Jul
4
Our Freedom At Work
by Crystal Clayton, filed under In General
A Freedom Timeline
On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the New Americans, and I (as an American) was made forever free of Great Britain’s rule.
On September 22, 1862, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, and I (as an African-American) was made forever free of slavery.
On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified and I (as a woman) was left forever free to cast my vote.
In 1992, I became self-supporting and I (as an adult) made myself forever free of my parents’ rules and priorities. Theoretically, anyway…
January 15, 2005 was my last day of full-time work as an employee. I invested three years into supporting Dan while he was in school full-time, and on that day he started returning the favor with three years of freedom to work from home. Maybe forever. Maybe not.
My Freedom
Much of my freedom was fought for by my forefathers (and foremothers!), but some I had to earn myself. With each additional chunk of independence came the joy of flexibility, the burden of responsibility, and the bittersweet confusing bliss of having choices.
That’s what freedom means to me, just as Sethe said in Beloved: waking up at dawn and deciding what to do with the day.
Not that I wake up that early…9:30’s just as good.
Building Freedom
There are 6 months of my Employment Freedom left and I’m revisiting my strategy on how to remain free. The original plan was to build a business, but the way I had it figured, I was actually building another job.
Now I know that I need to develop/create/manifest/engineer an income machine that will maintain—and maybe even extend—my freedom.
Tricky stuff, that. Because “independent work” only promises freedom from an employer, not freedom from a desk, freedom of movement, freedom from worry, or financial freedom.
Whatever I build, it needs to run for me, not run on me—there’s only so much Crystal to go around. Just as indispensable employees can never be promoted, an indispensable entrepreneur has built their own cage.
Work Freedom
As I see it, truly Independent Workers are queens and kings of passive income streams. They still work, of course, and from what I’ve seen they work hard. There is work freedom, but without a trust fund or a big win lotto ticket, there’s no freedom from work.
But these Independents work on projects for weeks or months, not so much on tasks day after day. And after a project is completed and earning, they don’t need to work as hard or as much, if at all. Nifty, eh?
Above all, true Independent Workers have incomes that aren’t limited by time. Their earning potential is not limited to the hours they can work (quite finite), only the price of their product or service and the number of people they can get to pay for it (also finite, but way more potential).
Going Forward
Starting today BigBrightBulb is going to continue with more focus on Independence: ideas and resources for passive income streams, mobile working, and similar topics. Other stuff will surely pop up from time to time, but the core topics are going to be on getting—and staying—free.
Et tu? When did (or does) your freedom start? What does your freedom look like?
And yes, Jeremy Adam Davis, I am finally reading The 4-Hour Workweek! It’ll likely be this month’s book review…
Somehow Similar Posts
- The Business Peril Of Personality
- Why We All Need Passive Income (Even If Just A Little Bit)
- Certifications: Selling Credibility For Passive Income
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6 Responses to “Our Freedom At Work”
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Whew! Taking a short break from blogging, folks. More posts coming soon. Thanks for your patience!
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Crystal,
This is a great post - very timely. For a microbusiness of 1-4 people, revenue streams are a big deal. If you bill for your services by the hour, a four-person business can’t possibly bill for more than 160 hours per week (to say nothing of the time spent on non-billable tasks like marketing, accounting, follow-ups and networking…).
The idea of creating passive income is the holy grail for any business owner. It’s critical to have a good system in place, one that you can follow and easily train others to follow as well. Figuring out what that system looks like is the hard part…
Looking forward to reading more on your thoughts about passive revenue generation…
Happy holidays!
Recent blog post from Kyle / OnYourBusiness: Tech Tools: Managing and Sharing Your Calendar
You are going to slam dunk this one, I know it. Very good post - thanks.
-Brett
Recent blog post from Brett Legree: viking fridays - a small hut.
Making money while you sleep is the goal for sure. Easily said, harder to do. Even the giant service companies, consultants, ad agencies, etc., are struggling with this.
You have already touched on a couple of paths: the 1,000 true fans idea, and virtual training is another. How about using technology to replicate Crystal many times over.
There are many, many very smart women in America who have made a life choice to stay at home with their children. All the training, education and experience they gained before having children is waiting to be harnessed. And many of them would like to keep an oar in the work world to keep their skills sharp or they might need the income or they want some stimulation outside of the joy/grind of parenting. So, to service 10,000 true fans find 1,000 Crystals.
Recent blog post from James Hipkin: Innovation Incubator
lol, it kinda weirded me out a second seeing you speak right at me with those last lines.
Good for you, it’s about stinking time. Even though some of that book doesn’t deal directly with our styles of business, the ideas behind that still very useful.
Glad to hear you are taking steps to redefine you niche. I still have no idea what my niche is, let alone any way to refine it.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with to help make our self-run business run when we are AWOL.
Recent blog post from Jeremy Davis: Rethink How You Search
[...] you haven’t already, catch Our Freedom at Work and James Hipkin’s great comment on resolving how there’s only so much of me to go [...]
Incredible post. SOme very interesting points and ideas. It’s fascinating how much business has changed over the years.