Your Calling Is Calling—Are You Free?

The number one reason most people want to buy or start a business is to achieve financial freedom, and part of that dream is to gain FREE time to do those things we all dream of accomplishing—maybe a "bucket list."

The sad thing is, although many small business owners make a fairly good wage, many never obtain the second part of that dream—having that quality free time, without the constant fear their company will fall apart in their absence.

A good wage doesn’t necessarily translate into a good living!

The title of a recent article in Success Magazine, "It's Your Calling Calling—Are you free?" written by Shawn Achor, really struck a chord with me. I hope Shawn won’t mind my borrowing at least part of that title for this blog, seeing its content is from a very different perspective—but it couldn’t be more suited to my message here.

The title brought me back to the time when I made the decision to leave the music business; to completely reverse course on a path I had traveled for 20 years as a coast-to-coast singer and band leader of a rock band, relentlessly trying to "make it big."

So abrupt was my course change, my friends, agents and a few family members were a little shocked, to say the least. They questioned my decision and, some, even my sanity. "Philip you spent so many years in music," they said, "why would you leave it all behind now when you’re so close to making it "BIG?" Well, that was their perception.

My answer to them? Music was NOT my "calling," although I had some success in it. Truth was, at that time I still didn't know what my calling was—I just knew what it wasn't.

The year was 1988, when I made the decision to hang up my microphone and start a printing company on, literally, a wing and a prayer, in a space about the size of a small apartment, some 400 square feet. After struggling a year or so, we started to grow at a very nice pace; but five years into my new life as the owner of a small printing shop, I found myself drowning in chaos and had no idea how to resolve it.