I think one of the biggest lie every young and old entrepreneur falls for—more often the young ones because we totally dig this lifestyle—is that you get to be your own boss and have the flexibility to work from home at your own hours. While that’s actually true, what most new entrepreneurs fail to also consider is that you’re also more likely to screw up your life without a proper management system which your 9-5 job offers you.
There’s no immediate penalty if you don’t wake up early to do work, there’s no immediate consequence for partying your night off while your employee friends leave early, and there’s also no one to give you a hard time for not keeping up to your personal work commitments; but the kickback is often 10 to 100x more severe than a normal 9-5 employee and here’s why.
1) Your employee friend is being paid to show up at work regardless of whether he or she does any work or not. While you experimentally have great potential to make future income, it’s entirely based on the condition that you survive long enough to reap the rewards. Most people quit and I don’t blame you.
We’re crazy, and it’ll take someone crazy enough to want to ever consider going out or getting married to us. Having said that, he or she who chooses to date and marry you at this stage of your life where you’ve got nothing is more likely to stay with you when you’re successful (Unless you got dumped because you cheated, you #!¥%#!).
2) Your employee friend has active cash flow meaning he or she has the capability to save money while you’re either surviving on your depleting savings and scrapping up coins below the seat of your car.
Trust me, it gets even harder when you’re invited for dinners with friends at Chillis and Tony Romas and you can’t afford to order anything but warm water.
3) Your employee friend is raking up months and years of work experience on paper, which means that if he or she decides to quit her job of 20 years, bum around for the next 2 years counting sheep and sniffing sunflowers and come back into full-time employment, they’re more likely to get a job than you—the entrepreneur—simply because they’ve got documented evidence of work experience while you have none unless you’ve written a book, and it better be a darn good one!
Moral of the story?
Quitting your job and becoming an entrepreneur in hope of being a future millionaire isn’t as simple as it seems. While your friends at work clock in an average of 8 hours a day, entrepreneurs tend to do nearly double the hours. Oh and that extra hours doesn’t necessarily mean more pay. Just so you know, it’s more learn than pay.
Having said that, in the past 6 years of being an entrepreneur, I’ve needed to go through 4 massive business failures before finally finding some element of success and breakthrough in my life.
So if you’re planning on screwing up your life by quitting your job and becoming an entrepreneur because your job sucks and your bosses hate you, it’s wise that you find an anchor and a direction before committing yourself to it.
Feature image adapted from Auditions Info.
