There are basically two situations we get into as self-employed people. Either we are completely overwhelmed because we don’t have enough clients, and therefore, don’t have enough money coming in, or, we are completely overwhelmed because we have so many clients, so many projects to get done and what would seem like not enough time.

Been on both sides of that fence? Yeah, me too. While the latter is obviously the ideal situation, it can be equally as stressful as the former. Having too much to do, and too many clients, especially when you’re self employed, is what my friend and former boss, Andrew Moizer, would classify as a “good problem”. But a good problem is still a problem, and even the best of problems can quickly turn into bad problems if they aren’t dealt with.

The thing about both of these problems – the one of not enough business, and the one of too much business – is that they have the same solutions. You see, both the good problem and the not-so-good problem create the same feelings of being overwhelmed. Therefore, it stands to reason that the path to stop these overwhelming feelings would be similar, right? Let’s explore some ways we can fight this, and reclaim our sense of calm and serenity in the midst of the chaos.

Always Baby Steps. I often equate self employment to climbing a big mountain. You start the journey, and you feel great. You are moving fast, and seeing the infinite potential and opportunities that lie ahead of you. Then, after a while of this, you realize you’re still climbing. You’re getting a bit tired. You’re running out of resources, and you still haven’t reached the first plateau. You slip, and slide back down the mountain, and have to start climbing all over again. Eventually, you get your feet under you, but not for long. Yes, you’re stronger now, but obstacles become more complex the higher you climb. You climb up a bit, slide down a bit, until eventually, you can see the summit.

Sound familiar?

The only way to get to the top of a mountain is one foot in front of the other. If you think that the moment you open the doors of your business, the money and clients are just going to fly in, well, I’m here to tell you you’re mistaken. (Don’t worry, we all made the same mistake.) It takes work, and sacrifice, and more work, and hustle, and courage, and not much sleep to start and run a company and make it successful. It also takes near infinite amounts of patience. Everest wasn’t conquered in a day, and every day you are working on your business you are on Mount Everest. And to get to the top, you have to do it like everyone else – baby steps, one foot in front of the other. Don’t overwhelm yourself by focusing everything you have on reaching the summit. Focus on the task at hand, then the next one, then the next one. Eventually, the top of the mountain will come into view.

How are you DOing? At the present time, I have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 projects on the go. I wrote them all down on my white board the other day, just to see what it looked like. At first, I thought it was going to send me into a panic. But when I saw it all laid out in front of me, it wasn’t so bad. In fact, I was kind of excited about it. There’s a lot of cool stuff going on!

A lot of people assume that when I say “projects” I mean “paid work”. I have a tendency to lump everything in together. That way, I can be sure that even the stuff I’m not being paid to do gets enough of my attention. I have some fun little creative side projects right now. They are a good break from my professional work, and that balance is critical.

So, do two things. First, make a list of all your projects…and I mean ALL of them. Yes, that scrapbooking project counts as a project. So does your podcast, your blog, and that going away party you’re planning for your cousin. Writing it all out helps you to see where your head is at and where your focus is. You can group them and categorize them any which way that makes sense.

Then, once you have your high level categories, start to make your task lists. Take each project, and write down all the associated tasks you need to get done. Put them in a To Do list. I use a combination of Evernote and Egretlist, because they are integrated and sync across systems. I tag each item with a priority and group it under a project. That way I always know what needs doing where and when. You can even keep your list in your calendar, or (GASP) a paper notebook or Daytimer.

What’s cool about having all your tasks laid out is, it becomes super easy to get started at something. Simply pick something from the list, and do it. I tend to have times where I’ll bang off a bunch of shorter items, like sending emails or small writing or research tasks in a group, then slot in some time to tackle the larger things. Crossing off 4 or 5 things in one go is a great way to feel like you’re accomplishing things, and it frees up space for the larger tasks too.

But whatever you do, don’t try to keep your To Do’s in your head. It never works, and you’ll forget stuff, and chaos can quickly become catastrophe. Writing it down gets it out of your head, so you don’t have to keep thinking about what needs doing – and you can just focus on doing.

Being busy, whether it’s hustling for new clients or managing the ones you have, is a good, good problem to have. As overwhelming as it can be, it’s important to not let it get to you. By focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, crossing off one task at a time, you’ll walk away from each day having climbed a bit higher up that mountain.

So, get yer hiking boots on. We got a hill to climb.

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On an average day, I probably skim through about 200 web sites. Most of these I subscribe to in my Google Reader, so that I can quickly scan the headlines and in some cases, the first bits of content for items of interest. Of those 200 items, I probably scan the body content of about 75. Of those 75, I probably read between 15 and 25. Of those, I probably am compelled to comment on 2-10 items.

We all want to figure out the secret sauce for getting more traffic to our content. The problem with only counting page views is, just because someone lands on a page of our site, doesn’t mean they are reading everything. They could be just like me – skimming for something interesting. If they don’t find it, they move on. That’s why I believe the more important things to track are comments, re-posts/shares, inbound links, and bounce rate. Those are not guarantees that people are reading, but they are a lot more reliable gauges than page views alone.

