Thursday 8 August 2013

2am Grafting



No one ever said that being self employed was going to be easy.

Anyone who knows me would know that it would be a massive disappointment to me if it was.

But it really is tough. Especially if you're as impatient as I am.

Half the time I'm thinking "yeah, you know, everything's going fine, I'm getting bookings, it's all good" the 10 minutes later I see someone's facebook post about something unrelated generally and start panicking about whether it's all worth it, whether it's going to pay off. And no, I don't mean financially.

Similar situation, my daughter Megan is a smashing model. She's already been very successful and continues to be. Every now and again though she'll have a meltdown to the tune of "I'm never going to make it, I'm a rubbish model, where is my life going" and I'm so brilliant at dishing out the advice to get her back in the zone and things in perspective.

To do this I tell her a 2nd hand anecdote.

Before I started the business, I went on all the appropriate business start up courses and met some amazing people. One of the most inspirational (to me) was a guy from a really reputable marketing company in Cardiff.

He's been in the business for many, many years and has successfully built the business and his reputation up to the level that he often gets flown to Dubai and other destinations to give talks/lectures about marketing.

While this guy is not shy and perfectly at ease in front of  roomful of inexperienced entrepreneurs, when he has a "big gig" to do, he starts to doubt himself. He doubts whether he knows enough, has enough experience or indeed has any place delivering the marketing sermon at all.

I remember wisely making the point that if one ever got to the stage where that never happened then one has either reached marketing enlightenment or one has a severe case of "I am the law" syndrome a la Michael Jackson. Not a good look.

What I'm getting at is that it's as much of an emotional journey as anything else. It's really tough to see other sole traders I know busting a gut to get where they want to be (one in particular at the moment) and wishing the virtue of patience and trust on them as well as myself. YOU ARE AWESOME, IT WILL HAPPEN.

I look at others I know who have made it. Yes I'm insanely jealous but I also know that 1: they deserve it because they're lovely 2: It took just as much hard work as I'm/we're putting in to get to that place and 3: they weren't afraid to service their short term income needs at the beginning so as to give them the opportunity to build and create that all important reputation and profile. Wow is it paying off for them, rightly so.

There are, however, some distinct perks to being self employed. Being right here, right now (02:26)  is one of them. I choose when I work so if I want to work at 2am because I can't sleep and have a wee dram, then so be it. If I choose to stay in bed a bit later in the morning because I've been up all night working; doesn't matter. Already done what I wanted to do tomorrow morning.

Alls I'm saying is, self employment isn't for everyone. It's harder than I thought but overwhelmingly much more rewarding than I dared to hope.

 It will happen. I TRUST YOU UNIVERSE!