Atlanta And BeyondAmanda
Summerlin
Photography
Atlanta & beyondest. 2009

A Practical Wedding Comes to Atlanta and Six Myths About Self-Employment

A Practical Wedding Book Talk Atlanta 1

 

“It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.” — Muhammad Ali

 

A Practical Wedding Visits Atlanta

Fabulous author, web-entreprenuer, sane wedding guru, and generally awesome Meg Keene from A Practical Wedding was in Atlanta last week promoting her new sane wedding planning book, called A Practical Wedding:  Creative Solutions for Planning a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful Celebration.  It was great to finally meet Meg after all this time, because she’s even more awesome live.  I’ve been a sponsor of the APW blog for a while now, and reading it even longer, so attending this event was something I was really looking forward to.

While meeting Meg was awesome, being in a room full of intelligent people discussing wedding planning rationally was even awesome-er.  Impossible!, you say, there’s nothing rational about wedding planning! Oh, but it’s true!  If you’re not familiar with A Practical Wedding, and you think you might enjoy a delightful dose of sanity about weddings and marriage, then you should certainly check out the APW blog and, heck, get a copy of Meg’s book too.  Be sure to read the APW Sanity Pledge.  Everyone who sponsors APW promises to honor the Sanity Pledge.  Oh yeah, check out my wedding photography vendor page while you’re there too.

During the book talk, Meg also discussed the topic of female entrepreneurship.  Those are a couple of long words that mean chicks running businesses.  Which is pretty badass if you ask me.  I’ve been self-employed most of my life, so I’m actually kind of knowledgeable about operating a business.  As a matter of fact, if you add up all the time I’ve spent working for other people since I have been technically an adult, it comes to less than five years.  I’ve also been a chick most of that time too, so that makes me even more qualified to talk about female entrepreneurship.

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that people who get in their cars and go to jobs every morning have a lot of funny ideas about those of us who work for ourselves and don’t participating in the morning commute.  So I thought I’d talk about them a little bit here.  (The ideas, silly, not the people.)

 

 

Six Myths About Self Employment

Myth #1:  Self employment is fabulous and glamourous. Sure, if you define glamourous as hanging out in your PJs with your computer and a pot of coffee obsessing over 3 percent color saturation adjustments while mostly ignoring Scott Pilgrim vs. the World playing in the background for the 347th time.  Hmm, now that I think about it, that one’s true.

 

Myth #2:  You get to work when you want to. Yep, you sure do.  And the rest of the time too.  A slow week might be only 60 hours, and that’s if the bookkeeper shows up.  Wait!  You are the bookkeeper!  Of course, the perk for all that work is that (if you’re being smart), you can schedule time off and play just as hard as you work.  But the work has to get done first.  It’s a darn efficient system.

 

Myth #3:  My self employed friends don’t mind doing my errands for me because they have plenty of time. (See above.)  Btw, all of your self employed friends just blocked your calls.

 

Myth #4:  Self employed people are rich. Sure, some of them are.  Most of them aren’t, though.  However, being a small business owner is rewarding in a jillion other ways.  I counted.  My favorite part of self-employment is the independence.  Oh, wait, my favorite part is being in charge of my own career.  OH, but I also love never having to sit in traffic.  No office politics.  Flexible scheduling.  Meeting cool people.  Traveling to new places.  So.  Many.  Things.

 

Myth #5:  Self employment is scary. Bah.  Driving on I-285 is scary.  There’s all those mattresses and ladders to dodge, which really interferes with my texting.  Self employment is only scary when you think about it.  Wait.  That’s not what I meant.  Self employment is all about organization, just like any other job.  You plan and you schedule and you work your butt off, and if you’re doing all that right, then there’s not really any time left over to be scared.  Also, with all that planning and working, you’re probably making some money, and earning money usually repels scary thoughts.

 

Myth #6:  Self employment is awesome. Ok, that one’s true.  Because the simple fact is, some people just really aren’t meant to work for other people.  And not because they’re jackasses.  Successful self employed people are driven to work and achieve.  They can’t help it, they just gotta get stuff done their way.  Most jobs, and many careers, aren’t designed to reward that personality type.   Which is why being your own boss can make a lot of sense for many people.

 

Besides, you know it’s not safe for me to be mingling around with the regular people in public.

 

Anyway, that is all for today, internet friends.  Later this week, PICTURES!  Of babies.  YAY!

Amanda Summerlin
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