Free Range Personality

10 common traits

When you meet as many free range humans as I do you get to see
that there are a few consistent themes. While background and
interests vary, there are certain attitudes to life, certain ways of
approaching roadblocks, and putting them together you could call
these a free range personality.
What this is and what this is not
Please use this as inspiration, proof that Free Rangers are regular
humans yet still create amazing lives. Missing one of these traits in
yourself is not a reason to give up: these are observations, not a
definitive list, not every free ranger has each trait and if some of these
have been laying dormant after years of career caging, they still can
be developed! In this sense, the word personality is used in a slightly
tongue in cheek way here as youll notice that a lot of these traits are
learnt rather than innate.
Use this cheat-sheet to identify the closet free ranger humans in your
life, and more importantly to nurture the free range tendencies within
yourself.

Marianne Cantwell www.free-range-humans.com

10 Common* Traits of Free Range Humans

*and by common I mean fabulous.

Read the below and rate how much you resonate with each:
1 = each that applies to you (ie: that resonates and you think thats
me, or it would be if this job would let me do that!).
= it is you inside but not manifested right now (maybe its been
squished by the world of work and you struggle to do it now).
0 = no, not really you.
1. Freedom urge.
Do you have a strong urge for freedom?
Freedom is central to free rangers. For example, once free range, the
people I interviewed for this book knew they could never work for a
boss again. Their need for freedom can be around time (the flexibility
to pop out for a coffee with a friend if you choose), location (maybe
not wanting to be trapped in one room all day), or in personal choices
(to choose what to do and when to do it).
Its not just freedom from the office. Its freedom from the idea that
you have to be anything other than you are. Freedom from spending
days trying to be someone youre not. Freedom from the usual way of
believing life has to be so darn hard. They always like to find another
way of doing things, without feeling held down.
Freedom can also mean freedom from debt; free rangers quite
consistently find the idea of debt an anathema (although interestingly
they were often heavy credit users, and sometimes bound to debt, in
their cubicle cage days!). Now debt feels like another constraint on
freedom and is something to be avoided.
0

Marianne Cantwell www.free-range-humans.com

2. Non-conformists (thoughtful ones)

We free rangers were always a bit different from other people. Several
people I spoke to myself included managed to get through entire
corporate careers without ever wearing a full suit. Others wore the suit
(metaphorically or otherwise!) but rebelled slightly in a tiny way, just
to keep their sense of self.
Free rangers dont rebel for the sake of it. A regular rebel will get a
tattoo at 15 just because Mum and Dad dont want him to; that person
is different just for the sake of it (which is almost as unthinking as
conforming for the sake of it). Free Rangers step back and look at the
world and decide on the best way. If that means following the norm,
fine, and if that means breaking the rules and doing things
unconventionally thats cool too.
They are interested in the best option, they always ask the why and
want to know the point of things (for them, for others, or whatever it
is they are interested in at the time). In that quest free rangers
consider a wide range of possibilities including things that others may
dismiss as being just not what we do around here hence the tag of
non-conformists.
At some stage in life most free rangers tried to fit into the mould and
often did a good job of looking like we fitted in. We might even have
pretended to ourselves that we did. But we always knew, deep down,
there was something different about us. We were always nonconformists who didnt see the point in rules.
0

Marianne Cantwell www.free-range-humans.com

3. High personal standards.

Free Rangers might start fast but we have very high standards; we
probably place greater expectations on ourselves than other people
would ask of us.
Everyone I interviewed had unusually high integrity around their brand
and business and cared intensely for their niche and tribe.
0

3. Flexible.
Free Rangers learn to always be looking at other possibilities: they are
adept at dancing with the changes. They learn from mistakes, and
they learn fast, adapt, switch course and above all keep going when
something goes wrong.
Being willing to say that doesnt work is so important. You have to be
ok to think you made a mistake, and grow from that. said one free
ranger. In short they are always up for seeing more than one way of
doing things and dont give up at the first hurdle.
0

4. Learn on the go.

One person I interviewed for this book said that in her early days she
spoke to as many people as possible to get information on what she
needed: theyd say have you got that certificate? and Id go sure
Im working on it then Id rush off and look it up online and apply for
it!
As she explained, I learnt by being willing to ask, but always said
yes before figuring out the how.. That was a big theme of free
rangers Ive met in and out of this book in a sense, fake it till you
make it (a phrase that came up more than once!) but more than that,
being wiling to learn on the fly.
0

Marianne Cantwell www.free-range-humans.com

5. Self belief (just enough of it)

Theres a myth that free rangers are naturally uber-confident beings,
but I think what makes them special is that they work through the
doubts, and keep going despite their fears, not because they have
none.
For example, all my interviewees (including me!) have a story of the
moment someone validated them that moment they got their first
review, when that expert said this is great work, when they got their
first article published and they remember that as the moment when
they knew they could make this work. Having someone outside me
and my friends saying what Im doing is good it was priceless, one
interviewee said.
That might seem like the opposite of self belief but heres the catch: in
all cases that moment came after launch. They did not wait for
validation before taking the first steps. They had to sit with the doubts
and launch and keep going to get to the place where they knew it was
all going to be ok.
If you wait for validation before even starting you will stay stuck no
one will validate an idea that is still just hatching. Which is why
committing to developing self belief to go past those first markers is
important
0

