant for your career? I imagine getting a divorce has financial implications. You have to move, which is a huge interruption to your work. The market has been super weird. So you're maybe traveling for work, but on your own now. How have these life changes informed how you're thinking about your freelance writing career at the moment?

Kaleigh: Yeah, I've been so grateful that my work has at least been somewhat consistent. I mean, it's still freelancing, still but so it's still the roller coaster ride of feast and famine. and I feel like we touch on this every season, but I've been really grateful that it's at least kept me busy.

I think I would benefit from being a lot busier, but the work is what it is and you can't make work appear out of thin air thin air and as as hard as you work to build new connections and find new avenues, I've been really grateful to at least be able to pay my bills. I'm not earning anything like what I used to, but it's been consistent enough where I've been okay.

And yes, it's been super expensive to go through this entire process and moving and the time that entails, but I felt like I need to travel and and I have work travel with the journalism work I do. So yeah, it's been a lot of growing pains. It's been a lot of grief because I think that's a lot of what change is. It's it's this feeling of grief and and seeing possibilities and futures that you kind of imagine for yourself just kind of collapse. And that's sad, but it's also exciting. I think that's anything in life. Along with that, though, I also went back to school. I started pursuing a graduate certificate in philosophy and ethics because that was always something that was interesting to me. That has been incredible. So, so fun and a lot of work, a lot of work, but really loving that and just pouring a lot into myself. More expense, but it's for the best reason and I'm really enjoying it. 

Emma: Do you feel like going back to school and getting this graduate certificate is something that you would have done as like past you, like the you of two years ago, or do you feel like this is something that only would have been possible for you had you made kind of these big changes in your life and decided like some of these things that I wish I did and hadn't done?

Kaleigh: Yeah, I think I probably would have. I probably would have put it off longer, so anytime you put something off, who knows if it will happen. I think the beautiful thing about having so much free time and and being so on my own is that I have had to think really hard about how I want to invest the time that I have and where does my true interest lie and and you kind of vote with your time, right? You vote with your time, you vote with your dollars, and this was one of the things that sifted out for me of something that was really important and that I wanted to do. 

Would I be lying if I said that there wasn't some ego to it because the the school that I chose was a very prestigious school? Yeah, there's absolutely ego to it. So I'm having to sit with that and just really kind of put that aside. But the thing that comes with that is the caliber of students in this program and the discussions we've been having is incredible. And there's so much depth and so much nuance. And so I really feel like I'm getting a lot out of the experience. So yes, I made the choice because it felt, it felt nice for my ego, but I'm really glad that I chose the school that I did because it's been rigorous to say the very least.

Emma: Yeah, that's awesome. I do think that with the ego thing you could possibly be a little kinder to yourself on that. Cause you're sort of like, there was part of me that maybe chose this particular program or got into it because of that. But ultimately you're really gaining something. And I think it's something like with the subjects that you are working on, it's something that's really for yourself, right?

Kaleigh: Yeah. It, and it plays so well into the work that I'm already doing. So much of it is about thinking and thinking is what you do when you're writing something. So it's been great fuel for the newsletters that I've been sending. It's helping expand my mind and my critical thinking skills, which again, is a huge piece of writing. It all feeds into each other. And so, yeah, it's been a great investment.

This season is brought to you by Collective, and they’re giving you your first month free! Just use code FWCP at checkout.

Tax season is stressful—no doubt about it. Are you overpaying? Are you even doing it right? It’s a headache, but here’s the good news: you don’t have to figure it all out alone. Collective is built exclusively for solopreneurs and is here to help. If you’re a freelance writer, you could be leaving major savings on the table by not having an S Corp. Collective helped me make the switch last year, and they handled everything—S Corp election, bookkeeping, payroll, taxes—you name it. Now, I get to focus on what I love, without stressing over receipt tracking and tax forms.

Emma: I actually think that everything that you're talking about with these experiences you've gone through is ultimately going to push you to think big. And if I'm being totally honest with you is like, one of the things that I've always felt since we've known each other is that I think there was for you to think bigger and be bigger.I think maybe in the past, you had a tendency to like play a little bit small. And I think now Oh, my gosh.

Kaleigh: Oh, you sound like my therapist now. This is all we talk about. This is all we talk about. So I'm learning my tendency is to keep myself pretty small, but I'm learning to find the middle ground of what's appropriate. 

