I’m Ali, and I believe that being self employed is the key to freedom and life on your own terms.
I help self employed professionals create change that delivers the results they want in their life and business.
My Philosophy
There’s been a lot of talk about work/life balance, particularly in the self-employment world. The very idea of work/life balance seems to me to be complete BS, and here’s why:
When chasing work/life balance, you have to accept the idea that your work is separate from your life.
We give no other aspect of our life this kind of separation and power. We don’t think our families are separate from our lives: they are part of our lives. We don’t think our hobbies, our passions, or our rainy nights curled up with hot tea and a book are separate from our lives: those activities make up life, and our lives are bettered by their existence.
But work is separate? Work is equal enough to life that it can balance it?
No way.
Work is a part of life, and the fact that we spend so much of our life’s time in that one activity is all the more reason your business should be a beneficial, empowering, amazing part of life.
I believe that by asking yourself what kind of life you want and applying the answers to every single part of your life – including your work – you can design a life that gives you complete freedom every moment of every day.
Including the ones you spend at your desk.
How’d I Come to Believe All This?
It was a long road, and it’s by no means over yet. A quick caveat before I tell you my story: I haven’t arrived at some high pinnacle of ultimate success. It’s still a work in progress. Being self employed is challenging, and I love that. It is a lifelong journey that makes every day interesting.
Despite the challanges, each time I’ve held firm to my philosophy, I’ve been more content, successful, and fulfilled. And I can say with absolute confidence that:
designing your own life and business is better in every way than allowing someone else to design it for you.
Even when it’s hard.
Especially then.
My Story
I was in the corporate world for 14 years, I was quite good at what I did and I lived a comfortable lifestyle.
But my soul was dying. My freedom was nonexistent. Life was mediocre. But didn’t everyone feel that way? Didn’t everyone hate their job? Wasn’t that, well, normal?
Eventually I discovered that while it might be common, it wasn’t healthy. I heard that being self-employed was better, more enjoyable, and more fulfilling. Most importantly I heard it was ideal for those who wanted freedom and life on their own terms.
When I left the corporate world – and it was a massive, scary decision to make – my life changed. I felt free. I loved every day with all the new opportunities and possibilities in front of me.
I could spend time with my husband and son. I could build my business and grow it – or keep it comfortably boutique. I could focus on work I loved to do. I could work with like-minded people. And I could live the life I really wanted.
Every day was a challenge. Every day was interesting. Every day brought me something new. It was liberating.
But when I looked around, I saw it wasn’t this way for everyone. Other self-employed people looked tired. Unhappy. Overworked. Overwhelmed. Overstressed. Those stepping into self-employment do so with the key to freedom in their hand and hope in their soul. They work so hard to reach their goals… and eventually work consumes them.
I saw people who couldn’t find room in their life to breathe… and they were self-employed! Shouldn’t they feel freedom and joy? Shouldn’t they be living their ideal life?
They weren’t. These people felt like slaves to their business.
I decided to help people change that. Because being self employed shouldn’t be that way.
I feel fulfilled with my life and business because I came to self-employment with a different mindset. My philosophy was that I should design work to support my ideal life… not a work/life half that leaves me with less than 50% of life to enjoy.
There’s no reason this can’t be true for everyone.
Ten Years Later . . .
It took me some time to develop a design for my life that brought me freedom. I had to ask myself what success really meant to me and how I was going to make it happen. I figured out ways to map a path toward those goals over time.
I even figured out ways to get myself to strike out on that path – which as many of you know, is the hardest part.
Here are the basic principles of the philosophy at which I arrived:
1. Life is all. Everything you do, every moment of your day, every second spent at the computer, is part of your life. There is no life/work balance, any more than there is life/family balance or life/breathing balance. There is only life.
2. Your life is your own. If your life is everything, then you need it to be on your own terms. You cannot be happy in your life if it is not your life – if you are pursuing goals that someone else has set before you. This is one reason I believe in working for yourself; it’s the only way to assure that your business goals are dictated by your life goals, and your life goals alone.
3. Your life won’t design itself. No one is born with a blueprint to achieving the life they want. You have to ask yourself questions to arrive at a personal philosophy and approach to life, and then you have to plan a path toward making every part of your life resonate with that philosophy. This takes time. It takes work. And it only happens if you decide it’s time for change.
The life and business you design will be different than mine – because you are different than me – but my approach helps you ask yourself the right questions to create that design, and then map out ways to realize that design in your work…and your life.
Learn a little more about how I do that, and what your options are for working with me, here.