When I was 36, I left a well-paying executive job at a Fortune 500 company to become a poorly paid freelance camera assistant.
Daily responsibilities included such high-level tasks as pushing the underwater camera and housing in a wheelbarrow to a pool for pre-shoot testing.
In this attached image, shot in November 2011, the camera housing belonged to Doug Anderson. We were on location in Nambia on a shoot for Hugh Pearson on the BBC Africa Series.
It was an exciting time but also tough. Living on almost zero income is not fun. My confidence suffered, my relationships suffered, my health suffered.
After three years, I took a full-time job again to get out of debt. When my debt was paid off and I had some money in the bank, I went back to freelancing.
Freelancing meant I was more in control of my time and could schedule my year to be available for assisting jobs when they arose.
It also meant learning how to hustle and developing the key skills all solopreneurs need to learn to be successful.
If you have scaled a peak, and see another peak in the distance you want to climb, you have to go down before you go up.
Learning to love this "going down" process is key to becoming a viable solopreneur.
It makes getting to the next peak all that sweeter.
