How my father helped me in business. And how I misunderstood him in one important way.
My father was a farmer and a natural-born entrepreneur.
As a child I grew up watching him as he developed his farm and tried many new approaches to making money. He did well. Really well.
By the age of about 7 I was out there on the farm with my brothers, earning my pocket money.
Every Friday I would line up with all the other farm employees and collect my wages. I received cash in a brown envelope. How much “pocket money” I received depended entirely on how many hours I had worked on the farm that week.
As I grew into my teens, I took on harder work on the farm and my hourly rate increased accordingly.
Incredibly, I was about 13 before I learned that other kids received pocket money for free. They didn’t have to work for it at all. It was a gift. That was quite an interesting moment for me!
Looking back I now realize that growing up on a farm and earning money for the hours I worked has been the principal formative influence in my own businesses over the work.
My father taught me about hard work. About being an entrepreneur and taking risks. He taught me all the fundamentals that have supported me and driven me during my own adult life.
But there is one lesson he taught me that I got very wrong. Or rather, I just didn’t get it.
During the first three quarters of my own work life I was driven by the idea that I had to work very hard and that I would be paid for the hours I worked. That is the lesson I learned back on the farm.
But by doing that I had misunderstood a key element of my own father’s success. He didn’t just make money by the hour. He was very smart at leveraging his assets, both physical and intellectual. He found smart ways to make money. New ways to make money.
And it took me a very long time to understand that part of what he taught me.
For too many years I was focused intently on working hard and being paid by the hour. Maybe that’s the freelancer’s “disease”. Whether we bill by the hour or by the project, we are simply being paid for the hours we work. Just like a farm laborer.
It is only more recently that I have started to be more like my father and find smarter ways to profit from my experience, my brand and my intellectual assets.
I now write and publish guides, programs and courses. And, of course, I do some coaching work. And a day rarely goes by when I’m not thinking of new ideas and possibilities.
Think about this for yourself. Beyond being paid by the hour or project, how else could you profit from what you know and do?
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