Solopreneurship IS Personal Freedom

entrepreneurship-is-personal-freedom

I was on a Skype chat the other night, at about midnight. A few days before that I was Skyping at 5 a.m. with another colleague.

Sound crazy? Maybe it is. But it’s the backstory behind being an entrepreneur.

To be honest, I live a 24 hour day. While I don’t live for talking with clients and colleagues in the wee hours, I do it. You know why? Because portable work (online work, remote work) gives me a lifestyle that I love. I’ve spent the past year living in my RV, six months of that traveling around the country. I could manage my work and my personal life as I wanted and in ways that worked best for everything I needed to get done.

Some of my best writing time is in the evening and at night (and sometimes Saturday mornings) when it’s super quiet. Also, customers like fast answers at odd hours.

My weird schedule enables me to go out for a run in the early morning, while everyone else is getting ready for work.

Even though I am never really off duty, I feel like I’m getting the better part of the deal.

Millions of people are already working remotely (whether in jobs or in their own businesses). In June 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report stating, in part, that “23 percent of employed persons [in the U.S.] did some or all of their work at home.”

That figure is up from 19 percent in 2003. While not a huge jump, the number of people working from home is on the rise. And those are employees, not business owners.

Fast Company wrote a great article about “the new rules of work” and it’s spot on.

The lines between work hours and personal time have blurred. The requirement at a job to think like a solopreneur is on the rise. You can see the language in job ads requiring that applicants, “Bring your solopreneurial spirit to our growing team.”

Solopreneurial spirit is really about working until the job is done, taking care of a multitude of different tasks, and going all in until you succeed.

The payoff for these endless hours of work at a job, is more job with no promise of security. Ever been laid off?

The payoff for endless hours of work to a solopreneur is freedom.

With the lines between job duties and running your own business getting fuzzy, it’s easier than ever for people to start a business rather than to work at a job.

Freedom to a solopreneur might not look like sleeping until noon, spending time on the beach every day, or endless play with the kids… yet. It often means long hours of work, for now. The personal freedom happens when the solopreneur achieves what she set out to do. For some, less work is built into the long range goals. For others, it’s income.

The great part about solopreneurship is that each person decides for himself what he wants. There aren’t many jobs that feature this sort of personal freedom!

In January of this year we started featuring a small selection of successful SBI! owners, publishing interviews and highlighting their successes. Not a one of them put on the gloss. Building a business is work! I can’t tell you how exciting it is, though, when one of our SBI! owners writes and shares that he’s doubled his income and is working half the time in his own business than he used to work at his job.

We’d love to invite you to join our conversation about solopreneurship, #SiteSellPresents. All through the month of July, on Mondays at noon eastern (GTM-4) we’ll host a Google Hangout on Air (HOA) with successful online solopreneurs. These informational and motivational visits will certainly help to clarify your solopreneurial aspirations. Join us live and you can ask questions! It will be great to see you there!

To sign up for the HOAs, go to this blog post and click on the event link below each graphic.

Are you ready to become a Solopreneur? Begin your journey today!

Personal Freedom Series:

Amy Biddle
Amy Biddle is Director of the Advisor Team for SiteSell. Amy lives in and works in a small RV, and explores marketing frontiers as well as the frontiers in the lower 48 states of the US.
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