« Say “No” To Kinky Data | Home | Spinning out the Next Generation of Tech Entrepreneurs »

The Doom and Gloom Speech on Consulting for a Living

By crooky | March 7, 2008

Earlier this week, I was on a panel with a couple of other folks talking in front of a group of keen young students about entrepreneurship. I was coming at it from a very different perspective than the other two - one of whom owns two very successful coffee shops and the other whom is a very young student entrepreneur.

We were asked questions like:

“How can you tell if being self employed is right for you?”

“What are the secrets to your success?”

“What does your average day look like?”

That kind of thing. I feel bad in retrospect because (in summary), I had the following things to say about running a consulting business:

1. It’s hard work and you’re not going to get rich doing it in the short-term, if ever.

2. You need to be ready to accept and live with negative feedback about what you’re doing.

3. The odds are against you.

I also went into a long-winded story about how I tripped and fell face first into self-employment after a stint as a public servant. I went home that day feeling like I’d taught them something valuable but didn’t jazz them up. I realize that what I forgot to tell them was why it’s awesome to be self-employed.

Right now, my daughter is very ill with the flu. She loves it when I spend time with her and when I’m done posting this, I’m going upstairs to cuddle her for a bit. It’s 3pm. You can’t do that with a regular job. I do work frequently after my kids go to bed because I want to spend my evenings with them.

There’s a certain sense of pride that comes with being self-employed as well. People see me as successful no matter how much I try to downplay my work (to friends and family, not to potential clients). Moreover, there’s a part of me that really felt stiffled by the wage slave life. I have just as much or more stress now than I did as an employee but it’s my stress. I paid for every ounce of that stress and I alone will reap the benefits. In most jobs, you can grind your face off trying to excel and the only people who look good at the end of the day are your superiors.

When you’re self employed, it all belongs to you - the kudos, the stress, the money, the debt and the respect. It’s all yours.

*********************
Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for ten years.

Share/Save/Bookmark

Topics: Business of Consulting |

Comments