I'm a Licensed Professional Counselor who owns Dream Big Counseling & Wellness in Texas, providing therapy services across multiple settings from inpatient psychiatric hospitals to private practice over the past decade. **What I wish I knew:** The emotional toll of being everyone's support system while having nowhere to turn yourself. When I transitioned from hospital settings to private practice, I lost the built-in peer support and case consultation that comes with institutional work. I learned the hard way that investing in my own therapist and peer consultation groups isn't optional—it's essential for longevity. **Essential personality traits:** Extreme comfort with uncertainty and the ability to compartmentalize. One week I might have three crisis calls from suicidal clients, the next week everyone's doing well and it's eerily quiet. Unlike hospital work where the chaos is predictable, private practice swings between intense periods and dead silence with no warning. **Income management:** I keep detailed records of seasonal patterns in mental health needs. January and the holidays are always busy, but summer can be surprisingly slow as families travel. I now book lighter client loads during busy months to avoid burnout and save extra during peak times to cover the inevitable summer dip when half my clients are on vacation.
I’m Mac Mascorro, a brand strategist and former Director of Special Projects who transitioned from consulting billion-dollar companies to running my own branding and marketing consultancy, now working in the health and wellness space (Chike Nutrition). One thing I wish I'd known before freelancing: how critical it is to institutionalize your own processes and self-structure, not just for client projects but for your own pipeline and mental clarity. Early on, I once let a promising idea with a health food startup stall simply because I failed to create internal deadlines for myself—no boss means no built-in momentum unless you set it. The biggest misconception about freelancing is that it's inherently less stressful or easier than a 9-to-5. In reality, the mental energy you spend switching between pitching, delivering, and managing your own brand can exceed what you’d ever spend in a single role. For instance, when I lead rebranding projects for clients, the lines between “work” and “life” often blur, making it essential to set strict working hours even when nobody’s watching. To succeed, you need the ability to genuinely empathize and communicate—period. In consulting, I found that the longevity of my client relationships (like with health/wellness brands launching new product lines) always depended more on my listening and clarity than on my design or analytics skills. Processes and systems get you 80% there, but empathy and team mentality finish the job.
Upon graduating from college, I transitioned quickly to freelancing as a digital consultant—I was forced into it, not because I had a choice. What I didn't realize then is that freedom requires a paradigm shift in the way one thinks about structure—in the absence of systems, freedom becomes chaos. The most common misconception? That if you're good at your craft, it will be all worthwhile. In fact, I spent more time chasing clients and writing proposals than actually delivering project work. The best part of freelancing was that I had a direct connection with clients—you feel every success, every failure, and you learn at a fast pace. The biggest downside is emotional fatigue, because you are wearing many hats: sales, finance, delivery, customer service. I learned that resilience and adaptability mattered more than technical skills. Eventually, I took what I had learned and turned it into Mexico-City-Private-Driver.com—this time with the stability and operational support I needed in my early years of freelancing. I'm Martin Weidemann, founder of Mexico-City-Private-Driver.com. I started freelancing as a technology consultant right out of college, and today I run a VIP transportation service in Mexico City which was born from everything I learned about independence, hustle, and service.