Saturday, March 16, 2013

Steve Pavlina Newsletter #53 - March 12, 2013


StevePavlina.com Personal Development InsightsNewsletter

Issue #53 - March 12, 2013 - www.StevePavlina.com

Ultimate You Mindfest -- Free Online Event

The Ultimate You Mindfest, which I mentioned in the last newsletter, begins on Monday, March 18. This is a free online course to help you improve your results by enlisting greater cooperation from your subconscious mind.
The Mindfest is hosted by Paul Scheele. Paul is an expert on human performance, and he's a friend of mine as well. He's very passionate about understanding how the mind works and helping people take better advantage of their natural mental abilities.
Over the course of 6 days, Paul will share the following lessons:
Day 1 - Make More Money: Clear away blocks to having plenty of money
Day 2 - Sharpen Your Memory: Overcome uncertainty and forgetfulness
Day 3 - Attract What You Want: Make the Law of Attraction work for your success
Day 4 - Be Free of Anxiety: Be fearless, strong, and successful
Day 5 - Kick-up Your Instincts: Use your intuition to make better decisions
Day 6 - Improve Your Health: Reduce stress and avoid illness
Bonus - Get to Your Ideal Weight: Use your inner mind to help you lose extra pounds
For each day of the course, you get two programs -- one lesson from Paul and one Paraliminal to listen to. I've been using the Paraliminals regularly since 2006 and have previously recommended them on my website. During the Mindfest you can try them out for free. Then you'll know why I like them so much. :)
The Mindfest is free, so it won't cost you anything. You'll have two new programs each day that you can stream from your computer or mobile device.
Rachelle and I are both signed up for the Mindfest too, so we'll be listening to it when it begins streaming next week.

Berlin Meet-Up -- And Possibly Amsterdam Too

I'll be speaking at a social dynamics conference in Berlin at the end of April and probably staying in the city for a while afterwards. Other than switching planes at the Frankfurt airport last year, this will be my first-ever trip to Germany. I'm very excited to go. Ethnically I'm actually 1/4 German (my grandfather's last name was Schmidt).
The details of this trip haven't been worked out yet, but the tentative plan is to do a road-trip with some friends after the conference, heading west through Germany and then into the Netherlands. Instead of planning everything out in detail, I prefer to enjoy a fairly open-ended, go-with-the-flow type of trip, seeing what opportunities come up along the way and being guided by intuition.
I expect we'll go to Amsterdam sometime in early May and have a meet-up there as well, but no promises yet.
Rachelle plans to go on this trip too. After Holland we might even pop over to the UK. I've never been there either.
The details of any confirmed meet-ups will be posted to my blog, Twitter, and Google+ pages at least a few days before they happen, and I'll likely announce them in a future newsletter too.
If you have any suggestions for what go to go/see/do in Germany or Holland while we're there, please let me know (you can just reply to this email). Just be aware that I don't speak German or Dutch. :)
As always, these meet-ups are free. Normally we gather together for a couple of hours in some public space and talk about life, the universe, and everything. The size of a meet-up usually correlates with the population of the city, so the bigger the city, the bigger the meet-up. New York City was our biggest so far with about 40 people.

Why Are Self-Employed People Happier Than Employees?

Various studies conclude that on average, self-employed people are happier than employees. This holds true even when self-employed people earn less money and/or work longer hours than their corporate counterparts. Why is this?

Freedom

Perhaps the #1 reason people tell me they want to be self-employed is to enjoy greater freedom. As it turns out, they're wise to pursue this goal. People who feel they have more freedom in their lives are significantly happier than those who don't enjoy as much autonomy.
Being told what to do and not having much choice about it increases stress levels and decreases happiness. Having a choice, even if it's just between a few options, makes a real difference. Employees with a lot of daily have-tos are generally more stressed and less happy with their work.
This is true of mice as well. One study allowed a mouse to give itself a dose of cocaine whenever it wanted. The mouse died because it kept taking the drug and didn't eat or sleep. But what's more interesting is that this experiment was done with a second mouse that received the same dose of cocaine whenever the first mouse did; however, only the first mouse controlled when this happened. The second mouse died too, but much sooner than the first mouse. Its stress levels were higher since it had no control over what was happening to it.
Fortunately you don't have to live like the second mouse if you don't want to. You can choose a different path.
As you might imagine, having a sense of control over your life is also good for your health. Countless health studies confirm this. For example, an international study of more than 2800 people found that those who reported having the most control over their lives had a 60% lower risk of death compared to those who felt they didn't wield much control over their lives. If you give up too much control, you could literally be digging yourself an early grave.
According to 3 different 10-year studies, emotional stress is a stronger predictor of death from cancer and heart disease than smoking. If you can't effectively manage your stress, your chance of death increases by 40%. Another Mayo Clinic study concluded that psychological stress was the #1 most reliable predictor of heart attacks.
Even though self-employment may seem more stressful, a huge stress reliever is that self-employed people are free to choose how they spend their time in each moment. Many employees can't exercise that kind of freedom at work, and so their stress levels are frequently much higher. The stress of being told what to do and having deadlines you don't control is often greater than the stress of being your own boss. Choosing your work is much less stressful than having your work assigned to you, even if you choose to work harder or longer.
A common criticism I hear about self-employment is that it only works for highly disciplined self-starter types. But this doesn't actually hold true. Just as you have to learn how to survive in the corporate world as an employee, you can also learn how to succeed at self-employment. Either way you'll have a lot to learn. It's your choice whether you invest that time learning to be obedient and helpful to your boss, or whether you learn to make good decisions and take action on your own. I don't perceive either path as being more difficult or requiring more discipline than the other. They're just different. You simply build up different muscles on one path than you would on the other.
Saying that self-employment only works for highly disciplined people is like saying that corporate employment only works for highly obedient, submissive people. You'll find plenty of lazy, undisciplined self-employed people and plenty of ornery, opinionated employees who still manage to get their work done. So I think this dichotomy is overblown. Work is work. If you think it's hard to motivate yourself, it may be just as hard for your boss to figure out how to motivate you too. If you need threats to stay motivated, having to pay your rent works just as well as having to please your boss. On your own, however, you can skip the formal performance reviews, which actually reduce performance since they frequently stress people out.

