I have been very fortunate in attaining a lot of freedom in my life. Freedom especially to choose how I spend my time and it has afforded me with what in my eyes is a dream lifestyle. At first what made this possible was unintentional, but came about as result of buying a business while being employed in another.
Since I did not want to give up my day job and the security of the paycheck of that day job and since the business I bought, was purchased 100% with borrowed money, I did not want to burden the financials of my newly acquired business further by drawing a salary from there, it meant that I had to have other people in place to handle the daily operations of the business while I was tending to my job. You see, while the owner of the company in which I was hired (at the time of purchase of the business I had advanced to the CEO position) it was naturally inherent, that I was not to be paid a salary for the CEO position if I spent my working days engaged in other business than the one I got my pay for. In other words my involvement in my own newly acquired business would have to be left for evenings and weekends (and holidays) and since most of the business’s customers interacted during normal business hours like most other businesses, then somebody else would have to handle the daily interactions.
The cool thing about this was that I inadvertently set myself up in a fashion where I became (close to) obsolete. Now, while that may sound horrible in many people’s ears, then think about it for a moment. Imagine if you could own a business (or several for that matter) and that the business would bring you great results, while at the same time the business had no need or certainly nor requirement from you to be in the business, well, wouldn’t you rather want this so your time could be freed up to explore further or new opportunities? Don’t get me wrong, I understand we all have a need to feel important to some degree and we probably all want to feel that our contribution towards something matters. In the words of one of my mentors, We All Want To Matter. But it is probably also the case, that if you managed to get to the point of acquiring a business, then you are probably also at a point in which you can contribute and matter without necessarily having to engage yourself full time in the operational side of the business. Instead you can promote yourself to the Chairman of the company and contribute to the company with your strategies, visions and experience and help direct the business on its path towards your goals for same. Or perhaps you can actually contribute on an even greater scale elsewhere, perhaps in charitable efforts.
Fact of the matter is, that you more than likely will be needed to some extend if you wish to obtain the right results and especially if you do have a vision for where you want to take the business. But the difference truly is that you can be in a place where you can work on the business rather than in the business. To me working on the business in so much more fun than working in the business, pretty much regardless of what the business is. And like I said, this set up can put your in a possible position of more freedom than you could ever have by working in the business.
I know what I prefer. Do You?
I have been invited to another book collaboration. This time it is with the famous multi-bestselling author Robert G. Allen, famed for highly successful real estate business, most notably utilizing no-money down purchases of real estate, his many books on same and on multiple streams of income, his teachings and his infopreneurship. Along with Robert G. Allen and me will be a number of my Mastermind colleagues who are all successful entrepreneurs, but from very varied backgrounds and businesses. The book is destined to be very interesting and will probably give us all some great insights that we can learn from. The book is due out in the fall of this year, but you can get a little preview of the topic on which I believe myself to contribute with by reading this article: Millions On Automation
