Happy “freedom” month to our US, French and Canadian members. Given the number of international folks who read this, I would be remiss to overlook their independence celebration happening in the same month we celebrate the “birth” of ’Merica.
Of course, every country has SOME holiday or celebration where freedom from oppression is celebrated because the desire to be free is a shared, common value and a prize worthy of pursuit and sacrifice.
It’s the primary reason people go into business for themselves: freedom from having a boss…freedom from having someone telling them what to do…freedom to keep the hours they want…freedom to work as much or as little as they want. The motivation for me to learn how to sell was financial freedom; it was the ONLY job where I could earn as much as I wanted based on my performance, NOT based on my background, age, sex, lack of education, lack of experience, hours worked or even “what the job pays.” To quote Zig, I could wake up one day and decide to give myself a raise – and it would be effective as soon as I became effective.
But here’s what freedom is NOT: the right to do as you please and have what you want WITHOUT consequences.
As the saying goes, “Freedom isn’t free.” It’s earned. Fought for. Protected. If you desire financial freedom, you don’t get it by wishing for it or demanding it from others, and you certainly don’t get it by p’ing and moaning about your external circumstances, wishing it was easier or hoping things will get better. You get it by going out into the free market and earning it like everyone else, overcoming the SAME problems, challenges, obstacles and headwinds we all face.
The GOOD NEWS for some: success, in any way you want to define it, is birthed from choice. You choose your work ethic. You choose the skills you develop. You choose your clients and the fees you charge (or the job you take and the salary you negotiate). You choose the diet and exercise plan you’re on. You choose what you spend money on. This is a very “inconvenient truth” for many who are failing and cling to their good excuse, preferring it over a good opportunity.
You can CHOOSE to spend 30 minutes, an hour or more a day working on improving your ability to sell, or you can choose to watch TV, screen-suck Facebook or consume some other useless entertainment on your phone.
You can CHOOSE to get up at 5:00 a.m. and work ON your marketing, work ON your business, work ON creating wealth for yourself, or you can choose to sleep in and complain about “not having any time” to work on the things you keep saying are important (but your actions and time and money invested show something different).
You can CHOOSE to spend your money on cars, vacations, new technology and gadgets, or you can choose to invest that into a seminar or workshop where you can gain knowledge and skills to change your life.
Of course, some misery in life is not chosen. There’s a randomness of a lightning strike. But for MOST, their misery and failings is the product of a lifetime of poorly made choices and horrible habits that keep them from being truly free. I would also add…
Nobody has the right to complain about something in their life or their business they don’t like, or any negative situation they find themselves in, that they are not ACTIVELY working on improving or changing.
I know I’ve done this “rant” before, but it bears repeating, particularly on a day when we celebrate freedom from oppression. I’m sick to death of people – educated, capable, grown adults who chose to go into business for themselves – complaining to me about how there are “no good people to hire” or about how “clients don’t value IT” or about how hard it is to make money in an IT business, how hard it is to manage their time, how hard it is to do marketing.
While this is all true, they KEEP themselves imprisoned by refusing to invest any real time or money into improving themselves. ALL of the problems they complain about in business CAN BE SOLVED. And not with “secrets” locked up and reserved for only a select few, but with blueprints and tried and true solutions, lying about in plain sight, in books, in videos, in seminars and workshops. Many of which are FREE, easily accessed via the phone these complainers carry around with them everywhere.
Today, in the free country we live in, with ALL of the information we have available at our fingertips, there is absolutely, positively NO EXCUSE for permanent or long-term failure in business, in marketing, in selling or in any area in your business that is not where it should be. Never before have the barriers to starting a business been so low. Never before have the opportunities to achieve financial independence been so great. Never before have so many powerful tools and technology been so readily, easily available to just about everyone.
Very few things in life, both good and bad, are unmovable and permanent. There are too many paths and opportunities to allow a situation/person/business to exist unchanged. You might totally suck at selling today, but if you got up every single day for the next 365 days and studied and practiced how to succeed at selling, reading books, scripting yourself, practicing at getting better, improvement WILL come. You suck at selling because you choose to suck at it and refuse to improve.
Here at mid-year, how are you doing? What problem are you allowing to persist? What situation have you permitted for too long? Solution: Wake up an hour earlier every day and focus on the solution to that ONE problem, and I guarantee you’ll be free of it before you know it.
Freedom in business isn’t about avoiding challenges but tackling them head-on. Join us at the MSP Marketing Roadshow to learn how to leverage AI for more leads and traffic, and how to build a resilient, successful MSP.
