Today is my wife’s Birthday. We’re going to lunch, then the movies and later celebrating dinner with the kids and extended family. Why am I telling you this?

#1 – to give a B’day shout out to her! “Happy B’day Kate!”

#2 – because I have the time and freedom in my schedule to carve out and be present for the most important events in my life.

THAT is the freedom of being an entrepreneur. And owning your own business. To be able to schedule around whatever it is that is important to you in life.

For me, taking the day off to celebrate Birthdays is a big deal. Taking the day off to celebrate whatever I want, when I want, is also a big deal to me. One of my core values is “Appreciate Life” and this is one way I go about doing it.

The beauty of being in the promotional swag business IS this freedom to work from wherever and to set your own schedule. It’s not to say I don’t work hard and service my clients better than anyone else in the business. I believe I do and have repeat clients from 15+ yrs who I would argue would agree.

Rather, it’s to say I am in control … of my career, my life, my schedule.

Yesterday I sat down with Jake, one of the Swag Coach licensees I work with. We were having lunch discussing the business. I was asking Jake how things were going and he mentioned having to be out of town for 2 weeks to attend to a family medical situation. For his girlfriend’s family! You see, his girlfriend couldn’t take the entire extended time to be away for 2 weeks but Jake could because he works virtually. And he controls his own schedule.

You might think Jake would be done traveling for the rest of the year, but you would be wrong. He has plans to travel to Chicago, Tuscon and New York just before Thanksgiving! All the while working as he has scheduled, making sure to service his clients without missing a beat.

I have a lot of entrepreneur friends. Many have much bigger businesses than I. They describe me as a “lifestyle business owner” and in the past this used to really bother me. I took it as if “lifestyle” business meant “small business”.

It’s not about size (okay, I won’t go there). It’s about freedom. And if you want to compare who has more of this, then I will put my business model against anyone’s. I would be hard pressed to find a friend of mine who said I wasn’t living life. This is why I love the swag business and teaching the best practices I have learned over the years (the hard way) in figuring out how to work smart and efficiently, focusing on the parts of the business I truly enjoy that make me money. And affords me freedom. So that I can have the choice and time to live my life and be present for the events and things most important to me.

Like celebrating my wife’s Birthday!

Josh