Marianne Cantwell www.free-range-humans.com

7. Up for self growth and learning.

Free Rangers are just lovely. Period. I had the nicest chats while
writing this book: no one said during an interview oh dont include
that, dont tell them Im really like that. Everything felt very open.
Yet, most people said they had to grow into that sort of confidence and
at the beginner stage kept feeling uncomfortable with sharing their
story and nervous about putting themselves out there. But they find
their stride when they start being authentic about who they are.
To live this lifestyle you have to have a real understanding of
yourself. Just taking on the business part is like putting on a jacket. If
you dont know who you are then it wont work. Connie Hozvicka
Free rangers tend to love learning and are naturally curious explorers:
at that includes learning about themselves and pushing their own
boundaries.
0

8. Internally referenced. Free rangers are smart and they know

their stuff but more importantly they are willing to listen to their
intuition. After years of being told what to do they have learned to look
internally for their next step rather than always asking for external
validation or following a formula.
As one interviewee said: I just do things that feel right for the
business. My gut tells me what my brain wont figure out.
0

Marianne Cantwell www.free-range-humans.com

6. Medium risk tolerance (for an outcome).

Free rangers are not high risk people no one in this book put their
house on the line for their business. But they are willing to start
something without an ironclad guarantee of superstardom. They tend
to see low to medium risk as a fun if scary adventure, but they view
high risk as another potential trap where you become caged into
having to make things work a particular way to a particular timeframe.
Margaret Heffernan, who studied women who left corporate jobs to
start their own highly successful ventures observed something that in
many ways applies to free rangers (male and female!). She says a
consistent and important quality that these people shared is that while
they took risks they had no intrinsic love of danger. They were not
adrenalin junkies. They wanted to get to safety as fast as possible and stay there. Their mantra could have been borrowed from the
adventure traveler, Robert Young Pelton: I am not afraid of danger; I
am afraid of living miserably.
0

9. Travellers.
An unusual one but its true: free rangers tend to love travel even if
they dont choose to do it as a lifestyle. My theory is that there is
something about the love of exploration and the rush of the new that
crosses over between travel and free ranging.
0

10. Seize the day.

Emma Reynolds (a free ranger you meet in this book) has carpe
diem (seize the day) tattooed on her foot. its what I say to myself
when I look in the mirror every morning. Lets carpe the f*ck out of
this diem.
How do you feel about doing that?
0

Marianne Cantwell www.free-range-humans.com

What varies (Im different!)

Before we move to the scoring, here are a few traits that people
assume you must have (in one form or the other) in order to be your
own boss, but which in reality, Ive found vary wildly between
individual free range humans. Im including this to show you this isnt
about fitting a single mould individual free rangers may have must of
the above in common but they are also very different:
-

Organization: some are highly organized, some not

Extroversion/introversion: a real mix of both personality types

show up in the free range world. Your tendency either way will
predict how you choose to run your business but either works.

Age: I have profiled people from their mid 20s to their mid 60s.
Im sure I could have found others on either side of that too.
When you dont have to apply for a job any more, with the
potential discrimination that entails, age is no longer a barrier.

Professional and educational background: there is an assumption

you must have a business background but most people I have
met do not.
o We have ex-consultants, ex-teachers, ex-city workers, exlawyers, ex-HR execs, ex-translators, ex-IT professionals,
ex-recruiters, ex-marketing executives, ex-retail workers,
ex-researchers and the list could continue.
More to the point, until writing this book I couldnt have
told you the professions of my clients: when I tell someone
a story of someone who left to start their free range
business, they often ask and what did that person do
before? and I have to search hard for an answer (and
often go back to check!). Why? This is a conscious choice:
the world might see you as a Lawyer or a Teacher or a PR
Exec, and yes you can very well choose to bring any or all
of that experience into your business but I want that to be
your choice. I dont view you as what you were (enough
people do that already), I am more interested in what you
will become; thats where true freedom is creation.

Remember, not every free ranger looks the same and you are going to
have something to add to the mix.

Marianne Cantwell www.free-range-humans.com

How did you score out of 10?

7.5-10: Oh hello! What are you waiting for, Free Ranger? Get out
there, youre ready to rock. Of course we can all benefit from building
our free range muscle: which of the above would you most like to
develop? Do a mini free range project around that topic, to help you
develop your free range muscle and really make this happen.
4-7: Youre a free range human in a career-cage body! You are a
naturally uncaged human. Work through this book and get confidence
from other free range humans. Right now you would benefit from
practicing free range thinking, and surrounding yourself with words
and people who think like this, to make this happen so you can shine
at the end.
1-3: The free range approach might feel like a bit of a stretch right
now. Are you up for everything else weve been talking about in the
book? This is your choice and if you are, then were going to make this
work. Keep at it, work through every single exercise majoring on the
ones about taking action and getting out of that comfort zone (those
are the ones that will feel the most uncomfortable right now).

Marianne Cantwell www.free-range-humans.com