If You Plan Right, Self-Employment Means Flexibility

I got the opportunity to work from Mexico City before.  My wife ran a training program for her company and she would get these extended business trips to different locations.  We got to spend 5 weeks in Mexico, a week in Washington, DC and a few others.

A real positive about working for someone else is consistent, reliable income.  A benefit of a business like mine where I have organized things to give me flexibility is I can now work from anywhere.  As I run the business better and smarter, my income potential is greatly increased.  Since I'm the one that sets my priorities, I get to build into it what I want most for my family and me.

Our kids are out of college. As my wife and I like to say, "Everyone's off the payroll."  We really enjoy traveling together.  We have friends in locations across the world.  We like visiting with friend, exploring and learning about all these places.

I know if I was working a corporate job, I would NOT have been able to spend the time I spent in Mexico.  I mean I was working, but I was working from where I wanted to work.  The same is true about our trip to DC.    As long as I have a good Internet connection, I'm in business.  A few years back, we visited friends in Milan, Italy and I did the same thing.  I put in a few hours every morning to keep things moving back at home and in the afternoon and evening we were in beautiful Italy.

My daughter's entrepreneurship class asked me to speak to them.  I told them running your own business has the potential to give you flexibility.  My next goals is to further reduce my business' dependency on me.   Admittedly, running my own business has been the hardest thing I have ever done.  I work longer hours today than I have ever worked.  Customer demands are not always easy to satisfy.

It does open up the possibility of a lot of freedom.

The key is, and that's my top priority now, to focus on 100% replacing myself in the business.  I don't have any immediate plans to replace myself as the sales and marketing machine for the business.  I plan to stay involved in defining customer solutions.  However, everything else is open game.  I want to make it so no one needs me for production work, delivery of solutions to clients and all the administrative work.

I still have a long way to go, but I'm starting to see glimpses of that freedom .  I can see making considerable strides this year.

Do me a favor and share with me your struggles running your own business.  Let me know the steps you've taken to get out of your own way so your business isn't so totally dependent on you.