Summary: "While we all hope to choose recreation we enjoy, most have forgotten that once upon a time, we made the same proactive choices about work." You Don't Want a Job, page 38 Author, blogger, website designer, American nomad and frequent Actionable guest writer, Joel D Canfield has designed a truly unique life for himself. Travelling North America with his family for the last two years, Joel creates an income by designing websites, writing and selling books, and doing the occasional spot of coaching. In his most recent book You Don't Want a Job, Joel is on a mission to convince you that the age of the job is dead... and that what's taken its place is a glorious world of freedom. Early in You Don't Want a Job, Joel makes an important point of which I want to make sure we're all aware. "Self employed doesn't always mean entrepreneur" (page 5). Self employment is the all-encompassing bucket into which we pour entrepreneurship, small business owners, freelancing and "portfolio employees". Some distinctions: Entrepreneurs are people who build businesses; entities that can eventually operate without their involvement. Small Business Owners run businesses - with staff, overhead, etc. - but the business relies upon their ongoing involvement. Freelancers have a particular skill or set of skills that they "sell" on a project by project basis. Portfolio Employees maintain long term contracts/relationships with multiple clients. In many ways they act as employees would, with ongoing responsibilities, they just do it for multiple companies at once. None of these four - entrepreneurs, small business owners, freelancers or portfolio managers - ultimately rely on a single boss, a single client, to determine if they deserve a raise, or what projects they should be working on. It's the freedom of choice that unifies these self-employed individuals. Golden Egg Choice, Choice Everywhere "Let me be emphatic: when you are the boss, the owner, the final stop for the buck, every single thing you do is a choice. - You choose what tasks you perform. - You choose the techniques to perform them. - You choose when you do them. - You choose who you do them for, and with." You Don't Want a Job, page 40 In his brilliant book, Drive, best-selling author Dan Pink talks about the "4 T's" of internal motivation, and the important role having autonomy over them plays in motivating employees in the 21st century. Those 4 T's are: Task, Technique, Time and Team. Basically, Dan says that the more control an individual has over these four components of work, the happier and more motivated they will be to complete that work with excellence. When you're self-employed (and this includes all four classifications outlined in the intro), you have absolute control over these four aspects of virtually everything you do. Which is to say that in many cases you actually get to make the call on what you do, how you do it, when and with whom. And in the case where you're engaged in activities where someone else is calling the shots on some/all of these aspects, you still have the freedom to choose whether you actually engage in the project at all. Sometimes sacrificing control over a certain area makes sense, simply because you really want to be a part of a particular project. Clients will impose deadlines that force an all-nighter. Clients will insist you work with a certain strategic partner or internal staff member. But as a self-employed individual, you truly have the final say on whether you work on something or not. Let's explore some of the ramifications of that power. GEM # 1 With Great Power... "The tasks you choose to perform, the product or service you create, must provide something people want and are willing to pay for. Otherwise, you have a hobby, not a business." You Don't Want a Job, page 43 "With great power comes great responsibility." --Uncle Ben, Spiderman
