Why open a business? Like anything that is extraordinarily challenging, many people wonder what makes a person decide to take on such a challenge. There are a lot of reasons that one might consider opening their own business and for some, these reasons will be worth the difficulties that comes along with it and for others they simply won’t be.

The rewards that can come with owning your own business can be financial and time freedom. The key word is CAN, although, this is not a guarantee and certainly not an immediate reward. There are many obstacles and lots of time required to get to this level, but the point is it can be done. The financial and time freedom is an ultimate reward for hard work getting your business to a point this is possible and for taking on the “risk stress”t6 that can truly only be known by the business owner. There are other roles within the business that are very involved, but the risk is solely experienced and carried by the business owner 24/7. The entrepreneur is the stakeholder. 

In addition to the creativity of building a business I love and living my passion of creating wellness within our community, the opportunity of time and financial freedom was a draw for me because of my role as a mom. It is possible to build a business to the state of health required to provide time and financial freedom by ultimately creating a great team and systems. For anyone who has read the E-myth, you know that Michael E. Gerber describes the largest reason 80% of small businesses fail is due to the entrepreneur working in the business solely as the technician and not on the business itself, as the entrepreneur. This theory is also what ultimately creates time and financial freedom as we are able to hire additional technicians for service delivery and eventually leaders in each department such as marketing, sales, human resources, finance, and operations. 

However, this is a slow process and just like everything else in business and life, it’s a roller coaster that goes up and down and back up again, there is no straight line to success. There are various seasons in business due to economy, staffing shortages, pandemics, and various other threats that can cause the roller coaster to change directions for a period of time. 

In my own business, I started out working as the esthetician almost full-time and tending to business tasks for an additional 40 hours a week, leading me to work close to 80 hours a week at times. Through the years I have been able to build systems and a team, ultimately prepping at first for my maternity leave. When I came back from maternity leave, I was able to step back into my business with more work life balance. I loved working with my guests full time, but I’m now also the entrepreneur and a mom. The entrepreneur of a wellness business. I knew I needed to start cutting down on my time in the treatment room to balance my business owner role and avoid burnout. This was also the first step towards time and financial freedom.

I am still providing treatments as an esthetician at my spa, and I am not sure if I will ever stop completely permanently. But I do know that slowly, I have balanced of time spent working on guests and time spent working on the business and building systems to allow for more and more time and financial freedom in the years to come. By time and financial freedom, I do not mean that you are completely disconnected from your business. The role of CEO and business owner is an extremely demanding one all on its own without being the manager of every department and the technician, in addition to carrying risk stress of being the stakeholder. Time and financial freedom become a reward that you can choose to take if and when you need it due to the team and systems you developed that keep your business growing with or without you.