Want to start your own business? Have a business already and need a push? This is for you:
Become ’Your Own Boss’ usually the hooking words of every MLM that gets passed around from, “quit that 9-5 do this that this and that and sign up under me and boom you will be your own boss”. Real entrepreneurship is not as easy as joining a random pyramid scheme or entering into a job that has ‘flexible’ hours. Its much much more than that- when you become an “entrepreneur” and create a business from the ground up that business is your baby, its not just what you do for “work” your life is your work and your work becomes your life. A common trait that sets a lot of entrepreneurs apart is that they dedicate their life to their business there are many sacrifices that comes with the highs and lows of being your own boss. Lots of people may say, wow- seems like a lot of work to dedicate your life to something, and it is without a doubt however when you are in love with what you do it does feel like work. As the saying goes, “If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life” and that is one of the truest statements in entrepreneurship. As there are many pros and cons in anything today, we are just focusing on 5 pro’s of being an entrepreneur.
1. Free time/flexibility - Take a moment to think about your daily routine, think about the time you spend sleeping in a 24 hour day, subtract that from a 24 hour day that is the time you are able to make sh*t happen. Most answers are between 15-17 hours a day that you are awake. Now of that time you are awake during the day how much of that time do you have to yourself to do whatever you want. Most people have daily obligations, school, work etc. The common answer is 16 hours of being awake in a day, 8-9 hours of work + average commute = 10 hours working leaves just about 6 hours or so a day completely free in your day to do what you want. However that 6 hours is not consecutive for most people in fact in a typical 9 to 5 schedule its usually 1-2 hours before you clock in for work and 4-5 hours after you clock out. This schedule repeats itself 5 out of the 7 days in a week, around 20 days a month, and about 260 days in a year. Most people think that when you are entrepreneur you have just a free schedule and you can do whatever you want, it may seem like it but when you are focused on your craft you dedicate as much time as you can to it. But at the end of the day the flexibility is incredible because if you don’t feel up to working you don’t have to work at all. The difference is when you don’t work or dedicate time to your OWN business it hurts YOU. When you don’t dedicate time to someone else’s business it hurts them. So yes, there is flexibility and free time to do whatever you want but it comes at a cost. When you own your own business your flexibility allows you to do more things on a timely matter to continue to help and become more efficient to your business, it’s not just flexibility to watch TV. It all comes down to what you value your time at, and what that flexibility can provide for your relationships, family, and your life.
2. Control over decision making. - Control over decision making may seem obvious in most scenarios, but is one of the most under rated benefits of owning your own business. When it comes down to decision making your business is 100% in your own hands, you are responsible for any decision good or bad. Every choice you make and the actions you take is what shapes your business overtime, but you aren’t alone. Most entrepreneurs have partners, friends, mentors, family, that they can go to for advice to have someone with an outside perspective to make the best decisions possible. But at the end of the day you are the boss, the final say comes from you.
3. Ability to scale at your own pace - Life can be choppy from time to time. Not everything goes as planned and not everything will always stay to course. The ability to scale or invest time/money into your business at your own pace is one massive benefit of being an entrepreneur. Why does this matter? This huge because you don’t have to jump in full time into a business that may not be profitable yet. Fresh businesses need time to grow and turn a profit so you can pay yourself, most businesses take a while to make money so instead of putting yourself in a tough finical situation, you scale into your business. For example, you work a 9-5 and decide you want to start a clothing brand, you start working on designs and samples and you make a website etc etc. You dedicate as much time to it as you can in your free time, you get the store up and it starts making sales, selling a few shirts most likely isn’t going to replace your 9-5 income so you have to slowly scale out of the 9-5, and scale into your business at a rate that makes sense. This scaling period really is determined on several factors including, time, labor, start up costs, operating overhead, and of course profit. Being able to scale at your own pace allows someone who is transferring from a different job or industry to start to grow a business that is on a timeline that is custom to their life, a massive benefit of being an entrepreneur.
4. Pick your own people- It is nearly impossible to have a successful company single handedly. Most of the time you need to recruit labor, partners, managers, employees, developers, marketers, etc. to allocate tasks and duties to create a more efficient growing business. If the owner focuses on doing everything tasks all by themselves there will be gaps in time management and efficiency. One big thing that a lot of large successful companies do is they hire talent to work at certain areas of their business to grow it to the best it could be. When you own the business you get to pick who is responsible for what, you get to pick your employees you have the ability to use your best judgement to decide what roles need to be fulfilled and who fills them.
5. Satisfaction - Taking us back Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs refers to self-actualization, which is the highest level or stage in his model of human motivation: the 'Hierarchy of Needs'. According to the hierarchy of needs, self-actualization represents the highest-order motivations, which drive us to realize our true potential and achieve our 'ideal self'. It’s more than just the psychology of ones self worth, the satisfaction and experiences you get from owning and operating are unlike any other. When you create something from scratch and when you watch your business ‘your baby’ grow into something no matter what level of success it has you are proud of it. Having that feeling of being proud and excited about your business makes it all worth it, just another reason to become an entrepreneur.
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