Designing Your New Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness--and a New Freedom--at Work

by Bill Burnett

And then something else started happening. A few former employers and friends at other companies began calling Dave to see if he could spare a few hours or a day or two to consult with them on small projects. He said no to some, depending on what his mom and his family needed, and yes to others. Unlike his day job, where he just couldn’t say no to a project, the framework of consulting gave Dave a sense of freedom he didn’t have as a corporate guy. He had thought briefly about being an independent consultant before, but it seemed a little scary and he wasn’t sure he could support the family doing it. But now, having accidentally “prototyped” this new lifestyle (Dave didn’t call it prototyping in those days, but that is exactly what he’d been doing), it didn’t seem so scary. After his mom died and it was time to go back to work, he never went back. He became a full-time consultant. And while he gave up some money and a fancy title, he was able to buy back time—time to coach his sons’ baseball teams, go on vacations with the family, and teach Sunday School. What Dave learned was that he was good at working hard, and he liked to do a lot of work, but working inside a corporation was a bad fit for him. Dave was best suited for the gig economy before there even was a gig economy.