What is the difference between being a
business owner and being self-employed?
Is there a difference? It's actually a
huge difference. It's actually a huge... One of
those - oh, hey Nate. Hey, you really want
to know what the difference is so, stay
tuned. Right. So, I told you to stay tuned.
You stay tuned. You made it through the ♫♪♪♫
And here you are with
him live. It's Nate, "Be the hero" Nate
Woodberry. I'm Scott Christopher. I'm not
a hero at all. But you can check out my
little YouTube channel by clicking there.
A hear a limiting belief in there, my friend. You
are a hero.
Oh, that's so sweet of you. Now, let's move
on. I asked the question. I posed the
question that you asked me to ask which
is, "Is there a difference between being
self-employed and being just a business
owner." And you're saying there's a cosmic gap.
Yeah, huge, huge difference. And it's
important to know the difference. I did
not know that difference early on in my
life. When I first saw what I thought was
an entrepreneur, it was my scout leader
he was a dentist. And I saw that he was
self-employed, he was his own boss, he
made good money. Mm-hmm. And I decided, "I'm
going to be a dentist." And okay. Fair enough.
I took a lot of AP classes throughout
high school that I probably would not
taken otherwise. Wend to med school. I went to BYU.
I got a human human biology degree.
Oh, you see did take it into college.
I took some free dental classes, I
observed a dental offices. Yeah. But then
I listened to a book by Robert Kiyosaki.
An audio book. It was a combination of
Rich Dad, Poor Dad cash flow quadrant. I
learned... What? Nothing. It's good, it's fine.
You need to just know, I'm like if, you
listen to audiobooks. No, it's fine but
were you doing something while you were
listening as I'm saying? Where you're
running, were you're driving? Probably. Because
you know, me I'm like, just get the book
and read it. But anyway, so alright. So rich man,
poor man.
It was Rich dad, poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki.
I learned that there is a big difference
between the business owner and somebody
who is self-employed. And it just caused
a huge paradigm shift. So, I don't know if
you're going to have that huge paradigm
shift in this video but hopefully, I
can spark that. Because once you
understand the difference, it can make
all the difference.
Just being self-employed, all that means
is that you've created a job for
yourself. You're kind of in charge of
your job but you don't have freedom and
you're wearing more hats because now
you're the boss. And it can be... Give us an
example of someone whose job... The
self-employed... A dentist is kind of a
combination of both. A dentist is mostly
just self-employed. I mean, they're
a business owner and that they have
employees that do other functions.
Absolutely. But their business does not run
without them. Like, if a dentist went on
vacation and he wasn't there to drill
the teeth, his practice cannot run. Hmm.
Okay.
He can hire another dentist and then
that's when he steps into the role of
being a business owner.
He's not just self-employed. Okay. Because
the other dentist would then be able to
run his business while he's on the beach.
Okay, all right. So, that's hopefully
an indication of a start of unification
of the difference. A business owner can
actually work on the business. They don't
actually have to be the one running it.
They shouldn't be the one running it.
They create a system, so I'm kind of a
mix. I'm becoming more and more of a
business owner but I'm still in the mix
of it a lot. I'm still running a lot of
the business but I've got a whole team
of people. I don't do editing hardly ever
anymore. Because all of my team does the
editing. I'm still the guy behind the
camera but I've been exploring different
people that I might bring on as either
apprentices that I could train or people
that are already established as a
videographer that I could just pay a
higher amount but they could do a really
good job. Of people that could you know,
take the spot behind the camera. Which
the more and more of my tasks that I'm
able to to systematize and train
somebody else, the more I'm able to
really think about the future and grow
my business and become more and more
successful. The more that I'm stuck in a
job, I'm just interrupts from day to day
just work in the job. So, basically... I mean,
to me it's kind of a fine line. And
obviously, it's a fine line. Otherwise it
wouldn't even be a
that would come up because it is there.
Such a blurry, I just said it was fine
and now I'm saying it's blurry. But I
mean, you know, for example, if I'm us I'm
a speaker. So, I'm a keynote speaker and a
trainer. Corporate trainer and leadership
and management. But I do it myself, right?
And I am incorporated, you know, I have an
S corp or whatever Scott Christopher
communications. I'm the president and CEO
of this company, right? So, I do own the
business but I am an employee of the
business. I mean, I'm the speaker and
trainer. So, I'm a contractor and a
freelancer. Meaning, our business gets
work by me going and doing the actual
work right? Does that make sense? So, in my
mind when I think of that I go, "Well, I'm
kind of both. I'm kind of a business
owner and I'm self-employed." Because you
know, I take jobs through other people.
I've got another way to define it and
let's see if that could... What would you
call me? Is that what you're saying? This
other way? Yeah.
Well, I want you to be the
one to answer. So, if we were to find
somebody who is self-employed, somebody
who trades their time for dollars and
there's only a limited amount of time, so
therefore years there's only a limited
amount of money you can make, you can get
pay raises or increase your hourly
amount but your money is tied to your
time that you contribute. Yeah. Versus a
business owner, it's not tied to time
whatsoever. It's tied to their ideas and
the systems that they create. So... I see
you're saying. So, like billable hours for
me. I'm self-employed and these are these...