So how do we encourage people to actually READ and LEARN from what we are offering? How do we compel our readers to ACT upon what we’ve shown them – whether it’s to change a behaviour, or buy a product we are selling? I’ve broken it down to one simple concept.

Tell a great story.

Once upon a time I wanted you to buy my stuff. One of the biggest mistakes that people make online is they move to the sales pitch too fast. I like how Chris describes it – “I’m reaching out to shake your hand and you’re trying to put your tongue in my mouth.” If your blog post is entirely made up of you talking about how important you are and why everyone loves you and how much people pay you to do things, I’m moving on. I might even unsubscribe. If, the very first time I hit your web site, I see your squeeze page asking me to give you my email address or buy your $50 e-Book or $500 workshop, I’m outta there. For Pete’s sake, I don’t even know you yet!

Look. We all want to build our businesses. We all want to get to the end goal, being profitable, as quickly as possible. Many people are desperate – they’ve given up everything to start their companies, and now the cash flow isn’t there. The problem is, real sales takes time. People have to get to know you, trust you. They want to make sure they are getting something of value in return if they are going to give you some of their hard earned cash. It’s only fair that we respect that and be patient with our prospects.

And you’re right – it totally sucks having to be patient.

But rather than sitting around doing nothing, wondering why your hard-sell pitches aren’t working, why not focus on building up the reasons why people should want to be involved with you? Why not work on telling a better story about yourself?

My mind is a blank slate. Have you ever tried to write your own bio? It’s hard, eh? Difficult as it is, I think that anyone who wants to create content online MUST start by putting together their bio. Writing about yourself is a really great way to start to understand what you’re all about. And understanding what you’re all about is key to telling a great story. It’s a good idea to have someone else to help you with the bio. Ask them to interview you, or simply send them a draft that they can give you feedback on. Often, we are too modest when writing about ourselves, so our bios sound just like everyone else’s. But just going through the process of writing a bio can help you to understand a bit more about yourself, and getting someone else’s take can make you realize what you do and what you know that is of real value.

Once you understand more about who you are and what you have to offer, you can start to build stories around that.

Let’s say your background is in the telecommunications industry. You worked for 10 years with various major telcos, and this has given you a great understanding of how big companies work. You were a team leader there, so you have lots of insight into team building, empowerment, and creating successful collaborations. You were also there during the boom years AND the bust years of high tech, so you know all about how cutbacks can affect morale, and you’re an expert on survivor guilt.

How many story ideas are there in that last paragraph? Count them.

Write your bio. Then write a list of stories you can tell that relate to your experience. Start publishing those stories. And remember, if writing isn’t your bag, you don’t have to write. Grab a web cam, record your thoughts on video and put them up on YouTube. Get a portable audio recorder, create an audio podcast. Sure, you might feel weird at first, but with practice, you’ll get more comfortable, I promise.

Every piece of content that exists in the world is a story. In order to create great content, you have to be able to find the story in everything you do. Then, you have to sit your butt in the chair and express it.

Build stories and share. Build stories, and share.

I bet that before you know it, opportunities will be pouring in from people who want to hear more of your story. Sounds like a much more enjoyable way to make a living, don’t you think?

By the way – there are 8 story ideas in that paragraph. Did you find them all?

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Life is full of lessons. Every day I learn at least one thing that I didn’t know the day before. I would say we probably all do.

The past 5 years or so have been a time of tremendous learning and growth for me. I’ve bought a house, gotten married (yes, in that order – which I highly recommend!), become a full-time entrepreneur, worked hard to weed out the negative people in my life, and reconnected with some wonderful old friends. I’ve discovered a rich and fascinating online world, and made some really great new friends here.

It’s like I’ve been climbing up a slope of learning these past few years. The path was really steep sometimes. Occasionally I stumbled, even fell. Other times it leveled out; it was pretty smooth sailing. I’m grateful to have had plenty of help on my journey, from incredible friends, and of course my family.

Now I feel like I’ve come to the top of the mountain. I can see pretty clearly what lies ahead of me, and more importantly, what I need to do to get there. As I begin to travel down the other side of the mountain, I am able to release some of my new knowledge as I go. This is happening in all aspects of my life right now.

Professionally, I have the amazing opportunity to pass on my more than 18 years of media industry experience to young people who are just starting out in their careers. Now that I am happily married, I find myself passing on advice to my single girlfriends about dating, finding the person that’s right for you, and being happy in a relationship. And, now that I’ve weeded out the bad energy in my life, I’m able to help others to do the same.

I know that once I am through this teaching phase and at the bottom of the mountain again, I will climb the next mountain of learning. There are many more mountains to climb, many more challenges to face. I am happy to know that I’ve made it this far, and that I have something to offer as a result. And I am excited to know there’s much more to come.

Photo by Matt Phillips on Flickr.

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Back in the 50′s, when my parents were entering the workforce, choices were different. Many people dropped out of high school in Grade 10 or 11 and got a JOB.  JOBs were things like working in a factory or working for your Dad in his hardware store. Or selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. If you didn’t want to do any of those things, you could join the Army. If you were a woman, you had even fewer choices: you were either a housewife or you went to business school and became a secretary.

