Entrepreneurship is almost a cure-all for most people. It frees them from the drudgery of doing what hey don’t like. It’s the ultimate route—when done right – to higher earnings, more freedom, and a chance to do something that can possibly change the way problems are solved. If nothing, it’s the oldest form of making a living. No matter what your reasons for entrepreneurship are, it’s not an easy path to take. It’s riddled with problems, challenges, and thorns in your path.
That’s why normal people don’t succeed with entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurs are the craziest group of people ever. They are mavericks, risk takers, and they like to take life into their own hands. They aren’t afraid of failure and they are daredevils ever willing to walk into buildings, hustle, sell, negotiate, and make things happen. They manage uncertainty like everyone else manages the process of breathing.
Entrepreneurs, in short, are uncelebrated heroes. If you are reading this, we are assuming that you are already one or would like to be one. If so, here are some pointers to convince you that entrepreneurship is indeed the best route to take:
It makes more money, period
There’s no denying this. There’s no way you can sweep this aspect under the carpet and act as if we entrepreneurs do things because they make us “feel good”, to “rebel” or to “prove” anything at all. While all of those could very well be a few reasons, they are certainly not on the top of the list. Sooner or later, even the most passionate of entrepreneurs would like to have their payday. Entrepreneurs aren’t ported in from heaven – they have their bills to pay.
Entrepreneurship – whether you are doing it for passion, love, to make a difference, or because you have no clue why – makes you more money than a day job can.
It makes you a hero
Since normal people cannot be entrepreneurs, only heroes can be. Why heroes? Is it a grand attempt to exemplify entrepreneurship? Absolutely not.
It’s just our job to acknowledge the fact that entrepreneurs end up working more, every single day, 365 days a week. They put in more hours; rarely take days off, and work for the sheer pleasure of growing a company. They do for the sake of doing. There’s absolutely nothing normal about this, is there? Who in their right minds would want to sacrifice good things in life, spend years building something they aren’t sure of, and wait for the pay day when a job would pay each month?
It allows you to create
Daniel H. Pink wrote a book called Drive where he insists – arguing through the entire length of the book – that most people get their satisfaction intrinsically. The “Reward and Recognition” model that the modern corporate world follows is flawed. The open source revolution, all those things you get for free, and those awesome apps that you can download for no cost today are testimony to the fact that most entrepreneurs do things for the sake of creating something out of nothing. Eventually, even passionate entrepreneurs want to build a sustainable business out of their creation.
But then, that’s not what matters to entrepreneurs (although they end up richer and more satisfied). What matters is the sheer pleasure of creating something out of nothing. Even the simple act of trading – buy low and sell high – is the beginning of enterprise creation.
It makes you a leader, overnight
So, as entrepreneurs start their businesses and while these businesses begin to grow, there’ll be a need to find talent. It’s time for leverage. Naturally, entrepreneurs have to now force themselves to hire others, manage teams, develop systems, build processes, and eventually bring out the best in others. Entrepreneurs suddenly turn leaders overnight. Young or old, experienced or not, straight out of an Ivy League management school or not – they are all forced to lead.
Try grabbing a leadership position (when you want to or when you think you are ready) with a day job. Good luck with that.
Entrepreneurship packs multiple skills into you
Like it or not, you’ll end up multi-skilled. You’d know your business and then you’d know others’ businesses too. You’d be technically savvy and then you’d learn how to teach or train others to “duplicate” what you do. While wearing multiple hats in your entrepreneurial journey, you’d slowly pick up skills you never thought you would. You’d be the technician, the lawyer, the accountant, the sales person, the manager, and also the delivery person or the janitor in some cases.
That’s a lot of skills to live your life with. You don’t ever have to worry about alternative careers, if you had to take up one just in case.
Guts, confidence, and glory
It takes guts to ask the world to sit up, take notice, and then have them consider buying from you (no matter how you choose to intercept your customers). It really takes some reservoir of strength and conviction to follow your passion and dream. It takes a lot of confidence to eschew normal protocol, to defy what the world says, to go at it alone when no one else seems to understand what you want to do.
Yet, you’d do it. Every entrepreneurial story could actually make it to the list of “Against all odd stories”. Whether you’ll actually drag themselves to glory or not, only you can tell. If you do, we’ll write to tell the tale for you.
Are you proud to be an entrepreneur? Even if you are just thinking about it, just got started, or maybe somewhere between startup and glory, do you have pride swelling up in you?
We want to know what you think. Write away to your hearts content down here in the comments below.