Making money off the time that I've
been working or the jobs that I do as
opposed to the much larger picture which
is this is a business that's alive and
as an entity that... So, if you were to step
away and stop putting in the hours, is
there any part of your business that was...
That's the way you asked. It... Yeah, that's
that's it right there. If I stopped doing
what I did, my business would be, there
would be no business. Yeah. And so, how is
this linked all back to kind of your
main focus. Well, my main focus is
actually not YouTube.
My main focus is actually influence and
entrepreneurship is a big part of it.
YouTube is a big part of it. Sure. For
obvious reasons. So, I love principles of
of entrepreneurship and it's kind of an
important thing to understand. The
difference between being self-employed
in a business owner. So, I got a trivia
question. Alright, I love you trivia. Let's see
if you can guess. We'll throw a career
out there. If you are an uber driver, is
that being self-employed or is that a
business owner? What's your guess?
Well, I was an Uber driver. Oh, yeah
you've done it. Yes. And Lyft because
I was so bored one summer. Oh, I would say
self-employed. Yeah. All the way. It's
their business. Yeah. So, the owners, the
the programmers or the people who had
the idea (Yeah) who now own Uber, they're the
business owner. Agreed. Right? And then all
the drivers are the people running the
system. Yeah, we're self-employed all the
way. We got some pretty good business
model. Well, they don't have to buy any
taxis. They don't have to... They have the
largest taxi fleet in the world now and
they don't have to buy a single car. Hmm.
Yeah. Absolutely. Well, hopefully they
won't wreck their business by their
terrible organizational development. I
don't know anything about that.
But it's fine. Now, you alright. Keep going.
So, what's another example just throwing
out there? Of what? A business owner or
self-employed and we'll figure out which
is a... A photographer. Professional photographer.
Portrait photographer. Photography. So,
what do you... Let's take an example and
let's make one photographer that's
self-employed and one that's a business
owner. Okay, so a photographer that
self-employed might have his own studio.
He's the expert behind the camera. Right.
People come in, they want a family
portrait, he can take it, he can do a nice
job. Maybe he's got some employees that
will then do some editing and email it
out and whatnot. But if he's on vacation,
his studio is closed. But that's maybe
it's easier than replacing yourself as a
dentist. As a photographer, you could
bring in a few photographers that are
there helping you and you could start to
phase yourself out. Working less and less
and less. Becoming more and more just the
business owner. Because you own it. I have
an exact... I have a friend, Todd Cherry who
did just that. He started as a
photographer shooting little kids events,
sporting events, all these other things.
And basically, he was it. And he trained a
team to do exactly what he does
and he got a building and all the all
the things that a business would have.
And basically, he can just go home and
sit down and do nothing
and his business runs. It's his vision,
it's his goals, it's his... Everything
that's happening there has his
fingerprints on it. But he just kind
of collects the money. So, he started
self-employed and now he's a business owner.
Yeah. So, let me know in the comments
below.
Did that cause any type of paradigm
shift? I'm just asking out of curiosity.
Because when I first learned these
principles, it was a big, it was a big
change in my mind. I never realized, I
thought of what's a businessman? It was a
guy carrying a suitcase or briefcase. You
know, downtown Salt Lake. I never realized
You know... That's interesting because the
question, that would be maybe, you would
answer this as well while you're doing
comments is, "Which do you think you'd
prefer?" I mean, this is definitely a pro
business owner conversation because it's
a bigger picture. There's more going on.
There's more to be made quite frankly.
With less work from a
self-admittedly lazy guy. Being a
business owner is certainly what you
would prefer? But maybe others would say,
"I kind of like that idea of being
freelance." Let me talk about the lazy, the
lazy comment. When I was a teenager, my
grandpa hired me to do gardening. He just
made up jobs for me to make some money.
That's nice of him. It was really nice of
him. He was a business owner. He had a
rose garden, it was like this big... I beg
your pardon? Triangle area. (It's a joke.)
shaped rose garden. And he hired me to
weed it. But the weeds grew back so fast.
Like 2 weeks later, he'd be weeded
again. And he wanted me to weed the thing
again. And I'm just like, "Grandpa, this is
torture." He was paying me,
he was paying me, but I'm just like... He
didn't want me to but I kind of twisted
his arm and I weeded it and then I put
down the weed block or tarp and
wood chips on top of it. So, that
then 2 weeks later, a couple months
later, there were no weeds and it still
looked good. So, when I say I'm lazy,
it's like, I just want to do it one time
I never have to touch it again. But you
know, what they're kind of the moral of
the story which is, you did it right, you
did it efficiently but you also cut off
your own
hand. I mean, financially speaking, you no
longer have a job because you did it so
well. hmm.
So, you met the objective but you no
longer get paid. Yeah, if you're wondering
becoming a business owner when you're an
employee that... You want to be thinking of
annuities. You know what I mean? Just like...
That was just analogy. There's some holes in it. I liked
It. I liked it. Alright, remember to like,
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