Self Employment - Key to True Success
By Michael Russell

Success, success, that is the word on everybody's lips and who can fault anyone for wanting to be successful? Certainly I can't. It, maybe, is somewhat unfortunate though that what most people mean by success is getting rich. Influenced by internet get rich schemes many are throwing away good money after bad or after non-existent money just to get rich overnight.

Ever wondered why this has been so successful? Quite apart from the need to get rich, marketers have latched onto a desire, it seems an inbuilt desire, that people have had from the earliest days of civilization; to be in full charge of their own well-being, to be independent, masters of their own economic destiny, self-employed.

But what really is self-employment? Well it seems that the creators of internet get rich schemes have defined it as work for as few hours as possible and make loads of cash so you can sleep, play or do nothing the rest of the day. Fire the boss and go home to do nothing but earn loads of cash. It's an interesting take on self-employment, but unfortunately bears no relation to reality nor in a real sense captures the true essence of self-employment.

Actually, self-employment is a noble aspiration because it allows us truly to be masters of our creativity and initiative. In the regular job market our creativity and initiative is confined to the goals and aspirations of our employers, our output is channeled to fit in with someone else's output and we can become stifled.

In our own setup however, we have the freedom to design, develop and deliver our ideas in the way that best suits our own goals. From experience I have learnt that this is not a few hours per day endeavor. Have you ever been captured by a thought such that everything else takes second place, food, sleep, play? Have you ever become entrenched in the pursuit of something that is really meaningful to you that you feel like giving up everything else to ensure that this one thing gets accomplished? You many have learnt that your passion consumes you and you love it. You are not burdened by it, you desire to do nothing else but it.

It's time that we wake up to the reality that true success will not be achieved until we are willing to expend time and effort to get it. Money certainly does not grow on trees and even if it did I have not yet seen the tree that is planted today and bears tomorrow, there is a long process to maturity. Self-employment allows us an opportunity to be our true selves and to live our lives fully and successfully. This means pursuing our passion relentlessly as long as we believe in it and if it were truly self-employment we would, but there is a process and it does not happen overnight.

What would a nation, any nation, be like if its people were all self-employed and worked only two, or one or half hour per day? Do internet millionaires only work a few hours per day? I doubt it. I know millionaires in the offline world, whether it be sports persons, actors, entertainers, investors, entrepreneurs and others, they put in many hours of work per day in order to get to achieve their goals.

Do get rich schemes really provide self-employment? It seems not. It is no wonder that these get rich schemes don't work for the many. Staying home and marketing someone else's product and following someone else's every dictates on how to market does not match the essence of self-employment. Indeed if the many persons who have tried these internet programs had sat down and tried to see what ideas they had for themselves and then tried to market that idea, there would be greater passion to be successful. There would be greater willingness to stick with it until the business was built and established. Even if we marketed someone else's products, if the business and marketing model allowed for greater involvement beyond plugging some names into an auto-responder and really allowed us to use our abilities to make the business a success, then we would find more fulfillment and satisfaction. We would find that our passion would develop and true self-employment would be achieved and with it the monetary rewards.

Want to be successful? Try true self-employment. Where you are truly in charge, where you are willing to do what it takes to make the business work. Spend time and develop your business plan, develop your product as necessary and your marketing plan, there are lots of resources available that can help you to do that. Implement your plan, don't let someone else do it for you. Make adjustments to the plan as you go along but keep your goal in focus. At the end of the day, you will feel a greater sense of satisfaction because your entire being was employed, truly self-employed.