Paolo, why does it frustrate you when you hear a freelancer asking for a minimum income guarantee?

Oh, man, yeah—I get fired up when I hear freelancers asking for a minimum income guarantee, and here’s why: it’s the wrong mindset for someone who’s trying to live on their own terms. When you go down the freelancing path, you’re stepping into the world of autonomy, independence, and creativity. It’s about breaking away from the traditional structures, about rejecting the idea that your income should be tied to a steady paycheck or some kind of guaranteed safety net. When freelancers ask for a minimum income guarantee, it feels like they’re clinging to the old system that they were trying to escape in the first place.

Let me break it down. Freelancing, at its core, is about freedom—freedom to control your own time, choose your projects, set your prices, and be in charge of your destiny. But with that freedom comes responsibility and risk. You can’t have one without the other. When you ask for a minimum income guarantee, you’re essentially saying, “I want the freedom, but I also want the safety net that comes from a traditional job.” That doesn’t add up. Freedom means being able to ride the highs and the lows, to build something for yourself without depending on a company, a boss, or a government to ensure you’re always earning a baseline amount.

Freelancers shouldn’t be asking for a guarantee—they should be creating their own value. If you’re good at what you do, if you’re delivering real results, if you’re positioning yourself correctly in the market, you’ll create opportunities that generate income. The market will pay for value, expertise, and results, not for time or existence. When you request a minimum income, you’re putting yourself back in that mindset of being a cog in the machine, where your income is disconnected from your output and impact.

And look, I get it. Freelancing isn’t easy. There are tough months, there are dry spells, and the uncertainty can be overwhelming. But that’s the game. That’s the trade-off for being in control of your time, your projects, and your career. Instead of asking for a guarantee, freelancers should be focusing on diversifying their income streams, building their networks, improving their skills, and offering value that makes them indispensable. Earn your freedom, don’t ask for it to be handed to you.

The moment you ask for a minimum income guarantee, you’re giving up that entrepreneurial mindset. You’re signaling that you don’t want to play in the same arena as the real game-changers—the ones who are out there creating, innovating, taking risks, and reaping the rewards. The beauty of freelancing is that you can scale your value, that you can charge what you’re worth, that you can work on things that matter to you. But if you start asking for safety nets, you’re limiting your potential and basically saying, “I don’t trust myself to make it.”

Here’s the thing: security isn’t real. Even in traditional jobs, what you think is secure can disappear in a flash—a company goes under, a job gets outsourced, an industry gets disrupted. Freelancers already understand this reality, which is why they chose the path of independence in the first place. So, why go back to asking for guarantees?

Instead of chasing a minimum income, create maximum value. Position yourself in a way that clients see you as an investment, not an expense. Build your personal brand so strong that your name alone commands trust and attracts opportunities. That’s where your focus should be, not on some illusion of security.

So yeah, it frustrates me because it feels like a step backward. Freelancers have the chance to build something real, to shape their careers with their own hands, and to live outside the constraints of the 9-to-5 grind. Asking for a guarantee takes all that potential and puts it back in a box. And that’s not what freelancing is about.