Breaking the Financial Trap: Creating a Secure Retirement (part 3 of 5)



Posted: Tuesday, December 22, 2009

by
SkyVault Multimedia Publishing

Part 3 of 5: Is Self-Employment the Answer?

Working for yourself is a great improvement over being an employee - mainly because you now have the right of self-determination, especially once you understand how important marketing is to your success. There are also some tax benefits (even though most were eliminated in the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and subsequent "fixes"). But the bottom line is, out of the four ways to earn money in a capitalism-based economy (discussed in Part 2 of this article), self employment still winds up a distant third on the success chart.

The biggest problem with being self-employed in the traditional sense, is the toll that the lifestyle eventually takes on your body and your life over the long haul. According to noted experts Paul and Sarah Edwards, the average work week for a self-employed person is sixty-one hours long. That means many entrepreneurs work a lot longer than that. You start out happy to be able to work "when you want", and end up working "all the time".

The second problem is that your success continually works against you. Because you are highly trained, better than most at what you do, and in demand, you actually become the business. Your clients come to depend on you - and only you - to do the work you're so good at.

Ask any successful doctor, chiropractor, attorney, accountant, computer consultant, web developer, or auto technician what would happen to their small business if they left it for six months. Most will tell you their business would completely disappear. Six months? Most "successful" professionals feel like they can't even take a six day vacation - and many don't, until the word "burnout" begins to creep into their daily conversation.

...And of course, the more money you make, the more the tax man cometh.

In other words, you don't own your company; your company owns you. You have, in fact, traded in a "full-time" job for an "all-the-time" job. Many entrepreneurs can't even find the time to hire help or market their business effectively, so they work even harder. And while they may appear financially successful, even greatly so, they sacrifice a great deal of time with their families in order to provide for them monetarily.

To me, real success is more. To me, success means having both money, and the time to enjoy it. Some may say that's being greedy. Some say you can't expect to be financially independent and happy at the same time.

Some even say there's no way to beat the system anyway, so why bother
putting in the effort?

I say life rarely gives us more than we demand, so we should demand all that life is willing to give. I believe that wealth, comfort, and financial freedom were created for everyone to enjoy, not just overworked people too tired to participate in society, or miserable people who abuse their gifts by inflicting pain on others.

I believe the only hope the world really has, comes from good people who have gotten their needs met and can afford to give to others. So I want all the blessings the universe has in store for me... don't you?

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Lance T. Walker is a noted author, career coach, e-business consultant, and proud U.S. Air Force veteran. Reach him at http://www.lancetwalker.com. SkyVault Multimedia Publishing provides marketing consulting, web site development, and Internet business services to owners of small and micro sized businesses. Learn to use today's technology to build your financial success at http://www.skyvaultbooks.com .

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