 So you would like to have meaningful and successful self-employment. Well, how do you get started? What are the overall steps? That's what I'm gonna talk about in this video. So I have had 12 years of experience coaching, consulting, thousands of self-employed people by this point. And what I've noticed is that it basically has this arc. There's the, just give you four steps to have as the foundation of how to really get started on the journey of success. So the first step is to choose the right type of business for you. Now, I am biased about this, I am sure, but I think my bias has good reason and I'll see what you think about it. So there are essentially three types of businesses that people get into when they're self-employed. The first type is traditionally when someone says, I'm going to business, maybe not these days, but for hundreds of years say, I'm going into business, that means they set up a brick and mortar store, a retail shop, a restaurant, a yoga studio where they rent out or they lease a space. So a brick and mortar place somewhere people can walk into can feel really meaningful because you get to make your dream space, you get to be in person with your customers and clients all the time and get to really care for them in that kind of way and it feels really meaningful to do that. The problem is that it is extremely risky to do so. If you've known anybody who's started a restaurant, their dream restaurant or the dream store, I just see, I get so sad walking down the street. We have lots of small businesses around here and it's like every couple of years, this store will close, that store will close and I just think that store that closed probably took $100,000 of investment, right? I mean, if you think about the lease, if you think about the equipment that they would have, they need for a brick and mortar place, the furnishings, as well as the local advertisements that are needed to really get enough traffic, local traffic to make a retail store work. So I really don't recommend, I mean, I myself have dreamed of having a local, maybe some kind of wellness space or even some kind of like healthy restaurant of some kind. Like, it'd be great, but I think I'm strategic enough to know that I would need $100,000 and at least two years of experimentation, like if I can throw away $100,000 and have no problem with my retirement, I can't, but let's say I've made enough money such that, oh, $100,000, no problem. It doesn't touch into my retirement savings and two years, no problem. I don't need to make money for two years, it's not. If I had that and I had the energy, then I probably would go do a retail store because like I said, it's probably the most meaningful kind of business when it works, when it's successful, okay? So if you have a lot of business experience, if you have $100,000 just to throw away, no problem, and two years, no need to make money, ideally two, three or five years, no need to make profits, then a brick and mortar store is I think the most meaningful type of self-employment assuming that you have enough money to hire people so you don't have to slave over that store, 12 hours a day or something like that. All right, so that's the first type of business. I don't recommend most of you choose it. So stay away from doing a retail store yoga studio included unless it's out of your own home space or unless you're just able to rent like an hour here, an hour there, maybe that's okay. Yeah, that's fine. So the second type of business that people are frequently think of these days is doing a startup. What is a startup? A startup is not being a freelancer or the thing I'm doing is not called a startup. A startup is usually software related. You create software or an app and you plan to scale it or you have some product that you can manufacture that you have a prototype for and you've already gotten good feedback about it, then you create a startup to scale the distribution of that physical product. So, but these days it's usually a software or an app that means what a startup is. So should you do a startup? It's less risk than starting a restaurant or a yoga studio or a cafe or a boutique shop. It's less risk than a brick and mortar store because a startup is something where it's easier to get investment for it. People tend to be more intrigued by startups and there's less risk because if you get investment for then it's not risking your own money. It's risking someone else's money, which is risk for them. But you have to put together a really nice looking website or a PDF or a Kickstarter campaign that looks really beautifully done and a video, really great demo video. So it costs a lot of money to even get investment, not a lot of money. I should say it costs some skill, design skill essentially and copywriting skill. So if you are already a great designer and copywriter then it will cost you relatively little money to create the page you need to get investment money. Or if you have a co-founder, if you can persuade a friend or two who's good at design and copywriting and the technical ability to actually do the startup. Because you need either the design, the copywriting and the technical yourself or you need to have co-founders who are working for sweat equity, meaning they're not going to take money right away but they'll wait until it's profitable to take the money. So startups are less risky than retail stores but it's still, it's hard to really get it off the ground. So many, most startups fail, not surprisingly. And if you wanna see some promising startups you can go to producthunt.com which is a popular website to check out new startups and new products that could become startups. Producthunt.com, kind of a fun place to look at sometimes. All right, the third type of business to choose which is the one that I have the experience in is really what I consider to be self-employment or being a freelancer, which is basically, and I'm gonna, freelancer these days people think, oh, are you delivering food? Are you on fiverr designing images doing social media for others? That's mainly what a freelancer is. What, and another popular one of course is Uber and Lyft driving, you know, tax, basically taxing around, that's a freelancer, self-employment. All the system is already set up for you. You just have to plug and play, you know? The problem when a system is already set up for you like Uber or Lyft or delivering food or other systems that are all set up for you step by step. Even though it's easy to get into it, the problem is that it's not as meaningful. It's not creative because you're just, you're still working for the man. You are, the man has set up the system