The Downsides of Guarantees

When you’re giving your guarantee, there are downsides, but many more upsides.
When you’re requiring a guarantee, however, then there are mostly downsides and only few upsides.

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When you’re self-employed, you offer guarantees, and you stake your reputation on honouring them. There are overall few guarantees in your line of work, except the ones you offer and honour. But, honour them often and without fail, and pretty soon, you’ll get to new heights.

When you’re employed by someone else, you chose to enter into one large guarantee, that of a predictable paycheque. You might not be able to honour all of the guarantees you offer, because you also have to become available for changing priorities. You might not be in a position to honour your word, and that gives you downsides.

Giving guarantees beats requiring guarantees.

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When you’re self-employed, you can work in new areas of interest, you can play, you can even put up new service offerings. No guarantee your service offerings will garner attention. But if they do, and you honour the services offered, you and your client get this new surprise. There’s little downside to putting up new service offerings. In fact, the people who know you and follow you, they expect you’ll have something to announce, very soon. They hope to be surprised.

When you’re employed by someone else, you can still use your off time to play. And you can start honouring some new guarantees from time to time, to train the muscle. But soon you’ll find that requiring guarantees is a mindset that has a bit of a ceiling, and soon after, you’ll be wishing for open skies.

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The sky is the limit when you’re in the mindset of giving guarantees. But when you operate in a world where you require guarantees, you box yourself in. Mostly upside in one mindset, and more downsides in the other.

The first step about getting the upsides of guarantees: start offering guarantees, and honouring guarantees, more and more. That’s an approach with few downsides. Guaranteed.