“I hate my job.” That’s all he said. Then he just sat there with a blank stare focused somewhere between me and the back wall. It’s a look I’d seen before… but I was the one wearing it back then. Have you been there before? It’s not a fun place. But, you do have choices. You can change it. You actually have 3 choices.

Remember, nothing improves until something changes. That’s just logical. If everything stays the same… then everything stays the same. If you want the situation to improve, then you need to change something! Otherwise, you’ll just keep getting what you’re getting. You’ve got to change something!

Two-Step Process Toward Improvement

You really have two major decisions to make before you can improve your situation. Each decision must be made and if you think you’re not making these decisions, then you’ve really already made your decision. Once you’ve consciously made these two decisions, you can know what to expect out of life. While each of us must decide for ourselves, there is nothing wrong with choosing either option. But, these decisions are made by all of us. When you recognize you’re making these choices, you’ll know what to expect.

Your FIRST Decision

First you need to have a very raw conversation with yourself and make a critical decision about your life. I’m not over exaggerating this when I say it. This question is not to be dismissed quickly. You’ve got to decide who is steering your ship. We’re all moving through life and someone is going to steer. It can be you or it can be someone else.

There is nothing wrong with what you decide. You just need to understand and accept who has the steering wheel. If you get on a bus and the driver says he’s going to St. Louis, then don’t be surprised when you end up in St. Louis! Even if you’d rather be in Baltimore… the bus driver who wants to go to St. Louis is taking you to the gateway to the West!

Stop complaining about being in St. Louis and stop telling everyone about how great Baltimore is this time of year. We’re going to St. Louis and you knew it. If you have a certain set of expectations for your life, but you’ve given the steering over to another person heading in a different direction, you’ll be very disappointed when you don’t end up where you want to go.

What are your options for someone to steer? At a high level I think we all have 3 choices for someone to steer. You can steer yourself, you can let someone else steer, or (if you are so inclined) you can look to a higher power.

Whatever you select, know who’s steering so you know what to expect.

Your SECOND Decision

The second decision is simple, but not easy. The second question is, “Where do you want to steer?” At a very high level, you really have three choices:

• You can work for someone else
• You can be an independent contractor
• You can start your own company

Option 1: Work for Someone Else

When you work for someone else, you can take ownership of your career by working with your internal Organizational Development group to understand your career path options within your company. The OD Department is responsible for the development of the human resources within the organization to fulfill the business objectives for the company. Understand you are on one ship which you are not steering, but you are free to move around the ship and find where you fit in best.

Option 2: Independent Contractor

This is a job with no boss. That’s how I think of an independent contractor. The most successful independent contractors know they do have a boss. In fact, they have many bosses. The bosses are the customers. The best independent contractors are self-starters who understand their business and customer service. In today’s online virtual world, many people are finding this a great place to land. With websites like Fiverr.com and UpWork.com, the people who are highly skilled specialists can focus on using their talents while these web services focus on providing the marketing and sales.

Option 3: Start Your Own Company

This is different from being an independent contractor. From my experience I’ve found many people who are independent contractors and would be very successful if they remained just that, but instead they allow the customers to drive them into starting their own company. It goes something like this…

Independent contractor is a highly skilled specialist and begins working for a customer. She does outstanding work as the technical expert. Through referrals, the contractor gets even more business. Now the contractor discovers she has too much work to complete herself and she also has to do the invoicing, bookkeeping, customer service, quarterly taxes, sales follow-up, and logistics too.

The independent contractor takes care of what she can, starts to outsource some of it or hires her first employee so she can stay focused on what she loves… the technical work she wanted to do in the first place!

Then, before she knows it, the hired help is dropping the ball because she’s put no effort into training these people or giving them any direction. “Why can’t people just do their jobs!” she’s thinking as she’s working on a Saturday now to clean up the errors they’ve made.

Then one day the independent contractor wakes up and realizes they hate their own jobs because they’re running around crazy, doing the extra work they don’t like, and not being given enough time to do the technical work they love so much. Congratulations… you’re an independent contractor with the accidental company you never meant to start in the first place.

If you want to start your own company, you’re not doing it because you love the technical work. You’re doing it because you want to build a business that does the technical work. That means it will be your job to create the business plan, define all the processes, create the roadmap for where you’re steering this company, and the proper Organization Development plans to effectively train up the skills of everyone working for you.

As Michael Gerber says in his book The E-Myth, if you started as the independent contractor and found yourself owning a company, you need to “start working on your business not in your business.”

Just another accidental entrepreneur,
Russ