Wanted: Free Agent

Once upon a time, it was reasonable to think a person could grow up, get a job and work at it the rest of his life until retirement. Those days are quickly becoming a thing of the past. According to experts, a person who begins work today can expect to have as many as fourteen full time jobs in five or more different career fields. A study cited in Forbes magazine showed that 42 percent of the working public is made up of free agents or contractors. These people are hired on by companies for a specific period of time or until a project is finished. As new businesses start up, current businesses grow and thousands of new products and services are introduced into the marketplace each year, these types of workers will be needed more and more. To the traditional worker, this may not sound very stable or secure, but in reality this puts security back into the hands of the employee.

Brian Tracy often refers to this as “being the president of your own personal services corporation”. In this day and age you must look at yourself as being self-employed regardless of who signs your paycheck. The biggest mistake you can ever make is to think that you work for anyone other than yourself. You must see yourself as an independent agent in the marketplace, constantly increasing your value along the way. In professional sports, free agency is common. A successful player may spend 15-20 years playing professionally, but with different teams during that career span. His job security does not rest with one team, but rather in his ability to produce great results year in and year out.

When you start seeing yourself as your “own services corporation”, you begin to take control of your own future, instead of becoming a victim of circumstances.

One of my favorite quotes is by General Douglas MacArthur who once said, “There is no security in this life. There is only opportunity.”