and you're kind of employee without much creative direction. Yes, you can set your own hours, but that's about it. Right, so yes, you can make your car look however you want inside, whatever. I mean, it's not that much creative direction, right? So what I recommend for this third type of business is what I call an authentic business. Maybe this is a fourth type, but authentic business, my definition is basically creating a service out of your own passions. What topic, what interest do you have that you just can read about and talk about a lot that energizes you? Or what skill do you love helping other people with? If you could make money doing it, you'd be like, oh, wow, this is so cool. That can make money helping people with this because I really enjoy doing that skill. So what is a passionate topic or an enjoyable skill that you have? You can make a business out of it. That's what I have spent 12 years helping people with. So authentic business is what I call it. Basically, it's an authentic expression of your joy and it's a business because it makes you money. It's your self-employment. So I have, of course, tons of articles and videos on my website about authentic business. So you might go and check it out. I also have a 10-year plan for creating an authentic business. Not that you won't, you'll make money starting the second year, maybe even starting the first year in that 10-year plan. You'll start making money, but 10 years to self to basically semi-retirement where you're just the top of your field, that kind of 10-year plan. So you might wanna check that out. Google 10-year plan, authentic business and you should find it, okay. So that's the first step is choosing the right type of business. And by the way, you can always start with an authentic business, make lots of money and then choose to go into a startup or create a startup because by the time you have success as an authentic business, you have lots of connections now. Now doing a startup makes more sense or now creating, you know, once you make lots of money with a startup, now you can do a brick and mortar. So that actually is a really interesting arc of a business life. It's like starting with an authentic business and then or maybe even starting with a freelancer where the system is all set up for you. So you're not stressed out about money because you're just driving Uber, driving Lyft and you're making regular money and then doing the authentic business on the side, make that successful and then create a startup, make that successful and then start a brick and mortar store where you can hire people and feel so meaningful in the retail environment. So interesting journey. Okay, all right. So that's the first main step is to choose the right kind of business to start with right now. First main step. The second main step is to carve out enough time to work on your authentic business. Now why is this even, why do I need to say this? I see so many people unable to create business success because they're so bad at time management. They're so unskilled at creating boundaries with their family and their friends and their entertainment and themselves with their interests going here, go there. So carving out time is not, it takes practice and it is actually a skill you need to work on. It's not something that comes naturally. Nobody, most of us were not taught good time management for self-employment. Yes, you might have been taught good time management as a student going through school, but that's different because going through school, you had someone to structure most of your days. And at night, you got very clear homework as someone else structured for you. That's not self-employment. That's being in the system. And you might have gotten good time management as an employee, but again, someone else was setting the system for you. You didn't have practice or skill creating your own time and your own structure, your own priorities and saying no to different priorities that, that is a practice. I mean, this is why I'm so passionate to be running a coaching program called TLC, Thoughtful Life Calendar, where the participants are learning how to practicing the skill of wise prioritization for authentic business, setting boundaries, self-care, time management, calendar management, to-do list management, email. That kind of stuff is, I started, I have been, yeah, you could say obsessed about joyful productivity for pretty much all my life. I mean, I started pretty young, really interested in that stuff. And for decades now, I've been practicing and studying productivity. And really for the last 15 years, even before I started this business, I was coaching my friends about productivity. So that's why when I started my business 12 years ago, I was able to get to a full-time income by the end of the first year. Why? Because I was a really good time manager for self-employment already. Most of you that I've seen that I've worked with are not so good at it. You go by other people's systems for you. Even being a parent, let me get this, many of you are parents. You could almost, being a parent is also not self-employment because you have a child or children who have cycles of hunger and sleep and they need to go to school. That is a system that society has set up for you. It's not self-employment. Self-employment is very different. It's like you having to choose to have boundaries where if you didn't do anything, nothing bad would happen. It's just that you wouldn't have a business. Do you see what I mean? You have to take it so seriously that setting, carving out time and becoming really good at productivity has to be a foundation if you're going to make self-employment or authentic business work at all. You can't expect, it's not like being a parent. It's not like being an employee and it's not like going to school. It's very different animal. So carving out time or TLC, Thoughtful Life Calendar is extremely important. The third main foundation, okay, so the first foundation was choosing the right type of business to get into and then saying the others I will not do. Maybe in the future I will choose the right type of business. Second is to get serious about your Thoughtful Life Calendar, your productivity skills. Get serious about it. Get a coach. I don't know, read books, watch YouTube videos but consuming content is not, you have to practice it. So whether you're really good at discipline and practicing it yourself or you get a friend or a coach, that's what it takes to take it seriously. Okay, that's the second foundation. The third foundation is to find an aligned strategy. Okay, so for example, every industry has its own