We asked in last week’s post, “What do we do differently when we quit working on the assembly line at Ford Motor Company and go into business (or art or craft) for ourselves?”

Answer: We do exactly what we did when we worked for Ford, only instead of Ford telling us what to do, we tell ourselves. 

Instead of the Man setting the agenda, we set it.

We decide what our goal is—and how we intend to reach it. We decide how much we’re willing to sacrifice to reach that goal. We decide how many hours we will work (our total, bank on it, will be much higher than it was at Ford) and how many weeks and months per year.

We decide where we will work. We decide when. And with whom.

We decide what time we get up and what time we go to bed. We assign our own vacations and our own days off. (We also assign all-nighters and working weekends.)

We alone will be the arbiters of our success. We’ll set the terms ourselves (they may be quite different from conventional measures of success.)

We’ll give ourselves a raise if we deserve it. And we’ll kick ourselves in the butt when we screw up.

We will be our own boss, our own mentor and teacher and psychiatrist.

Can we make that mental shift? Can we flip that switch in our head? Can we go from working for the Man to being the Man?

If our goal is to be a writer or an artist or an entrepreneur, we can’t do it any other way.