If you are a project manager and think you have the power to control your team, please check yourself.

If you are a team member and resent your project manager because you think they were put there to control you, please check yourself.

The last four years have gone something like this for me:

➡ YEAR ONE: Started moonlighting as a project manager and YouTube content creator while I worked a full time job.

Routinely apologizing for other people’s actions is not leadership.

➡ But apologizing when YOU make a mistake is.

The loudest voice isn’t always the smartest, it’s often just the loudest.

The busiest days aren’t always the most productive, they are often just the busiest.

The words you read here probably aren’t life-changing.

But the work you do because of their inspiration could be.

👉 It’s up to you.

What began purely as freelance project management has evolved into so much more for me...

I’ll be honest - my dream was never to manage projects for the rest of my life.

If you think you aren’t good at project management because you chronically have trouble getting things done, the problem probably isn’t due to a lack of project management skills.

👉 Founders and startup CEOs: I know you often use this as an excuse to be sloppy in execution.

Bad behavior might be normal for an organization, but that doesn’t mean it’s healthy.

➡ It’s probably an unhealthy work environment when:

Don’t set yourself up for failure like I did. Like the time a startup CEO said to me:“ I don’t know what exactly I want you to do, but I know I want to work with you! Let’s see where this goes.”

Everyone wants to know one thing:

“How much money can I make?” 💰

And if you are in project management, I hate to break it to you but the answer isn’t so cut and dry.

Salaries can be across the board.

💫 When I was in high school I wanted to be a writer.

❌ I was disappointed when my English teacher returned my paper marked in red with feedback saying  “you have a long way to go.”

Let’s talk about the stigma attached to project managers.It’s an idea I’ve personally seen prevalent lately in my conversations with clients and non-PM colleagues.Maybe you have come across it, too.

In May, Dice interviewed me for an article about how to get started as a freelance project manager.

Through the process I learned it is estimated there are over 128,000 job openings for freelance project managers in the US alone (link to article below in the comments).

That’s a lot of project managers. 😮

I’m nearly 40 years old, but the first time I hit the post button on LinkedIn I was taken right back to high school.I was so worried about what other people might think.

Do you want to start landing project management work on the side?Three years ago I began my journey into part time freelancing. Now it's my full time job.

Maybe you are looking for ways to supplement your income or maybe you are trying to gain more project management experience in order to make a career pivot.

Where are the female project managers?

Over the weekend I read this statistic from the March 2023 Project Management Institute report titled “The State of Women in Project Management - 2023”:

Job seekers: I don’t know exactly how you feel, but I can relate by remembering my own experience.

➡ I remember the sheer emotional exhaustion of the full time job search.

Sometimes my strongest stakeholder relationships are the ones where something goes wrong in the beginning.

That initial rough patch is almost like a qualifying period.

Has this happened to you?

Over the past 3 years I have created over 150 videos about the project management experience.🎯

They are all free for you on my YouTube channel.