*This message is for those NOT yet self-employed
The only reason you are even reading this is because
you have thought about being self-employed. The primary reason you haven't taken steps to make it happen is
you don't have an idea in front of you that you are confident in.
From a lifetime of entrepreneurship I know that there is less than a 5% chance you ever will.
Unless you take a definitive step. And I'm going to tell you one you can do now, in just a few minutes...that costs nothing but a little fear.
Otherwise, you are best off just to make peace with employeedom. That's not a jab at all. I've been saying for a couple years that I want to play guitar. Ultimately I don't know that I'll ever make it a priority. I adore music, but I have so many interests...that lately I've toned down. Hey, my son now plays...that may be good enough for me.
However, not playing guitar doesn't leave me in any pain. If living life in a j-o-b is painful enough, lacking enough and you know there is something better...
Do something for once.
Write down a bad idea. I work with folks everyday to help them find and develop ideas, but I'm liberally borrowing this from Seth Godin's new book Linchpin. That was one strategy he stated that I think is wonderful. Don't get hung up on trying to think up a good idea for self-employment. Relax and just write down some
bad ideas.
Some of you can spit out a list of ideas you have. So...go at it. Write down 10...or 100.
Some of you don't have anything that jumps to mind. But
I bet you've had one idea on how to improve upon something. Maybe something in your work place. Or you read about someone offering a service that you know you could do well, even though you've discounted yourself doing it.
Write it down.
Just that exercise alone is helpful. It's a trigger that will release some other factions of your psyche and you'll find another idea or relevant thought fall out of your mind and into your conscious later today or tonight, or in the morning.
Now...if you're even moderately serious about doing something regarding self-employment...then a better step is to
share the idea or ideas. With whom you might ask? Well, probably not with your spouse or coworkers. Share with someone you trust and respect that isn't intrinsically connected with you. Someone who is successfully self-employed would be best. Note I said...successfully. Someone who is doing it and flourishing.
Or, maybe some good friends.
If you are MORE than moderately serious, then share your idea(s) here.
Post them below. If public posting isn't your thing, I posted a quickie Google form at the bottom of this post that will only come to me. While I don't promise a personal consultation for all submissions, I will reply with a bullet point or two of relevant feedback.
Cause here is the deal: I'm surely not saying that there will be total validity in your idea.
Not at all. But I guarantee that there will be a viable ingredient in there. I've never heard an idea yet that didn't have at least a hint of relevance. Put that ingredient in the right hands and they'll pull out another ingredient, then another...until there is a viable recipe.
This morning I sat down to my email to see another registration for our
Mar. 12-14 "Idea Discovery Camp" up here in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Tammy from Texas is a full time employee with a utility company who is wide open seeking an idea. She'll be doing the exercise above as prework. Her registration makes her status: 100% serious.
Fight the pull to do...nothing. Think for a minute. Write something down. And if you are serious at all...share it.
Agent K Miller
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