But you and I talked a little bit over the past couple of months about everything that you were going through. You had some personal stuff. You've had all of the school stuff to do. I think a lot of people listening to this podcast are probably in a similar life stage to you where they have little kids at home. Their attention is pulled in a thousand directions. You have touched on the struggle of maintaining work-life balance and sometimes not. And I want to hear, how is your work going right now and and how is things how are things evolving with all of that?

Emma: I feel like you and I are both in like a place of career flux. But for me, yes, I feel like the juggle of managing my kids and my family, it's like not really possible to have work-life balance. It's more kind of like a little bit of work here and there, a little bit of like my kids is the work, right? So and there' that's like a 24-7 job, even when I'm not with them.

Literally, I dropped my daughter off this morning and she has like a little bit of a runny nose and I'm like, are they gonna call me like this this are they could call me while we're recording this? So it's it's like definitely a big struggle I'm trying to embrace that this is a season of life. If my daughter were five and my son was like, eight…that it's going to be a new world. But I think the the physical needs that my kids have right now makes it difficult to sleep. I think that is the part that I'm struggling with. Like I just, I don't have enough time to think things through. 

And I think one of the things that came up and this is, so my daughter's two. She was born in January, 2023. I took a short maternity leave. And then when I came back to work, that was kind of when everything had changed in terms of freelance writing opportunities. I came back to work and I was like, where did everybody go?

I think that ChatGPT had been released in November 2022 so it was a couple of months later that I was coming back to work and it was just very confusing. I feel like over the course of that time, the past two years, I've been really turning over different ideas about where I want my business to go, whether I want it to be the same business, and whether I want to do something else. I've thought about things like, should I go back to school and become a therapist? Should I go to law school? And then I could really help people. I feel like what has been missing from my life in freelance writing is these conversations and being able to really make some kind of meaningful impact on something. I just kind of felt like the writing work that I was doing was sort of devoid of meaning. Again, it was kind of existential in my head.

So there are two things that came up. One is that I really cared about working with other solopreneurs, like you and me, because I'm getting a lot of gratification out of the freelance writing coaching work. And so I partnered with Renee and we started doing these retreats because I wanted to get together in person. I want to be able to coach people, to get coached, to be a facilitator of something that makes a meaningful difference in somebody's career.

I also decided to take an IEP advocacy course, which I'm taking right now. I have recognized that this kind of advocacy work may give me the opportunity to help a lot of other families going through this process and that I'm naturally good at it. 

But now I’m asking: what is the what is the step for my freelance writing business? Is it to just shutter it completely? Is it to keep it sort of half open and take on a certain number of case studies or long form articles? I feel like my skills as a freelance writer and a marketer and a business owner are going to give me the foundation to be able to do some other things in my life that may have the impact that I'm looking for. And it's not to say that I'm going to stop doing the freelance writing work, but there's this other new thing.

But do you feel like you want to keep on doing what you're doing? Do you want to focus more on journalism?

Kaleigh: With the season of life that I'm in, I think the thing that I'm realizing is I'm 11 years into working alone from home and it's very hard in your mid 30s to make adult friendships. But one of the most organic places to do that is in the office.

And so the question I'm sitting with right now is, do I want to go back in house somewhere? And maybe it's a hybrid job. Maybe it's a remote job where there are quarterly meetings, where you meet in person. The thing that keeps coming up for me, though, in therapy and in life in general, is that Ireally want to belong. I really miss a sense of like community. Your job is where you spend a lot of your day. It's 40 hours a week. It's a huge chunk of life. And I think I could really benefit from going back in house.

So that's the thing that I'm turning over right now. I'll also say though that I think what I am curious about what this philosophy and ethics education is: how does this play into the whole AI landscape? Because a lot of the things we talk about in these classes are the ethics of AI and decision making and policy and I think that that's all very fascinating. So maybe there's a place for me within that landscape somewhere a little bit further down the road because I'm not finished yet.

Emma: I know that it's something that other people are thinking about, too. And the reason we wanted to share this episode is because I think people need to have this context about what we're thinking about as we go into this season. 

Kaleigh: Yes. And we got some great questions from listeners this time around that we'll be tackling in the coming episodes. Some of them will kind of be building on things that we've touched on before, but some of them are completely new. And so, yeah, I think people always kind of go through and pick and choose what's most relevant to them, but we have a lot of stuff coming up that I think will be interesting to listen to. So hopefully people will follow along.