Constantly Surrounded by Self-employed Individuals

[ErrandRunnerUSA]

Anyone else have the problem of being surrounded by self-employed business owners?

I just can’t get away from them. My goal is to create a passive business—not be a slave to my business. I think many self-employed individuals DO NOT comprehend testing a business before executing it. Such as, creating a sales page before you even have a product or service. They don’t understand the importance of a passive business model.

People will ask me how business is going and, if my testing phase didn’t work out, I tell them it didn’t work out. Then they put a stupid sad look on their face and give me a pat on the back. IT WAS JUST A TEST!!!!! AHHHH!!!! I did this so I don’t waste as much time or thousands of dollars on a business that won’t work. Why are they feeling sorry for me? I don’t want their sympathy—ew. It’s such a gross feeling.

I think the reason I am annoyed is I listen to self-employed people’s advice. I created my first business because someone told me I should start a business based off her need; this self-employed lady was my mentor. I created my second business based on the advice of a millionaire (self-employed millionaire). My third business was based off needs of self-employed individuals (building websites).

I tried to get away from employees and their mindsets. Now, self-employed people surround me with their mindsets unconsciously influencing me. In other words, I believe I am not aware of being influenced by these self-employed individuals. Some influences I can see and other influences I am not aware of. How do I escape this?

The people I surround myself with greatly influence my life. However, I am learning people are unconsciously hoping you do not succeed. Ever notice how fit people tend to hang out with fit people? My trainer told me that my closest friends and family members would unconsciously wish for me not to get fit. (I didn’t notice this until my trainer brought this to my attention.) My mom has offered me food when she knew I had to weigh everything before I ate it. My fiancée constantly wants to take me out to restaurants . . . I bet you this works for trying to create a passive business as well. People are unconsciously hoping you don’t succeed because if you succeed, what are their excuses for not succeeding?

I don’t know. What are your thoughts? Am I looking at this incorrectly and being an idiot? Let me know.

I'm thinking I need to distance myself from self-employed people.

 

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[AmyQ]

Our former accountant (now retired) is a CPA and an attorney. He was self employed and retired later in life, though he has retired a multimillionaire. I could lament his self employed mindset, but I am too busy learning from him about tax strategies for my business over lunch or dinner.

Many of my most important business relationships are with self-employed people or people who own their jobs. While they may not be experts in business, they are experts in their fields - sales, accounting, law, etc.. Every time I interact with these folks, I learn something and building relationships helps ensure that I get "friends and family" rates.

 

[SideSwipe]

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Start trying to associate with people who's work you admire, and who you think are better than you at something. It won't happen overnight, but they'll have a more profound effect than the "self employed" people who are just coasting. Taken from the book The E Myth - "They don't own businesses, they own jobs".

 

[ErrandRunnerUSA]

Thanks so much Amy! Good point. I can definitely use them to my advantage. Sorry for ranting and raving. Your post has influenced my mindset; all of the self-employed people I know are pros in their field. Many of them have been around for 10-15 years. Thanks

 

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[Bowden]

Honesty I would love to be surrounded by others who are controlling their wealth vehicle. None of my personal friends have any intent on starting a business. One thing though, you never know what that self employed persons vision is and where they plan to take their business. They could be testing something and not want to discuss with there around them. I don't share much of anything to my personal friends, though I don't really spend much time with them to begin with.

 

[dbennett]

I've always found inspiration from self-employed people, although I will admit I know many of them that are not successful. I admire their efforts to get out of the slowlane, but self-employed does not always equal successful or knowledgeable. I just apply a critical eye to the people I meet that are self-employed. Their ways of doing things may or may not be successful. I just see what good I can learn from them, view them as a possible future networking opportunity, and continue to press on integrating the good I have learned, and learning from the ineffective strategies I have observed.

 

[DennisD]

Take a self-employed slowlaner, add systems, and you have a fastlaner.
Just because they haven't developed systems doesn't mean there's nothing to learn.

