Remember your mom's advice: "Begun is half done. A journey of 1000 miles must begin with a single step. He who hesitates is lost. There's no time like the present. Seize the day. Just do it!"
Cliches abound because there's a great deal of powerful truth in the original thought behind them, as well as all its variations and implications.
The power in this thought comes from the importance of its essence: It's about what we're doing right now. If you believe that truth is the doing, and not a destination, then you're aware of the awesome significance of the process of taking action any action. In fact, making the most of the moment is so important to our personal and professional success that we have to be careful not to let it freeze us into inaction.
Any golfer who's felt the terror of a means everything two foot putt can attest to the power of the moment and its ability to short circuit even simple, intended physical behavior. Fritz Perls said that humans are the only animals capable of getting in their own way.
In the realm of work and careers, the bigger and more important the challenge, the more difficult it can be to begin. We're often unwilling to take that first step. Is it that we fear failure? Sometimes we entertain that first big step, flirt with it, but remain afraid to commit to it. Sometimes this is true not only for important challenges, but also for little ones. For many reasons, we can get into deeply unproductive habits of avoiding decisions and commitments. In addition, it can become a lonely battle to overcome this behavior when we find others around us who suffer from the same inertia (even if for different reasons) and may even revel in finding others who share their shortcomings.
When things get this bad for me, I try to think about one of my favorite movies, "What About Bob?" the one where hopelessly neurotic Bill Murray learns to take "baby steps" and enjoys success beyond his wildest dreams. Knowing I could never be as bad off as he was, I can begin to put my challenges in perspective by thinking about the smallest, most easily achievable things I could do to advance my quest. Then I make a list of them and pick one off the top.
In that spirit, this chapter is about the details of being in business not all of them but enough to provide you with a few possibilities for baby steps.
Often, the easiest way to make an "initial" move is to note that it may already have happened and that, with a quick look back, you find you're already well down the road. By now you've probably given a great deal of thought to how you plan to self direct your career, and those thoughts have likely prompted plenty of brainstorming and fact gathering along one of the paths discussed in this book. You've probably got at least the rudiments of a home office going and have a business plan of sorts. Maybe you've already been in business but are reading this because you know you didn't think of everything the first time around.
No one does. So here among the details are a few high points about business basics and work space, technology, finances, time management, the psychology of self employment, your health, your management style, negotiating even a few reminders on good business manners. Although we're talking details, they're details shared by all kinds of individually instigated businesses.
Discover the SBA
There's no more cost effective way to get up to speed with all the basics of self employment than taking an introductory course in small business management through your local Small Business Administration office. I did this more than a year before I went on my own well before I had any real intentions of being self employed, but just as a way to get myself thinking about what it would be like.
These courses are such a good deal you really can't go wrong: Mine was just $75 for five evening long classes (one a week), plus practically unlimited opportunities to get special help from my instructor and the guests he brought to speak to our class. Further, I became acquainted with a dozen other local people in various stages of the search for self directed careers, heard their stories, compared my own experiences and gained lots of confidence in my ability to be successful.
A good introductory course in small business management covers strategy (have you developed a business idea that's good for you, and where do you want to go with it?), market analysis (is there a market for your idea?), marketing (how will you reach your market?) and finance (how to write a business plan, develop budgets and cash flow charts and find financing). Further, the SBA is well equipped to lead you toward additional sources of information or help you solve problems specific to your enterprise. Don't overlook this wonderful, comprehensive resource that's subsidized by your tax dollars.
