Going It Alone

Don’t be afraid. You can do it.

I believe that if more people had the right support and confidence, they’d work for themselves. Like many other areas of life, you don’t know what you’re missing if you’ve never tried it. Remember trying a food when you were young that you thought or had heard was really gross? And then finally tasting it, realizing it was super yummy and wondering why you had resistance or had waited so long to try it? In my experience, the switch to working for yourself has all the same characteristics. The rewards are incalculable and, quite honestly, I’m the best boss I’ve ever had.

In a way it is like sex. You didn’t need someone to show you how—you just kinda “knew” what to do. Am I right? Virgin entrepreneurs just need to trust their instincts and go with what they know. What are your dreams? How can you start transferring those dreams into reality? Make a plan.

There are vast libraries of books about starting your own business. But I am going to attempt to boil it down here to three things that I believe are important for successful self-employment. Granted, self-employment is not for everyone, but why keep working for someone else when that someone else could be you? Again, you’ll be the best boss you ever had.

1)    Do what you love. I know this is a completely cliché statement. But it is critical when it comes to working for yourself. And I don’t mean the particular activity needs to be your love, but the commitment required to complete your “activity” should be. For example, I may love to organize, schedule, and keep 1,000 irons in the fire (multitasking queen or king), and that may translate to a dry-cleaning business. That said, I would not necessarily be the one doing all the dry cleaning, just organizing it. Sometimes doing what you love means you’re handling one aspect of the business, while other aspects are hired or contracted out.

2)    Exude self confidence. If you don’t think you can do it, you can’t (for elaboration, see comments by Lisis). You will succeed in failing. The most earnest of friends will shoot you down. I’ll bet you on it. Try to be realistic, take peoples’ ideas into account, and then figure out a way around their doubts. Use criticism to prepare contingency plans. Use negativity in your favor to build a better business. When I had my first business, most of the people I knew thought I’d never be successful because the markets were saturated. I built contingency plans and worked around failure. So can you. But, you must have the confidence that you can do this before you even start. I can’t emphasize this enough.

3)    Accept the ups and downs. Guaranteed, there will be severe ups and downs. Live like you know this will happen. In every instance where things began to head downhill for my business, it took a dose of sweating for things to pick up, but they always did. I think that bit of sweat always made me initiate an improvement or correction, and it always made my business better. Without that pressure or downturn, there was not a strong push to continue evolving. (Remember Darwin? Same goes for business). See challenges as opportunity to better your business, not as an excuse to quit. Applying evolutionary principles, again, it was Darwin that said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

I’ll be posting much more about entrepreneurship, so stay tuned. In the mean time, feel free to drop me an email if you have questions or need support. You’ll love being you own boss and I’d love to help you get there.

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