Maybe I’m
different. I’ve been accused of that before on more than one occasion. For some
strange reason, I have wanted my own business for as long as I can remember. Deep
down I had some hidden drive to want to do better and stand out as “Accomplished”
in some sort of way. Is there some sort of “Entrepreneur gene” that I don’t
know about yet? Maybe those guys working on the Hadron Collider will start
working on that one next after they’ve narrowed down something on that “God
gene.”
Correct me if I’m
wrong but this is still America, isn’t it? Some will debate me on that one, and
I probably wouldn’t put up much of an argument with them either. During my more
impressionable years, I was shown the greatness that this country had grown to
be because of amazing and brilliant industrialists and philanthropists like
Howard Hughes, Henry Ford, George Westinghouse and Richard Mellon Scaife. Where are they today? We have all heard the
likes of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, but where are the entrepreneurs next
door? It’s like they’ve all disappeared within the last decade. Is it any
wonder that unemployment is at an all time high?
I think it’s
because of the “follow-the-herd” mentality ingrained in us in school. We’re
never truly taught how to succeed. Entrepreneurism is a subject long done away
with, unfortunately. Is it any wonder why most people expect to fail if they
open a business?
We’re constantly told that in order for us to
succeed we must first get an approval paper signed, stamped and delivered at
the ground-breaking cost of thousands and thousands of dollars from an
accredited University. A paper that says that we are now fully capable of doing
what we are told and we know how to regurgitate information. We are told that
this is the only way to get a decent paying job. We are told that a great job
comes with a fantastic benefits package and all the trimmings.
After we’ve done
what we’re told and have met the approval of family, relatives, friends and
teachers, we are now deemed worthy of an
Entry-Level job with pay far lower than the debt we acquired to get there
in the first place. We now have a career that we enjoy (hopefully), but the
way most companies are run nowadays, you won’t see your first raise and vacation day for at least another 365 days. When
the raise does come, it’s only enough to increase your taxes or add an extra
hamburger value meal to your day and not much more.
According to the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), there are several common
occupational related diseases including
Hearing loss, Acute pesticide illness, tendonitis, mental health issues,
heatstroke, poisoning, freeze-bite and respiratory conditions just to name a
few. In addition to these we can place increased anxiety and depression near
the top of the list. This is also does not take into account hazardous duty
jobs in both the public and private sector. It’s almost as if you pledge your
life and soul to the company and not to our families or even ourselves. You trade
it all in for a bag of peanuts at the end of the week. And most of that never
sees the light of day. All this and forty plus hours a week away from your wife
and family, who could want anything more?
Americans now
are scared to step out into the Chapel
Perilous (a place of infinite possibilities and personal change that is the
next step to the risk of the unknown). They are anxiously waiting to dump their
entire paycheck into a machine in a casino for the chance of “Winning Millions”
but they haven’t the foresight to countless other ways of doubling or tripling
their earnings. They have been so dumb
down and terrified of stepping out of line and moving away from anything that
remotely looks like security, they have all but forgotten who they are, who
they were and who they were meant to be.
I can hear what
you’re saying now. “Chris how are we supposed to support our families if we’re
busy trying to build a business? At least with a job I have some financial
security.” WRONG. If you should’ve learned anything from 2008 and beyond, it’s that
there is no REAL security, let alone financial security, unless the government
has ordained you “Too Big To Fail,” and even if you work for one of those
mega-corporations, don’t think that you’re necessarily gonna be on the
receiving end of one of those doled-out bonuses. In fact, that ought to serve
as a lesson to everyone about just how chaotic life truly is. Chaos, risk,
change and personal evolution are all inevitable.
“Well hey what
about all those businesses that fail? I don’t want to open up a business and
fail. I’d rather just keep my job and earn my pay that way.” Okay. So, say you
do fail. Who cares? Educate yourself. Get some good training. Multi-million
dollar businesses aren’t made overnight. Plus, if you haven’t failed at least
once, you’re probably not trying, which is even worse. There’s a saying “Flowing
water never grows stale.” Keep moving. Keep experimenting until you get it
right. When you get it right, you’ll know. Do Olympic athletes just quit after
the first time they fail? No. They train. They perfect themselves through
thousands, even millions of repetitions before a competition. Plus you shouldn’t
look at your failures as just failures. They are actually opportunities for you
to learn from and improve upon the next round. That’s how you get better. That’s how you
learn to do it right.
So how far away
are you from your first million dollars? How far away is your next vacation? Did
your boss ever get around to buying you that new home you always wanted? And exactly
how large was that last raise you got…if you got one? And, by the way, how’s your health these days?
If you are like
most Americans, you are still working forty plus hours a week, for what is now
seven months out of the year, just to pay off the government. If you’ve been working since your teen years,
and you are in your thirty-somethings, you’ve got about fifteen years of solid
steady work experience behind you, plus a college education (and all the debt
it carries), an apartment or home with a hefty mortgage, a family, car note,
cable bill, insurance and a litany of other black holes that manage to quash
your prosperity daily.
I would like for
everyone to own their own business at some point in their life. It’s not
impossible. Granted, some will have the right stuff to make it all the way and
some will not.
I think Gene Simmons of KISS put it best when
he said, “The idea that anybody in their twenties or thirties would ever think
about taking a vacation before they’ve amassed fame and fortune is a wonderful
idea – FOR LOSERS, Not everyone can climb Mount Olympus; somebody’s got to wrap
fish.”
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