When I meet someone who is deciding to start a new business I always ask the entrepreneur: Why? Why would you do this?
I mean you work harder, for probably less wages at the start, you pay more tax than your friend with a job and you may even lose some friends. Some people will look at you as if you were getting above yourself! Only mad people want to be self-employed. Right?
But the word that always comes out in response to my why is that phrase made famous by Mel Gibson in the movie Braveheart: FREEDOM.
But what does freedom actually mean in terms of a business?
A few of the more interesting responses I have received are:
- ‘Nobody gets to tell me what to do’
- ‘You get to pick which 80 hours a week you work’
- ‘I get to decide who I take abuse from’
- ‘I have unlimited earning potential’
- ‘It means I don’t end up doing the same thing in the same place with the same people day after day’
So lets look at these in a bit more detail
- ‘Nobody gets to tell me what to do’
I think this is a falsehood. Your customer will always make demands of you. In lots of cases as a self employed person you’ve swapped one boss for a different boss every day. I think though that what people mean is that no one gets to tell me HOW I should do things and that is much more freeing.
- ‘You get to pick which 80 hours a week you work’
It’s funny because it is true. You can work whatever hours you choose and that can often mean you get particular quality time with people who are important to you. Some people do their best work before 8 am, some between 9pm and midnight. If your business allows that, even if you work hard you can work to suit yourself and that is real freedom.
- ‘I get to decide who I take abuse from’
Yes you get to choose who you work for and with and that feels good most of the time
- ‘I have unlimited earning potential’
Yes that is true but potential is one thing and realising the potential is something quite different. It means that you have to have an action plan and you have to follow it. How will you earn this unlimited amount? It’s not true anyway the actual earning potential of one person in today’s economy working flat out is probably not much more than €100,000 a year. I base that on 200 earning days a year at €500 a day or 286 days @ €350
- ‘It means I don’t end up doing the same thing in the same place with the same people day after day’
That is true but it has the disadvantage of no team support, no camaraderie, even loneliness and isolation.
So what is my point: Freedom, however you experience it, like everything in life comes at a price. That price is usually not financial and often the freedom you experience is paid for by other people.
So ask yourself:
- Am I prepared to pay that price?
- Are the people I love prepared to pay the price with me?
- In what currency will I pay? Time? Energy? Regret? Other emotional cost?
Insecurity? – Not knowing if there will be enough and the fear that can go with that. The absence from home that long hours can bring – missing that end of term school play, that first few steps of a child or whatever.
Freedom needs to be used and used wisely. Remember the business is here to serve your real life not to take it over. Make sure you don’t waste it. After all you only get one shot at this.