I am in love!
Don’t worry, this won’t be a blog post about me dating and finding Prince Charming. Instead, I’ll be talking about falling in love all over again with myself, my business and my life.
I don’t know about you, but my reasons for starting my own business were pretty selfish – I wanted more flexibility to travel and make my own decisions. The desire to help other people came afterwards.
I really want to share why I had the best week ever (and I hope you won’t think I’m bragging)!
Flexibility
Flexibility to do what I want, when I want and how I want, plus being able to choose clients and business partners I want to work with. Being able to choose clients (and get to know them personally) gives me full control over my projects and allows me to build strong, valuable relationships with clients.
Flexibility to travel, have fun and pamper myself without worrying if I have enough days of annual leave left, without having to ask permission or give reasons. Being bound to my desk was one of the biggest issues of working for an agency. In the world of Skype, Slack, WhatsApp and social media, it doesn’t make much sense having to spend 9 hours per day 5 times a week at the same desk.
Running my own business, I can work from anywhere around the world, take a longer lunch break to go swimming or meet up with friends. I love knowing that everything is in my hands!
I have the flexibility to work on different projects and shift the direction of my business whenever I want. I love coming up with new ideas and investigating new ventures, new partnerships and new collaborations because it allows me to meet incredible people!
Aspire to inspire
I’m only slowly starting to realise how much power every individual has to inspire others. I always thought that only a handful of the most successful people can inspire others, but recently I’m learning that we all can be that person!
Even though deep down I know that I want to inspire others, I still find it hard to believe when it actually happens. I’ve only been in business for just over a year and don’t have 15+ years of experience, so why me? There’s nothing that special about me (says my imposter very often).
Is it the journey? Being open about my ups and down, failures and lessons? In this blog post, my business mentor picks up on my blog posts about outsourcing and why it’s a good idea to start early on. It was an obvious solution to me, but I know that it’s still really scary and challenging for many small business owners.
I’m still learning what it means having people respect my opinions, look up to me for advice and being an inspiration for starting entrepreneurs. It’s both scary and wonderful at the same time.
Book Corner
I know that I’ve already mentioned this book, but I was reading a bit further over the weekend and I’ve discovered a few quotes I really wanted to share with you.
“… social media has made new forms of leadership possible for scores of people who don’t fit the Harvard Business School mold.” [Harvard Business School is well known for its emphasis on being outgoing, engage in conversations and debates and being sociable]
“I acquired a central ability that was to help me through my entire career: patience. I’m serious. Patience is usually so underrated. I mean, for all these projects, from third grade all the way to eighth grade, I just learned things gradually, figuring out how to put electronic devices together without so much as cracking a book … I learned to not worry so much about the outcome, but to concentrate on the step I was on and to try to do it as perfectly as I could when I was doing it.” ― Steve Wozniak
Is there anyone who has also read Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain? I’d love to know your favourite quotes and learning!