Social Status

At least in my part of the world, entrepreneurs frequently enjoy higher social status than employees. When you're self-employed, you get to start at the top and stay there. Your can choose your own job title, such as President, CEO, Founder, Owner, Captain, Master, etc.
When other people ask what you do, and you reply that you own your own business, you'll often find that they immediately treat you as a high status person. This is true even if you work solo. I noticed this effect right after I started my first business right after college. People twice my age would often treat me with deference and respect, even before I was making any money. After all, employees are conditioned to defer to people of higher rank than themselves, and if you're the President or CEO, you automatically outrank them. Yes, there are lots of exceptions and nuances to this rule of thumb, but in general you can expect to experience a rise in your social status by going self-employed.
Secondly, you may notice an equivalent boost in your self-esteem. Partly this may be a side effect of having others treat you with greater respect. But it can also result from a shift in your self-image. When you begin thinking of yourself as your own boss instead of as someone else's employee, this shift in your identity can make you feel pretty good about yourself.
A common exception is the way your long-term friends and family may treat you. They may be used to seeing you a certain way, so don't be surprised if it takes them 2-3 years to even acknowledge you as having increased social status from being self-employed. One reason is that your increased status may feel like a threat to theirs, so they'll resist acknowledging your change in status if it makes them feel lower status relative to you. Strangers won't usually perceive your self-employed status as threatening, but friends and family so often do.
If the above situation happens to you, my suggestion is to focus on trying to elevate the status of your friends and family members vs. trying to get them to acknowledge your status. If you can reduce their threat perception, they'll eventually come around. Give them props for their accomplishments, and make it clear that you don't see yourself as superior just because you're choosing to be your own boss.
Now if your business happens to become very successful, your social status in the eyes of others may rise even higher, especially if you develop a reputation for providing strong value to others. But even if you remain at roughly the same level for years, you may be surprised to see just how socially beneficial it is to be perceived as the owner of your own business.

Fairness

Have you ever felt as an employee that you were being taken advantage of? Have you ever felt under-appreciated? Did you ever feel you'd been treated unfairly?
One major happiness booster on the self-employment path is a greater sense of fairness. Corporate environments can frequently feel cold and uncaring. Bosses and coworkers, working under stress, may often choose to be expedient as opposed to treating people fairly. This can lead to a dog-eat-dog, competitive mentality where unfairness infects the corporate culture.
As a self-employed person, you can leave the cesspool of corporate politics behind and define your own terms for doing business. This means you can ensure that the terms are fair to you and fair to others, according to your personal standards. You aren't forced to do anything creepy or underhanded just because your boss demands it of you.
You can set your own prices, define your own terms, and decide how your customers will be treated. You can decide how hard you'll work and when you'll take time off.
This is one of my favorite benefits of being self-employed. While I can't control how everyone else runs their businesses, I can at least decide how mine will operate. I love being free to choose the business partners I'll work with (and those I'd rather avoid), the topics I'll write about (and those that don't interest me), and the types of readers and customers I want to interact with (and those I'd prefer to refer elsewhere).
I'm also delighted to have the option to be over-generous when I feel like doing so, such as when I uncopyrighted all my articles and podcasts in 2010. I can choose to be more giving and less stingy because I don't have a boss pressuring me to squeeze people. If I'm satisfied with my decisions and my readers are happy, that's good enough for me.
You can't underestimate just how stress-relieving it is to abandon an unfair environment and to work in one that feels fair and reasonable to you.

