Summary
Fleetwood Mac was right – you can go your own way.
The surest way to achieve prosperity and financial independence is to go your own way and start your own business. You’ll likely encounter plenty of naysayers along the way. Some will be voicing genuine concern for your wellbeing, while others’ motives may be more nefarious.
But if you are going to carve your own path to financial freedom you will have to learn to deal with the naysayers and uncertainty that comes with it. There are some useful strategies to keep in mind that will help keep you focused, confident and unwavering as you strike out on your own and stride toward the future you want to create.
Find and build a network of support around you as you embark upon your new venture. Understand that your loved ones and others may need time to understand and become adjusted to the change occurring in your life. You must also learn to cope with uncertainty and get used to feeling uncomfortable sometimes.
Bear these strategies in mind, and you will have a greater likelihood of success as you plan and then act to strike out on your own and build the future you have always dreamed of.
Transcript
Fleetwood Mac was right – you can go your own way.
But there is other music you will be likely to hear along the way – a steady chorus of naysayers and critics.
It can be daunting to strike out on your own. Our educational system is built upon funneling our young people into pre-ordained and safe tracks without any critical thinking along the way. Just go along the track, don’t make too many waves, and you are assured a relatively smooth landing in retirement – at least that’s what we have been taught. With years of conditioning to think like an employee, is it any surprise that so many of us are reluctant to take a chance and strike out on our own?
Those who have done it know that it takes considerable bravery to chart your own course when the most important people in your life – not to mention maybe every fiber of your being, is urging you to turn back from uncertainty and stick to the safe path.
Take a look at lists of the wealthiest Americans. What do they have in common? You may be surprised to see that very few are celebrities, performing artists, or professional athletes. Even fewer are the beneficiaries of inherited wealth, even though the political class delights in deriding the wealthiest as the lazy and privileged offspring of their parents’ labor.
It turns out that the most likely path to financial independence on the highest level does not come from earning a high salary or from being born into the right gene pool. It comes from striking out on your own – the vast majority of the wealthiest Americans are self-made individuals who began their own business.
In short, the wealthiest are the ones who took a risk and blazed out on their own. Seeing their name on this list means that they have given up a lot of things. They gave up stability. They gave up pleasant chats with co-workers around the water coolers, discussing carefree weekends. They gave up matching contributions to their 401ks, predictable salary bumps and bonuses, and the sense of identity that comes along with being part of an existing institution. Often, long before they saw the results of their labors, they saw sleepless nights, volatile bank accounts, and a chorus of voices telling them that they were nuts to veer off of the preordained track. I know that I certainly heard a steady stream of reasons for why I couldn’t succeed as I began my own trajectory toward financial freedom. When I quit my banking job, the manager told me that if I didn’t follow his path and enter the management trainee program I would amount to nothing in my life. I think I have disproved his theory.
What you may ultimately learn with time is that many of those seeking to persuade you to turn away from entrepreneurship actually do want what is the best for you – at least from their vantage point and limited perspective. They are fearful that you will end up with broken dreams and an inability to support yourself. What they want for you is to be happy and comfortable – even if that comes through following a pre-determined path rather than discovering for yourself just how much you are capable of if you went into business for yourself. You need to learn to accept their reservations with a spirit of gratefulness – expressing gratitude that they care about you and what happens to you. This gratitude must be coupled, however, with the grit to continue to press on and follow your own journey.
Of course, not everyone is speaking out against your plans from a place of consideration for your welfare. Plenty of other critics will have more nefarious motivations. They may be jealous – it makes them uncomfortable to see someone taking a chance and betting on himself or herself, when they didn’t have the same gumption to take that gamble. Or they may be the types of individuals who simply can’t stomach the sight of someone else succeeding, even if this sentiment is rooted deep inside of them on a subconscious level. Regardless of the intent, you must remember that we all have only our own lives to live – we cannot spend them following the choices that others have prescribed as the correct ones for us to guide our lives by.
This is all easier said than done. When you are about to embark on a risky new venture, it is understandably preferred to have a network of support from your family, friends, and loved ones. It is true that none of us are an island – we all need support of some kind to succeed in a sustained fashion, or else we may eventually crack from the lack of any support in our corners. So what can you do when all you are seeing around you is a steady chorus of warnings? Try these strategies out to help keep you remain on your path to prosperity and freedom.
Find The Support You Need
It is true that you can’t make new old friends, but you can continue to build your network to make sure that you have surrounded yourself with support to cheer you on and lend counsel as you bring your great idea to scale. If you can’t find the right support from the people already in your life, you need to play a game of addition and add some new people to your world.
A great place to start is joining groups, both online and in your local area, for entrepreneurs and small business owners. These are the people who will be able to completely relate to what you are going through. They won’t replace the loved ones in your life, but they can play an instrumental role in reminding you that you are not alone in refusing to accept going along with the status quo of being confined to an unfulfilling job.
Give It Time
You may be hearing nothing but criticism and doubt because the people around you have nothing to go on – no evidence of the commitment you have made. This is an especially acute syndrome in the early stages of your venture, when you have limited resources in the way of a business plan or prototype to show your loved ones. Recognize that you may need to give them some time to allow them to become comfortable with the idea of the new path you have chosen – and time to present the results that will sway them. In this way, you may ultimately see the doubts you hear as the motivator you need to kick your work into high gear and quickly produce results.
Get Used To Feeling Uncomfortable
In the end, you may want to accept that you aren’t the Chief Happiness Officer for everyone in your life. It isn’t your responsibility to make everyone around you comfortable with your choices. It may make you uncomfortable to be doing something that runs contrary to what they want for you – especially in the case of very close family members or loved ones, such as parents or spouses. But if you can cultivate a mindful degree of detachment, you may ultimately find that having someone disagree with your choices doesn’t actually have a tremendous impact on your daily well being. You may even ultimately find that others are not thinking about you and your plans nearly as much as you may have thought. More often than not their criticism is merely a reflection of uncertainties they harbor about what they are doing with their own lives. In the end, it is far better to follow your dreams with a bit of criticism than to give in to the expectations of others.
Have you encountered tremendous opposition and doubt from the important people in your life when you told them of your plans to achieve financial freedom? What strategies did you take to earn their support – or to soldier on to your goals without it? Share your thoughts with me as well as others out there, who may be going through similar circumstances.
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