Friday 6 June 2008

The Joy (And Challenges) Of Self Sufficiency

There are lots of things about running my own business that I take for granted.

One is my self sufficiency.
I have to do everything (no choice). Running projects, winning business, selling myself, writing reports, delivering business. It’s that classic case of winning the business AND doing the business.

I like that self-sufficiency but it’s also tough. Because regardless of however many people I bring in to support me on a project, regardless of the extent to which I can outsource tasks to suppliers and specialists – the big stuff is all about ME.


- No-one else is going to come up with visionary ideas for the future of me and my business.
- No-one else can formulate ideas for new series of videos I am producing.
- No-one else is going to write my next book (and come up with the big ideas for it).
- I can’t outsource my current project, because the client wants me, not anyone else, to run it.

I am sure there are elements of my working life I could outsource, maybe I do need a Tim Ferriss makeover for some of the small stuff, but ultimately the responsibility will not change. Because whilst you can delegate and outsource tasks and projects, you can’t outsource responsibility. That’s my job, it’s down to me and I am fine with that.

So self-sufficiency feels good; it’s always rewarding that I got myself here. That I took a bunch of ideas and turned them into projects; that in producing ideas I created something from nothing. But the reverse of that is that you need the balls, resilience and passion to meet the challenges of self-sufficiency.

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