You say you’re a consultant and yet link to a definition of a sole contractor.
Again, I’m talking about consulting, not contracting. Those are different. If you don’t know the difference then here’s a definition of a consultant https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/consultant
Now, to a layman, these may look identical. To a consultant, these are vastly different things.
You are not paid on output, you are paid on outcome.
Example: I can spend 10 days consulting a startup board on how to do something and make $50,000.
I can spend 10 days coding for client X and make $5,000 tops as a contractor.
You're misunderstanding me. I'm saying it is extremely rare for a consultant to earn multiple millions a year. On the cases it is possible, they are going to be very niche individuals not going into a company via Deloitte etc but as themselves.
Edit: Maybe you're unaware of the term https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/sole-contractor, I was talking about a single person consulting, not a contract developer or whatever