Getting a JOB in those days offered a few extremely important things. Benefits. A steady paycheque. Bonuses. Security. The makings of a happy life.

These days, we teach our young people to stay in school. Go to college. Get a CAREER.  I used to have a CAREER. I was a high-tech worker. It had benefits. It had a steady paycheque. It had bonuses. I falsely believed it had security. I gave it up.

Now, I believe that what I do for a living is not a JOB or a CAREER. These labels don’t fit anymore. Now, my work is what I DO. It’s how I survive, not just financially, but spiritually, and emotionally too. I knew I didn’t fit in to the corporate world. Oh, sure, I did a good job. I got just as many pats on the back as the next guy. But at the end of the day it meant nothing to me. I was doing it for someone else, and that left me wholly unfulfilled.

Perhaps we should be teaching our young people that it’s okay if they don’t want to fit into the mold of a CAREER. But more importantly we should be teaching them HOW to make it on their own if they want to. I certainly didn’t learn anything about owning a business in high school or even college. And that’s not right.

I’m not saying that everyone has to be an entrepreneur. Of course there is room for more than just the self employed. Otherwise, nobody would have any employees! But we need to be giving our young people options. We need to make them aware of all of the possibilities.

On the flip side, there’s nothing wrong with having a CAREER if that’s what you want. Case in point:

A good friend of mine has made a CAREER out of what many would consider a regular JOB. He started many years ago working at a convenience store. In fact, that’s how we met. I lived in the neighbourhood and was a regular customer. I loved watching my friend work, he was so happy in it. He loved helping customers, would strike up conversations with anyone. As a result, the store he worked at was like the social hub of the neighbourhood.  After about 10 years as a convenience store clerk, he moved on to work for a large retail chain – a job that pays more but is still, what some would consider, just a JOB. There isn’t anything else he’d rather be doing than working in retail, serving customers. He will absolutely be doing it until he retires.

I bet if you were to ask him, he’d tell you that his work isn’t just a job. It is what he DOES.

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I’m inspired this morning by Mitch Joel of Twist Image. In his latest blog post, “How Hard Do You Really Work?”, he mentions a line he uses when he does his public speaking events. “…most people I know are trying to make it to the weekend. I’m trying to make it.”

Wow. That is a great line, don’t you think? It pretty much sums up how I’ve felt most of my working life. I’ve had a lot of jobs over 18 years or so, some great, some not so great. But I always found a way to be passionate about what I’m doing, and to put everything I had into the work. Even if it sucked.

Here is a brief summary of the types of work I’ve done over the past 18 years:

• Produced television shows
• Coordinated, designed and taught adult education programs
• Technical Writing for optical data networks
• Waited tables at a popular neighbourhood pub
• Presented technical training to rooms of 400 people
• Designed user help systems and interactive web portals
• Receptionist/Administrative assistant at a Seniors’ Recreation Centre
• Traveled the U.S. teaching specialized training development software
• Wrote 2000 page proposals for federal government contracts
• Graphic Design for corporate marketing projects
• Designed and deployed communications strategies for large corporations

It’s a pretty wide range of stuff. Some of the jobs were tedious and long, (proposal writing) but rewarding when the proposal was successful. Some were exhilarating (I love teaching because of this). Some I’m just not well-suited for (the admin assistant job was the only job I ever got “disciplined” for because I was trying to take too much initiative – ACK!). I’m a really lousy waitress. I mean I suck at it, bigtime (but, I made a lot of friends at that pub). And some jobs I’ve loved because I’m truly passionate about it (TV production, web design/development and communications).

But what I have in common with all of these jobs is I always brought everything I could to them. Even though, at times I was just doing it for the paycheque, I still showed up with the attitude that I was going to work hard and give my all to what I was doing. Not because I owed it to the company I was working for, but because I owed it to myself to not be just another cog in the wheel trying to “make it to the weekend”.

Successful work means hard work, but hard work doesn’t have to burn you out or take away from your quality of life. What Mitch Joel is referring to is the dedication and commitment one should have when they set out to do a job, no matter what it is.

I’ve been a full time entrepreneur for almost a year now. It’s been a crazy ride so far, with lots of ups and downs and twists and turns. We have totally exceeded our expectations so far and continue to do so. I’ve learned more in this past year about myself and what I’m capable of than ever. And me and my partner have worked really really hard. Not 100-hour-weeks-burn-yourself-into-the-ground-just-to-get-ahead-hard, but we’ve had the passion, dedication and commitment to get the job done and get it done well. Sure, we’ve worked till 3am on occasion. Sure, weekends haven’t always been free of emails and phone calls. But we still take most weekends off. Easter is coming and we have no intention of working our way through it.

Hard work is easy if you have passion. If you have passion, you don’t see the time passing. It doesn’t mean you aren’t going to have crappy days, challenges and scary moments. That comes with the territory in any job – heck, in any life! It does mean you can have it all, no matter what you do for a living, and it’s simple. Just have passion. And if you can’t have passion, then do something else.

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