10 Smart Moves & 10 Mistakes I Made
(Going Solo)
Learn from my experience before you have to learn everything the hard way.
Going solo can give you more control over your work, your income and your future.
But it also changes where the risk sits.
After more than 30 years moving between employment, contracting, consulting and running businesses, I’ve made decisions that worked exceptionally well and others I would approach very differently if I had my time again.
10 Smart Moves & 10 Mistakes I Made brings those lessons together into a practical short course designed to help you make your own move with greater clarity.
Not because my path should become yours.
Because understanding what worked, what didn’t, and why can help you make better decisions about your own.
Going Solo Isn’t Just a Career Change
It’s a change in how you think about work.
As an employee, much of the commercial machinery around you is provided by someone else.
When you go solo, you gradually become responsible for more of it yourself.
Finding work. Pricing yourself. Managing clients. Building relationships. Maintaining a pipeline. Managing uncertainty. Protecting your reputation. Deciding when to say yes — and when to walk away.
That’s why going solo isn’t simply about being good at what you do.
You also need to become good at creating the conditions that allow you to keep doing it.
Risk does not disappear. It moves.
The objective isn’t to eliminate risk.
It’s to understand it, prepare for it and decide which risks you’re willing to own.
What I Wish I’d Known Earlier
Some of my best decisions weren’t particularly dramatic.
- Building relationships before I needed them.
- Understanding my value.
- Creating options.
- Maintaining my reputation.
- Learning to think commercially.
- Being prepared to change direction.
And some of my mistakes looked perfectly reasonable at the time.
Becoming too dependent on one client.
Allowing today’s workload to replace tomorrow’s pipeline.
Confusing being busy with building a business.
Underestimating the importance of positioning.
Waiting too long to recognise when something needed to change.
These are rarely catastrophic mistakes.
They’re usually small decisions that compound over time.
This course is designed to help you recognise them earlier.
The STAY → PREPARE → MOVE Framework
The Solo Move isn’t based on the idea that everyone should quit their job.
Quite the opposite.
Sometimes the smartest decision is to STAY.
Sometimes it’s time to PREPARE.
And sometimes you’re ready to MOVE.
The important thing is understanding which one is right for you and why.
STAY
Your current position may still be giving you valuable experience, relationships, financial stability or opportunities.
Staying can be a deliberate strategy.
PREPARE
You may know you want something different without being ready to make the move today.
This is where you build capability, relationships, financial runway, positioning and options.
MOVE
Eventually, the balance can change.
The opportunity, preparation and your appetite for risk may align.
That’s when moving becomes a considered decision rather than an emotional reaction.
The Solo Move isn’t about escaping employment. It’s about creating choice.
What You’ll Learn
The course takes you through seven practical modules combining lessons from the decisions I got right with lessons from the ones I didn’t.
Module 1: Before You Make the Move
Understand what actually changes when you move from employee to independent professional.
You’ll explore:
- Why going solo is more than changing how you’re paid
- The difference between freedom and control
- Where risk moves when you leave employment
- How to think about STAY, PREPARE and MOVE
Module 2: 10 Smart Things I Did
Not every good decision was planned.
Some became obvious only with hindsight.
We’ll look at the choices that helped create opportunities, resilience and longevity, including:
- Building relationships before I needed them
- Protecting reputation and credibility
- Creating options rather than relying on one pathway
- Thinking beyond the immediate piece of work
The objective isn’t to copy my decisions.
It’s to recognise the principles behind them and consider how they apply to you.
Module 3: 10 Mistakes I Made
Mistakes are often more useful than success stories because they reveal where assumptions break down.
We’ll explore lessons around:
- Client dependency
- Pricing and positioning
- Pipeline and business development
- Commercial thinking
- Recognising when something needs to change
These aren’t presented as regrets.
They’re lessons I would rather you recognise before you have to pay for them yourself.
Module 4: Patterns Behind the Lessons
Individual decisions matter.
Patterns matter more.
You’ll step back from the 20 lessons and identify the recurring themes behind them including relationships, reputation, optionality, commercial awareness and adaptability.
Module 5: Your Own Smart Moves and Mistakes
This is where the course becomes about you.
You’ll reflect on your own career and identify:
- Decisions that have created opportunities
- Patterns that may be holding you back
- Strengths you can carry into independent work
- Lessons you don’t want to repeat
Your previous experience isn’t baggage.
It’s evidence.
Module 6: Your STAY → PREPARE → MOVE Position
Rather than asking “Should I quit my job?”, you’ll consider a much more useful question:
“What should I be doing next?”
You’ll use the lessons from the course to think about whether your current priority should be to STAY, PREPARE or MOVE.
Module 7: What Happens Next?
Going solo isn’t one decision.
It’s a sequence of decisions.
You’ll finish by identifying practical next steps and the areas you may need to investigate further before increasing your commitment or exposure.
What You’ll Walk Away With
By the end of the course, you should have a clearer understanding of:
- What actually changes when you go solo
- Where the biggest risks and opportunities may sit
- Which lessons from my experience are relevant to you
- Your own recurring career patterns
- Whether you’re currently in STAY, PREPARE or MOVE
- What deserves your attention next
You won’t leave with someone else’s formula for success.
You’ll leave with better questions to help you make your own decisions.
Tools & Resources Included
Your enrolment includes:
- 7 practical learning modules
- 10 Smart Moves + 10 Mistakes explored in context
- Participant Handbook
- Reflection activities and practical prompts
- Knowledge and reflection quiz
Everything is designed to help you move from simply consuming information to applying the lessons to your own situation.
Who Is This Course For?
This course is designed for experienced professionals who are:
- Thinking about contracting or consulting
- Considering leaving employment but aren’t sure when
- Already contracting and questioning their next move
- Looking for greater control over their career
- Trying to understand the commercial realities of independent work
- Interested in learning from someone who has actually made the transition
You don’t need to have decided to leave your job.
In fact, this course may help you decide that now isn’t the right time.
That’s still a valuable decision.
This Course Is NOT About Quitting Your Job!
There is plenty of advice telling people to:
Take the leap.
Follow your passion.
Be your own boss.
That’s not what The Solo Move is about.
Going solo can be incredibly rewarding.
It can also expose weaknesses that employment previously absorbed for you.
The goal is not to convince you to leave.
The goal is to help you understand what you’re moving towards, what you’re moving away from, and what you need to prepare for in between.
One Better Decision Can Pay for the Course
- A pricing decision.
- A client you shouldn’t become dependent on.
- A relationship you start building earlier.
- A pipeline you don’t neglect.
- A resignation you delay for six months while you prepare properly.
- A move you realise you’re finally ready to make.
- Any one of those decisions can be worth considerably more than the price of this course.
- You’re not buying my answers.
You’re using my experience to improve your decisions.
Where To Go Next?
The lessons come first. Then you assess your position.
10 Smart Moves & 10 Mistakes I Made gives you the benefit of hindsight the decisions, patterns and lessons I’ve accumulated from making The Solo Move myself.
The next step is to turn the lens onto you.
The Risk & Readiness Lab
The Risk & Readiness Lab helps you examine your own position more deliberately — your readiness, exposure, assumptions and the risks you may need to manage before making your next move.
This course gives you the lessons.
The Risk & Readiness Lab helps you apply them to your situation.
EXPLORE THE RISK & READINESS LAB
You Don’t Have to Make The Solo Move Today.
But you can start making better decisions about it today.
STAY. PREPARE. MOVE.
The choice is yours.