Relationships

Many other factors that you think would potentially reduce satisfaction with being self-employed are largely short-term issues that tend to smooth out in the long run.
For example, many people who turn to self-employment find themselves spending a lot more time alone initially, working by themselves as solopreneurs. Some people really enjoy the peace and solitude of working on their own, but others crave more social stimulation. Eventually self-employed people learn to reach out and network with others, and they often find themselves enjoying going to trade shows, being active in professional organizations, and making friends with other entrepreneurs.
While I would agree that self-employment can be a lonely path in the beginning, few successful entrepreneurs choose to stay that way. Eventually they learn to be more socially proactive and to reach out. Sometimes this happens automatically too; as their business and client base grows, more and more people begin contacting them.
Another possibility is that a self-employed person will learn to delegate, either by outsourcing or hiring employees. In this way they can build their own professional staff to work with. The difference is that self-employed people have plenty of freedom to choose their coworkers. Employees are often stuck with the teammates they're assigned to work with.
So even though working relationships can take a nosedive in the beginning, those who stick it out with self-employment often find themselves with an even more delightful network of friends and professional teammates years later -- and with the freedom to work and play with the people they truly like and respect.

What If Self-Employment Feels Right to You?

If you happen to enjoy your job, find it to be low stress, and like your coworkers, I think that's wonderful. Just be aware that most people are not in such a golden situation. On the order of 80% of people are unhappy with their careers and would like to change, and many would prefer to be self-employed instead of having a boss to report to.
Over the 8+ years that I've been blogging, I've heard from hundreds, if not thousands of people who've already quit their jobs and started their own businesses. Some people quit right away and dove headfirst into self-employment. Others took a more gradual approach. And many are in the process of transitioning now.
While the details of these stories vary considerably, especially since they come from all over the world, the one pattern I keep seeing is that people are almost invariably happier on the self-employment side. And again, this is true even if they earn less money or work longer hours. Choosing to work long hours doesn't create the same amount of stress as having to go to work. Where there is choice and freedom, stress levels diminish considerably.
Since I know there are many others who are interested in exploring the self-employment path, here are some further articles and podcasts you might enjoy:
While I wouldn't recommend starting an online business to everyone, for many people it's one of the best ways to generate income without a job. It has certainly worked well for me -- I haven't had a job in more than 20 years. The #1 service I recommend for people wanting to start an online business is still Site Build-It. I've been recommending SBI for several years now.
If you're already earning a few thousand dollars per month online, then I wouldn't recommend SBI because you've already figured it out on your own. But if you haven't reached that level yet and would like more hand-holding through this process, including educational resources, tools, web hosting, a friendly and supportive forum community, and the whole package you need to actually start earning income, then it makes sense to use SBI because they'll help you achieve this goal much faster than you otherwise would. SBI is also very inexpensive relative to the value provided.
Regardless of which path you choose, the main point of this article is to encourage you to make your happiness a priority in your life. You deserve to enjoy abundant freedom and to control how you spend your time. You deserve to enjoy positive social status among your peers and a self-image that feels worthy of you. You deserve a fair and reasonable workplace. You deserve to enjoy healthy and supportive relationships with your coworkers. And most of all, you deserve the ability to manage your stress intelligently, without feeling overly anxious or worried about work each day.
No one is going to gift these benefits to you. It's up to you to claim them.
Perhaps the simplest way to decide is to turn your attention within and consult your intuition. Sit back. Take a few deep breaths. Relax. Calm your mind. Then ask yourself whether in your heart of hearts, you feel you're meant to be an employee or if you feel like you're meant to be self-employed. Don't force yourself to think. Just pose the question to your subconscious mind. Allow your conscious mind to go blank as you peacefully wait for a response to bubble up from the back of your mind. When I do this exercise, it normally takes about a minute for a response to begin coming through. Until that happens, just keep your conscious mind calm and relaxed. Don't intentionally think about anything. Let your mind do the computing and calculating and weighing of options in the background -- it's very intelligent. You may be surprised by the response that comes through. As much as I enjoy helping people with the best advice I can think of, I'm of the opinion that the best decisions for you are those that you intuitively make for yourself.

Please follow me on Twitter and Google+ for inspirational messages and quick updates.

Steve Recommends

Here are my recommendations for products and services that I've personally reviewed and which I believe can help you on your personal growth journey. This is a very short list since it only includes my top picks.
Site Build It! - Build an income-generating website.
Getting Rich with Ebooks - Earn passive income from ebooks.
Lefkoe Method - Permanently eliminate a limiting belief in 20 minutes.
Paraliminals - Accelerate your personal growth.
Sedona Method - Free Audio - Learn to release blocks in a few minutes
The Journal - Keep a secure journal on your PC.
PhotoReading - Read books 3x faster.
Life on Purpose - Discover your life purpose.

Until next time, live consciously!
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