Number Nine on my list is I am not an employee, I am an independent business owner.

This was a tricky one to grasp when I first started Net Secretary almost five years ago. I had just come from being an employee in the corporate sector and still had that "employee mentality" – if the boss said jump, my response was ‘how high?’  I made quite a few mistakes in those early days, bowing to pressure from clients on when and how they wanted things done, not trusting my own professional judgement or having the confidence to say "no".

It is extremely liberating once this concept has been grasped and I am now comfortable with the fact I am a business owner, just as my clients are, and I deserve to be treated with the same level of professional respect as I treat them.

I have realistic boundaries – for example, no weekend work or evening work unless we are appropriately compensated and it is mutually agreed, not expected. For the most part I choose my clients and who I want to work with, not the other way around.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!