Are you free
When you are asked what you like most about owning your business, the majority of business owners put “freedom” at the top of the list. You might describe it in a number of ways – working for myself, being my own boss, making my own hours, but it all leads to the same outcome – freedom.
When you are asked what you dislike most about owning your business, the answer is usually about workload or the weight of responsibility, long hours, too much risk, too many tasks, an inability to balance work with personal life and too much stress.
So how do these dislikes lead to freedom? Are you contradicting yourself? Is the vision that by living in your business you are actually free? What does freedom mean then to a business owner?
Your employees will never understand or fully appreciate you and your business. When you are ready to sell your business, non business owners will often say “I have sold my house, it must be just like that?”
Hardly!! Unless you built your house one room at a time over many years – it is nothing like selling a house. To compare a house to a business would mean you designed the house yourself, dug the foundations, poured the concrete, grew the trees to make the wood for the frame, cut the wood, erected the frame etc.
Undertaking all these tasks is what it is like to build a business. If you started it from scratch , you would have worked hard to get your first customers; designed the products and services you would offer; hired the employees; made all the decisions on the direction of the business; been responsible for the polices….nearly everything has been attended to personally by you and has your stamp on it.
Therefore business owners do not equate freedom with the high level of work required. If anything you believe it is your right to work as hard as you want. When you were in a job, it meant a lack of freedom, as someone else controlled your level of work and limited your earning potential.
Many businesses reach the their ultimate goal by starting the business from the family table at home to no longer being required in the business as it manages itself. But when a business owner reaches this level, you know what they usually do – start another business and work hard again.
Therefore freedom in business is not defined by how hard you work. Each business owner has made the decision to trade in their job of security and normality for this type of freedom.
Freedom to a business owner is to act. To act is to do something, take action, take steps, proceed, be active, perform, operate, work, discharge duty and accomplish. To accomplish your goal for your business is freedom to you and all the hard work makes it worth the effort to achieve it.