On changing your life, being your own boss and going bedouin

This article at Entrepreneur.com speaks volumes: “When I was researching my business concept, I interviewed owners of 100 businesses that had closed,” says Williams. “I found that three-quarters were nowhere close to failing financially. They closed because of highly personal reasons, such as a health crisis, or they just woke up one day and [realized … Continue reading “On changing your life, being your own boss and going bedouin”

This article at Entrepreneur.com speaks volumes:
“When I was researching my business concept, I interviewed owners of 100 businesses that had closed,” says Williams. “I found that three-quarters were nowhere close to failing financially. They closed because of highly personal reasons, such as a health crisis, or they just woke up one day and [realized they] didn’t enjoy it any longer.”

I guess some people when they start a business are looking for something different. Gus Mueller wrote an excellent article on living the life who worked at his own business as a second job for THREE YEARS (1068 days to be precise). As he says in the article ” I’m not getting rich but I’m doing alright.” – He’s his own boss, he has got a lot of kudos from making a load of cool products and he’s doing alright with the bank balance. Can there be anything better than that? Really?

I enjoy being my own boss. Some people can’t handle it. I’m a born procrastinator which is bad. But I react to deadlines well, I work very well under pressure. I like helping the guys in my day job and part of that muct be the whole Mac-Daddy thing. But it’s more than that. There are things you can do as a boss which you find very hard to do as a cog in a larger machine. I certainly found it hard to change things as a single voice of reason in a company with 90 000 people. No more. Small companies make change easy. And easier being the boss.

As for the Bedouin thing. It’s a lot harder when there’s very few places which cater for the Bedouin lifestyle. We found this today when we settled in Clements in Royal Avenue. No WiFi within range, never mind FREE WiFi. Go elsewhere and you find plenty of pay-for WiFi but this is 2006 for god’s sake! It just made everything that little bit more difficult and it’s fortunate that we’re pretty IT-literate.

A Bedouin environment should provide SIMPLICITY. It’s about time we so-called Bedouin started to work on improving the environments we work in. We’d do it if we were working in an office, why not when working in someone else’s place? Speak up – advise the caf??? owner. And don’t forget that a real Bedouin would understand the rules of hospitality. What are they?

“Hospitality in the desert is the recognition of want; it has grown into a social grace. The stranger who comes to a tent comes, or at least in the old days came, because there was nowhere else to go. To turn a man away was equivalent to murder.
In the same way the environment has made bravery a Bedouin necessity, where differences of opinion or the right to the scanty pasturage, are always, and have always been, settled by cunning and force of arms, only the wily can hope to survive. The Bedouin is both of these almost by definition. His liberty and independence of spirit are also due to the life he leads, and are a direct byproduct of his migratory habits.”

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