Also: Fastlaners are the 1%. Hanging out with self-employed might be as close as you're going to get offline unless you're willing to move. Be lucky you're not surrounded by whining complaining employees

 

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[andyredsox]

You tend to become someone you always hangout with.

So if you don't like the self-employed people's mindset, don't hangout with them.

Sure, it won't happen instantly but you must remind yourself that you need to be with people you look up to.

In order to be like them, you need to be with them.

 

[Get Right]

Have more confidence in yourself and your plan.

As you get older, it gets easier to tune out the "noise".

 

[ErrandRunnerUSA]

I posted this thread about 10 years ago. Kind of funny to see how my mindset has changed from 10 years ago.

This is how I would respond to my 27-year-old self:
Many passive businesses start out self-employed. Look at FB--it started with a vision and a couple programmers before turning into the business it is today. My fiancé is creating a software to help traders; he is putting in all this work and effort now. However, in roughly a month the business will be more passive. He will hire a customer success manager as soon as he makes enough money from the business to cover their salary; this will free up his time making the business even more passive to him. J.K. Rowling was a self-employed novelist; she put the time in to write all the books before any passive income headed her way.

A lot of passive businesses didn't start out passive. They turned into passive businesses after someone put time and effort into making them passive.

Also, after these 10 years, I have built up an intuition to which advice to follow and whose advice not to follow. I have found some of the best advice on certain subjects comes from self-employed people. Again, they are total professionals in their fields of interest; they know more on a specific subject than I ever will. This isn't always the case for every single self-employed person out there. Some people are bullshitters and say anything to make themselves feel better and look superior. However, over a little course of time, looking at people's actions, you can tell the professionals from the amateurs. Me now, I can sniff out most bullshitters in a two-minute conversation; again, I have built up an intuition over the past few years.

I enjoy hanging out with self-employed people. My fiancé is pretty good with Adwords and other sources of marketing; he usually helps them increase sales in business--free of charge by giving them marketing advice. It's pretty cool seeing their businesses grow. I see different business angles and experiences helping and hanging out with self-employed entrepreneurs; it's a pretty unique experience.

 

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[BizyDad]

I posted this thread about 10 years ago. Kind of funny to see how my mindset has changed from 10 years ago.

This is how I would respond to my 27-year-old self:
Many passive businesses start out self-employed. Look at FB--it started with a vision and a couple programmers before turning into the business it is today. My fiancé is creating a software to help traders; he is putting in all this work and effort now. However, in roughly a month the business will be more passive. He will hire a customer success manager as soon as he makes enough money from the business to cover their salary; this will free up his time making the business even more passive to him. J.K. Rowling was a self-employed novelist; she put the time in to write all the books before any passive income headed her way.

A lot of passive businesses didn't start out passive. They turned into passive businesses after someone put time and effort into making them passive.

Also, after these 10 years, I have built up an intuition to which advice to follow and whose advice not to follow. I have found some of the best advice on certain subjects comes from self-employed people. Again, they are total professionals in their fields of interest; they know more on a specific subject than I ever will. This isn't always the case for every single self-employed person out there. Some people are bullshitters and say anything to make themselves feel better and look superior. However, over a little course of time, looking at people's actions, you can tell the professionals from the amateurs. Me now, I can sniff out most bullshitters in a two-minute conversation; again, I have built up an intuition over the past few years.

I enjoy hanging out with self-employed people. My fiancé is pretty good with Adwords and other sources of marketing; he usually helps them increase sales in business--free of charge by giving them marketing advice. It's pretty cool seeing their businesses grow. I see different business angles and experiences helping and hanging out with self-employed entrepreneurs; it's a pretty unique experience.

Thanks for coming back and giving us the update.

This is a pretty awesome thread.

I have to ask, do you feel successful? Would you say you're on the fastlane now?

There was recently a big debate thread about people who start out freelancing. I'm wondering if you felt like you got stuck in it.