Written by: Linda Lopeke, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
There are 7 freedoms of entrepreneurship that drive a person’s commitment to choose it over traditional employment. You might be close to achieving one or more (or even all 7) of them right now!
Entrepreneurship is a personal growth journey like no other. There are many variables. Success is not guaranteed. Or without risk. Failure isn’t final. There are unknowns to withstand. And several competencies to master.
While clarity, confidence, and clients are all welcome companions on the road to business success, their contribution pales next to the must-haves: courage, patience, and resilience.
Still, there are no sweeter rewards for those who make it than the 7 freedoms of independence available through entrepreneurship.
Freedom of Choice
With freedom comes responsibility. Responsibility to self and to others because no one succeeds alone. If you are not willing and able to hold yourself accountable for the results of your choices, you are not ready to handle the responsibility that comes with success via entrepreneurship.
Freedom of Creative Control
What you build, create and offer for sale and to whom and how you market it and run your business are expressions of who you are and what you stand for. Congruency is key to winning the trust of even the hungriest market. Compromise is not for sale.
Freedom from Work
When every day is payday, equal to a weekend day, and you own every second of every day, there is only one decision to make each morning: “Will I or won’t I?”
When work is your choice because it is part of your life’s meaning and purpose and not something you must do whether you want to or not, work rarely feels like work. And you never need a vacation from it.
Freedom from Financial Scarcity and Constraint
Money is not success. It is a by-product of success. And measured more accurately in what you don’t have, rather than in what you do or own.
For example:
No mortgage because you paid cash for your home(s)
No car or car lease payments because you own your vehicle(s) outright
No interest payments on credit card bills because you pay them in full when they come in
No begging or prostrating yourself before banks, lenders, and investors because you don’t need their money
No agonizing over whether or not to buy something or shop here versus there because if you want it, you can just buy it and enjoy it without any drama or need for justification
Freedom from Influence and Expectation
When you are debt-free and without need, want, or desire, you are free of the consumer con game. Immune to trivial distraction. Safe from the contagion of faux experts selling bullshit to the vulnerable.
You can’t be sucked into the fairy tales of wealth rooted in fiscal hypocrisy peddled by poor us because you won’t be one of those who buy their lies and pay with their lives.
Freedom from Hope and Dependence
Dependence is not success. If your lifestyle is tied to your parents, the government, the economy, or the stock market, your future is in the hands of hope and beyond your control.
Uncontrollable leverage is limited. Business systems you create and control are not.
Freedom from Ordinary and Routine
The price of your new life is your old life. Routine and the mundane are the kisses of death. Extraordinary experiences defy the ordinary. And are often the opposite of what’s expected.
When you can do, buy, wear and go wherever you want without caring about what others think, life is different. You are unbound from ordinary societal and cultural norms. Able to define the patterns of existence that bring you the greatest joy and happiness.
You live your own style and work in the ways best for you without explanation, defense, or apology. And experience entrepreneurial success as you alone define it.
That is when you are truly free. That is what it means to be truly rich. And that is the joy of successfully achieving independence through entrepreneurship without compromise.
Linda M. Lopeke, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Linda M. Lopeke, thought partner and inspiration to brilliant entrepreneurs around the world, is an internationally recognized leading expert in strategic business development and marketing. Lopeke is a master of six professional management disciplines and an award-winning technical writer and copywriter. Her clients include Fortune 500 companies, well-known business leaders, professionals, experts, and authors, as well as up-and-coming digital entrepreneurs. Financial Post named Lopeke one of the Top 5 Entrepreneurs Under 30 in 1984. In 2000, she founded SMARTSTART, the most trusted voice in digital business, where she currently leads a community of 265,000+ entrepreneurs and is dedicated to ensuring business dreams don't die.
