Flex Some Muscle to Make the Most of Your Leadership Freedoms

It’s been said that you never truly work hard at a job until you start working for yourself. Stir up your courage and start your own company, and not only can you flex your creative leadership muscle, you can also spend lots of hours each day doing what you love. 

As reported in the New York Times’ September 16, 2009 “The Self-Employed Are the Happiest” article, creative business owners, professionals and managers/executives responded with the highest positive marks to Gallup-Healthway’s Well-Being Index survey, with business owners scoring highest of the three groups. In short, when it comes to work, creative business leaders are happiest of other occupational groups.  

Self-Employed Professionals Happiness with Their Work

One reason for self-employed professionals’ happiness with their work may rest in the fact that many self-employed people (like you) “choose” the careers they work in – and – the individual projects and work assignments they complete. For example, if you’re a self-employed freelance writer you may bid on jobs or negotiate pay rates with prospective, as well as current, clients. Sure. You won’t receive a severance check or unemployment compensation should a client release you, regardless of the numbers of years you worked for the client. And generally if you’re injured on the job, you’ll be responsible for associated medical care expenses. But you can also turn down low paying jobs, decrease the numbers of projects you take on so you can spend more time with your children and let clients know you’ll take on additional projects “after” you return from vacation. 

Additional benefits you can receive as a creative business leader include: 

• Fulfilling work at home jobs
• Starting and ending your home based business on your schedule
• Teaching your adult children how to run your home business, helping them gain valuable work experience
• Confidence to reach out to customers and clients directly
• Ability to recognize and understand human motivators
• Experience creating a business plan
• Real-life “know how” regarding starting a business, skills you can use to launch additional companies
• Opportunities to interview and hire talented staff and independent contractors 

Make the Most of Your Creative Business Freedoms

To make the most of your creative business freedoms, consider joining professional associations that support the industry your business operates in. Also take the time to familiarize yourself with the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) small business website, so you learn about tax deductions you can receive as a small business owner, deductions that may help you receive a tax refund.  

If you’re an entrepreneur who doesn’t have experience creating and tracking items like direct mail projects, line item budgets, press releases, customized business brochures, quarterly business reports or business proposals, think about reaching out to industry leaders who have years of experience performing the work, leaders like EconoSystems’ Anne Wenzel, the Small Business Administration, your local Chamber of Commerce or Startup America Partnership, a program designed for new business owners. 

Get into Spiral online at:  https://www.ebookit.com/books/0000000841/Spiral.html

Check out Long Walk Up online at:  https://www.ebookit.com/books/0000000531/Long-Walk-Up.html 

Sources:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/the-self-employed-are-the-happiest (New York Times: The Self-Employed are Happiest)

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98846,00.html (Internal Revenue Service: Self-Employment Tax)