strategy. Okay, and I can't emphasize this enough. Not every strategy, just because someone else is succeeding in doing it is aligned for you. So I think a lot of you are probably watching this video and you follow my content because you know that you've studied other marketing strategies that just don't feel right for your heart. It's so pushy or they are using manipulative persuasion techniques, which I don't use. I can't stomach it. So that's why I can't use it. But anyway, much of the marketing and business out there is very manipulative and persuasion, tactic driven, conversion rate optimization driven. And it's not aligned with my heart. And so therefore, even if I try to do it, I have tried to do it in the past and I crashed and burned because I just, I couldn't sustain it. It was just not right for my conscience. And so you too have to find a strategy for your industry, whatever self-employment you wanna do, whatever authentic business you wanna create, find successful people in the industry and study them and see if they have a mentor to recommend to you and find a strategy that is proven in your industry. Now, there are multiple strategies that are proven. Once you find a strategy that's proven, find another one if you can, see which one is more aligned to your heart, to your conscience, to your values, or at least you have to modify the strategy to align to your values. So an aligned strategy, meaning step by step, what do you do every day? What do you do? What's your year plan? What's your quarterly plan? A month plan? What's your day-to-day plan? That is a strategy. So you have to, that's the third foundation is to know exactly what you're doing every day so that you're not just shooting in the dark. But even within a aligned strategy, even if someone gave you, here are the eight steps I have, for example, the eight practices of authentic business. You might wanna Google that to find it. The eight practices of authentic business is essentially my strategy for lots of you who are creating what I call wisdom-based businesses. Like you are creating coaching or mentoring based on the wisdom you've gained in your life, in your relationships, in your spiritual growth, in your health, et cetera, et cetera. So you can look that up as my aligned strategy, but whatever strategy you find, you still have to experiment a lot to find the right way for yourself. There is no eight-step plan that someone can just hand you and says, do this exactly and you will succeed, okay? Unless you wanna sell your soul. You have to experiment, so okay, even if George says this, let me try it this way, let me try it that way. And you might find your own, you will find your own unique way through. That's very important for an authentic business, especially. Okay, so that's the third foundation. The fourth foundation is joyful productivity. Now, what, the house is different. I realized as I speak this out, I didn't make enough distinction between the second and the fourth foundation. So the second foundation was really about time management. Now, thoughtful life calendar, right? Carving out boundaries with family and friends. The fourth foundation, which is joyful productivity, is how you show up to work on a day-to-day basis. How do you relate to your to-do list, to your calendar? Like, do you resist it? Do you procrastinate? Do you, and also how do you relate? So self-regulation, basically, it's the fourth one, self-regulation and resilience. I call it joyful productivity, but it's essentially self-regulation and resilience skills. So self-regulation is like, yes, you have a great calendar, you have a great to-do list, but do you actually, are you able to regulate your system, your mental health and your emotional health to actually get to work in a joyful, calm, focused way? Or are you overwhelmed and anxious? Well, if you're overwhelmed and anxious, that means you still have some ways to go in practicing joyful productivity. You still have a ways to go in managing this and this. Those are essential. Essentially, to have a successful authentic business that has a good work-life balance, you have to become masters. You have to become a master at managing these, you know, your mind and your heart. You really do. And managing your friends and your family, meaning like, okay, I can't talk to you, right? I can't help you right now. You know, go talk to dad. I can't help. I'm working right now, okay? Or go figure it out yourself. I'll help you in an hour, child, right? Like you have to become so good at doing that. Anyway, so joyful productivity is self-regulation and it's also resilience skills. Resilience skills means, well, as an entrepreneur essentially, as someone who is creating something out of nothing, you're going to have to have a lot of experiments that don't go very successful, you know? And I have a blog post and a video. You can Google this. There is no failure, only redirection. Yeah, so if you Google it, you'll find my video, my motivational video on, there's no failure, only redirection. So that's, I have another video that might interest you. It's called, strict about showing up, gentle, or sorry, strict about showing up, lenient about the results. So Google that, strict about showing up, lenient about the results is how I manage my resilience because many of you don't see all the experiments that I run behind the scenes. You know, every piece of content, this video is an experiment. I don't know if anyone is going to like it or find it helpful. I don't, no idea. I'm going to put it out there and see. I mean, by this point, usually a few people, but it's like, is it going to be one of my best videos or one of my worst videos? It could be either one. I'm open to either one because I know with every experiment I can learn something from it. So those are the four foundations. And by the way, those, you know, if you want to, if you go to my website, georgecao.com, G-E-O-R-G-E-K-A-O.com, you'll see my best blog posts about joyful productivity or you can watch my videos about that stuff. So these are the four foundations for successful self-employment. Number one, choosing the right type of business. Number two, carving out enough time to get to work. Number three, having an aligned strategy that is both strategic and also good for your heart. And fourth is joyful productivity, which is self-regulation and resilience. So I hope this helps. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below. I will try my best to at least give a brief answer to your questions. And until the next video, I wish you joyful productivity as you get to work on your authentic business. Take care, I look forward to your comments.