Eric Edmeades couldn't legally work, so he started a business flipping computers for £7,000. He learned the difference between self-employment and owning a real business: one requires you every day, the other doesn't. After three years of building foundations, he worked six-hour days and rarely Fridays, then got bored and moved into mentoring other entrepreneurs.
Questions this video answers
May 6, 2021
£7,000
After about three or four years
About six hours a day
Chapters
I had a family to feed. I had a house to pay for. I didn't have the legal right to work. And so I was left with very little choice but to start a business. That's right. It wasn't out of bravery that I started business. It was out of survival. I started the business because one day one of my clients called me and he said, eric, can you help me find these 10 computers? And I was like, yeah, I can, but I don't do that anymore. And he goes, well, we need your help. And one thing led to another and I found him those 10 computers and I made £7,000 profit on that first deal. I was like, this is incredible. I just made 7,000. Maybe I should have a business. But I then sat down and thought a lot about the kind of business I wanted to start. And I knew something that day. I did not want to be self employed. I did not want to start a business that would make me work harder and harder and harder, the bigger the business got. I wanted to build a business that one day I'd be able to sell or license or franchise or exit in some way. And so I began working on the foundations. There was a difference between self employment and owning a business. What's the difference? Well, self employment means your business needs you to be there every day. Owning a business means your business doesn't necessarily need you to be there every day. It's an asset, it's standalone. And that's what I wanted to build. I went and studied every successful entrepreneur I could find. I started using the things that I'd learned from them. And I laid the foundation for what we now think of as business freedom. I went through some very powerful exercises, some visioning exercises that helped me to really understand the business I was building and how I was going to build it and what the next two or three years are going to look like. And I'm so grateful that I did that. There came an incredibly important moment in my business, and that was the moment my business didn't really need me anymore. After about three or four years, I was able to reduce my work days down. I was only working six hours a day. I very rarely worked on Fridays. I had created a tremendous sense of freedom for myself. And you know what? Then I got bored. And I have come to realize that what the planet needs is more bored entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs that can apply their creativity and their optimism to problems bigger than the ones inside their business. And so I started doing business mentoring. I started doing business management mentoring because my business didn't need me anymore. And it was one of the most fulfilling things I'd ever done. Helping young entrepreneurs get started, helping them avoid some of the pitfalls that I'd had, helping them take some of the shortcuts that I'd wish I'd known about so that they, too, could have a fantastic business. And ever since then, I've been doing everything I can to help entrepreneurs have the most incredible businesses. Because entrepreneurship is the ultimate expression of personal freedom. Join me for this masterclass with Mindvalley now, and let's learn some powerful things about entrepreneurship and your personal freedom.
