I Made Over $4 Million on Upwork While Battling Kidney Disease. Here's How I'm Helping Patients Like Me Achieve Health and Financial Freedom. At a low point during his health struggles, Sam Bazzi resolved to give back in a big way.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation Sam Bazzi, a long-time freelancer who's made more than $4 million on Upwork . After a battle with kidney disease, Bazzi started the nonprofit If Sam Can Do It, an organization dedicated to educating people about kidney disease and teaching kidney patients the skills necessary to find part-time work. The story has been edited for length and clarity.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of If Sam Can Do It}

I've been freelancing my whole life. I started off back in the day on Craigslist. In the mid-to-late 1990s, I would go on Craigslist and message every single person who put up any post related to internet marketing or creating a website and so forth. Some other platforms began to pop up, like RentACoder, but they're no longer around. Eventually, I started my own agency, and that went well, but even as I built that, I continued to freelance.