Pros and Cons of being your own boss

Recently I got a message from an old friend an she wrote me: „I envy your life, you are free being your own boss. I want to live your life.“ Those are very big words to write and even bigger words to read as it is one of the biggest compliments somebody could give. People easily envy other people’s lives, homes, cars, jobs, relationships, bodies, lifestyles but who is ever so honest to tell somebody to envy them. I was such a big thing that I couldn’t stop thinking about it and want to write down a few pros and cons for all who either envy the life of somebody being self employed or for somebody who is too fearful to start becoming her own boss.

And as I like to end my posts with something positive I will start with the cons. :-)

Cons

The first and most obvious problem of being your own boss is that you don’t have a secure income anymore. You need to be a risk taker to be willing to change that save paycheck into the freedom of being your own boss.

You work a lot more than being employed. You work day and night in the beginning to start up, to create a network, to get structure, to build a website and to build a portfolio. This is a general post for all kinds of start up companies and believe me it is always a lot more work than you think in the beginning.

Bad work = no money, meaning if you don’t give your very very best each day you wont earn any money. Being employed you can maybe have one bad day and your boss tells you to be better next time but being your own boss means that a bad day equals no money and in the worst case a lost client.

Everybody just wants your best… your money. Insurances are more expensive, you need to get a pension which is more expensive, you need all kinds of memberships like from the chamber of commerce and official papers that cost money, you need to save you earned money for the tax at the end of the year and believe me the wildest people will ring at your bell and say you need to give them your money.

Pros

You work only for your own. You will work A L O T but you know that you just do it for yourself. That was very important for me when I started. All the work is just for my own good, and knowing that it is much easier to work all night long.

You are free. If you want to work during the night or early in the morning. If you want to sleep in or go to the gym at noon it is your decision and nobody will count the hours that you are not working because you are free to do what you think is important for your business.

You get all the credit. When you have a happy client all the credit for the hard work goes to you and not to your colleague or boss. The first happy client will make good for all the extra hours that you worked.

You will learn everything. As you are your company you will learn and be your own controlling department, IT department, marketing department, sales department and even your own secretary. This will make you learn a lot and a lot lot more than you would ever learn as an employee where you are responsible for just one discipline.

I started being my own boss and though I see and live through all the cons that I mentioned above I never hesitated for a second if the decision to move out of the corporate world behind my own computer was a good one. I belong here with all the cons and pros.

And if somebody is honest enough to see the good things about this crazy world that is called „self employment“ I think you might consider being a crazy cow like me too and start your own adventure too.