All right. We've talked about green flags, yellow flags, red flags, and now clients from hell. I have some bad news for you though. If you are working with red flag clients or clients from hell, and you're struggling with people that are dysfunctional and don't value you and you are feeling abused, it's your fault.
That's the bad news. I hate to say it, but if you're working with people who don't value you or respect you or pay you, that's your fault, not their. As I mentioned, freelancers are free. We're free agents. We get to work with the people we wanna work with and we get to say no to the people we don't want to work with.
So if you look at your list of clients and you start to shutter, when you think about, oh man, I don't wanna talk to that guy. Or if you start to notice that you're out at a party with friends and your phone rings and you see on the caller ID, that there's a particular client's name showing up and you think, oh no, that's a bad sign.
And I'm telling you, it's your fault. That's the bad news. The good news is you can do something about it. The good news. Is that since it's your fault, you have all the control. You can fix it. You can make it better for yourself. As I mentioned, one of the biggest problems freelancers have, is that just like in anything else in life, people will not respect us until we respect ourselves.
For those of you who like old school, Saturday night live, you might remember the recurring character. Stuart Smalley, Stuart Smalley is a guy who doesn't have a whole lot of skills. And he wakes up every morning and gives himself affirmations in the mirror. He says, I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And dog on it.
People like me. I think freelancers need to be a lot more like Stuart Smalley. because we are good enough. We are smart enough and dog on it. People do like us. Here's the proof. If you have a list of clients you've worked with in the. , those are people who have been willing to pay you money for your skills.
So you must be good enough and you must be smart enough because they're hiring you to do something that you can do that they can't. And if you have any clients who you enjoy getting phone calls from, and they say, Hey, Ron, how's it going when you call them? Well, then dog on it. People like. Embrace that we need to start by respecting ourselves and only then will other people respect us.
And our process here are a couple notes on that point. Remember that you're a freelancer. That means you are free to work with the people you want to a client is not and never will be your boss. Do not let them act. Hey guess what? It's your company. That means you make the rules. You can insist that people follow the rules, but they only will.
If you do as well. Finally, you can't force people to respect you. If you don't respect yourself.