How Freelance Copywriting Nearly Broke My Back!

When I first became a freelance copywriter back in 2005, I was doing everything I possibly could to get clients and pay my bills.

If I had to work long hours, so be it. If I had to fly to seminars all over the country, so be it. I was in one of those “fight or flight” situations. “Flight” would have meant dusting off my resume and trying to get a job.

I chose to fight.

Of course, when you’re fighting a fight you’ve never fought before, you make some mistakes. You lower your guard. You take a few on the chin.

Here’s the weird part…

One of those punches that escaped my guard hit me…

Square in the Lower Back!

Even worse, I never saw it coming.

Obviously, as a first-time freelancer, I was trying to save any money I could… and, at the same time, make wise investments. This is what lead me to do things like buy a new computer… but make do with just one car.

The car wasn’t going to help me grow my business, but the computer was!

And that’s pretty much how I made my decisions. If it would grow my business (or I thought it would grow my business), I’d invest the money. But if it was an expense that was just to improve my lifestyle… I avoided it.

And so:

I happily invested thousands to fly to to marketing seminars happening all around the country, but became a “scrooge” when it came to investing in a proper work station and office chair.

You know what I did?

I worked at a card table… and sat in a cheap folding chair…

For Three Whole Years!

In fact, I worked there so long that you could see the carpet starting to become worn where my feet rested under the table.

Anyway, in hindsight, it was super stupid. Because after a couple years of sitting in that folding chair (made by Cosco, by the way), I began to have extreme lower-back pain.

At night when I’d lay down to go to sleep, I could feel the tension in my lower back. It actually hurt to lie down!

And if that wasn’t bad enough, even sitting down became a fresh experience in pain.

Of course, it took me a while to put two and two together. I just blamed my lower-back pain on stress… getting older… everything but the chair!

And that’s why I decided to visit a chiropractor.

Long story short, I paid him to be my chiropractor… and he paid me to be his copywriter. It was a win-win. He got new direct response space ads to run, and I got help for my back pain.

Gradually, the pain subsided, but it never went away entirely until I moved.

You see, when I moved, I rented a home that had some office furniture and an office chair included in the rent!

And the new office chair was actually pretty nice, especially compared to my hard folding chair.

It was about 6 months after the move that I realized, all of a sudden, that…

My Back Pain Had Vanished Entirely

I finally connected the dots and realized… “Man, am I an idiot! Sitting in a folding chair for 8+ hours a day is a really DUMB idea!”

Ever since that epiphany, I’ve been extra sensitive to my posture while I work. And while I haven’t ponied up $800 for a high-end office chair (like the Steelcase Think chair I’ve been eyeing), I have upgraded my chair and made everything more ergonomic.

So why do I tell you all this anyway?

One, it makes for a good story.

And two, I suspect there are a lot of work-from-home folks out there who are just like I was a few years ago: doing everything they can to make money — but in the process jacking up their lower back and causing a lot of unnecessary back pain!

If you’ve got lower back pain, and you suspect it might be “reversible” (as mine was), then I highly encourage you to check out The 7 Day Back Pain Cure by Jesse Cannone.

I know Jesse and I’ve talked to him. He’s a stand-up guy and he runs a good company (The Healthy Back Institute). Not to mention, the information he shares in The 7 Day Back Pain Cure could very well be the “prescription” you need to get rid of your back pain for good.

The best part: The 7 Day Back Pain Cure is free for now. All you pay is a small shipping fee, a portion of which goes to one of two charities (you get to choose).

If you’d rather not pay to get the print copy, try to exit the page and you’ll get a pop-up offer for the instantly downloadable PDF version. I actually paid for the print version, then went back to get the PDF version. It’s 195 pages in all, which is quite impressive.

Please note: This is my affiliate link, and I will get a small commission if you decide to purchase any of Jesse’s other products. As always, thanks for reading, and thanks for your support, which helps make my blogging possible.

Click Here to Get Your Free Copy of The 7 Day Back Pain Cure

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. If you’re working at a card table and sitting in a folding chair like I was, take it from me… you need to upgrade your work station asap! ;-)