When I began my journey of self employment (a staggering 10 years ago now) I was encouraged by messages such as,
‘Build it and they will come’
‘Follow your heart and the money will follow’
‘Turn your passions into profits’
I remember my colleagues waving me off. ‘There she goes’, they said, ‘Off to follow her dreams.’
Let’s just say things didn’t go exactly to plan and much like true love, I soon realised it wasn’t all about the hearts and flowers…
A couple of short years later, I found myself being influenced by a different message.
‘Find out what the market wants. Give it to them. Rinse. Repeat. Buy a big house’
‘Great’, I thought, ‘That makes sense. And a big house sounds terrific, thanks very much.’
But that didn’t work out either.
It was around this time three years ago that I stopped, listened to my own intuition and settled into a happy medium.
Last Thursday I came across a version of the diagram below in the latest copy of Barbara Winter’s Winning Ways.
It made me think about my self employment journey thusfar. I love the perspective it offers and of course as soon as I saw it I thought, ‘This is crying out for some graphics!’
I hope you like it too. Unfortunately neither Barbara nor I know who created the original diagram so if you have come across this before and are familiar with its creator, do let me know.