My dear friend,
I hope that my letter here finds you in the best of health and spirit.
I cannot begin to describe to you how happy I was when I heard that you wanted to become an entrepreneur. In a way, I am glad that many of those amongst us has decided to opt to chase our dreams, dreams of getting the financial freedom, dream of having a better life, dream of having a bit more.
Well, this decision could be the best decision that you have ever made in your entire life. No more bosses to answer to, especially stupid bosses. No more office politics with the guy in the next cubicle who is forever trying to find out what is your paycheck and compare it with his. No more limit to how much you can earn, capped by the salary your idiot boss thought you deserve (although you are doing all his work, deserving all his salary). No more punchcard, no more traffic jams. You would be free to decide which are your working days and which are your weekends. If done right, you don't have to 'work' at all, your business, your employees and your money work to bring you money. All you need to do would be to attend the gym classes, a little bit of yoga, hang out at the coffee shop and doing what you love best - whatever that may be (maybe write a blog about 'idiot bosses and stupid colleagues: the combo from hell'). This decision could lead you to financial freedom and independence, this decision could lead you to immense wealth and this decision could also make you a bankrupt (?). We will come back to that later, but at least now we have thing for sure, you are going to be an entrepreneur and you have tendered your resignation letter to your not so smart boss.
The path to entrepreneurship is certainly many, beginning with the level of commitment we are willing to spend. Some decided to take entrepreneurship as a part time vocation, working and at the same time carrying out a business on the side. Some decided to completely leave their jobs and put faith to the test, committing fully to the game of entrepreneurship. To each his own, I guess. And I am both happy and worried that you had chosen the path that I had taken.
That path to full-time entrepreneurship would mean that you would be leaving your job, as I had done, years ago. Putting faith in our ability, our assessment, our plan and our confidence that we will succeed. And why shouldn't we. We were brilliant employees. We were paid six figure salaries (our tax deduction alone was enough to pay a manager). If we could make that much money for our bosses, why can't we make that amount for ourselves. We have the confidence, we should have the skills to make it out there on our own. And some of us, would be fortunate enough to have a stash of cash, from either savings or gratuity or compensation. We have the capital, we have the product and service (ourselves); we are going to make it! Yes!
No.
We must realize that the only asset that we bring into this world of entrepreneurship is our confidence, and even that could prove to be our undoing. There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, the latter being the surefire attitude for failure. You have the capital and you have the products? They don't really matter that much. That is your money to begin with yet the purpose of having a business is to get other people's money. Your money and your product cannot make money on itself. I am sure we know of some of our friend who lost all his compensation money on a 'surefire' businesses; and they were supposed to be intelligent, just like us.
But I do not want to put you off this decision to become an entrepreneur. I truly believe that this is your opportunity to achieve greatness, to attain financial freedom and live well beyond the means of your boss's boss. And because you are my friend, my good friend, I am going to do is. I am going to write to you regularly ;and in each letter, I will share with you the secret of making it our here in the entrepreneurship world. I have to write to you a few times because it is a long story and I am not getting paid for doing you this favour (oh, that reminds me, you still owe me a foot massage from the golf game last month, what gives dude..hehe)
Lesson 1: We don't know shit, dude
Whatever knowledge we had in us mean very little outside here. So if we come out thinking no one can teach us, we might as well file to be a bankrupt next week. We were best at getting a salary and play the corporate ladder, we know jack shit about getting someone else to pay for our product and service (remember, you no longer carry the brand of our esteemed employer any more). We must be humble and ready to learn from the word go.
Lesson 2: Get a mentor and training
Because we know jack shit (don't know anything), there are two ways to learn things; the hard way or the easy way. The hard headed ones will learn the hard way, by failing a lot; mostly failing on the basic things in business. The smarter ones gets a mentor, either professionally or informally from friends and family members who has been in business. I recommend a professional (ehem, like yours truly) because a professional coach have a structured way to guide you, although they come with a price. Informal mentors could be very good, but you might end up with someone who is successful but don't know how to teach. Plus, you can't get mad with the informal ones or you might lose a friend. And yeah, go for training too because remember, we know jack shit.
Lesson 3:Be confident, not arrogant
There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. You want to have confidence yet be humble in your dealing and relationship with people. In business, you would need all the help you can get and being arrogant would definitely deny yourself that avenue, that aid from people. Good people are drawn to confidence and humility but hates arrogance. Those who love arrogance are arrogant themselves and they would rather help themselves rather than help another arrogant ox.
Lesson 4: Be brave, not reckless
Entrepreneurship demands courage. Courage to commit to a decision with unknown outcome (of course you hope it would be profit at the end of every decision but there is no guarantee). But that courage must not transform into recklessness, acting purely on impulse and gut feeling alone. Acting on blind faith with no research done at all, basically gambling. Being courageous or brave means taking that leap after you have considered the options, weighed the possibilities and build genuine confidence.
Lesson 5: Have faith in yourself and your passion
I think I will leave this in my next letter. My eyes are growing tired and I have an early appointment at the gym tomorrow.
Good night
Yours truly
Yazdi
p/s: golf next week?
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The Author is the principal of ElixirEducate - a training house for Smart Entrepreneur Program Series. If you would like what you read above, we would be grateful if you could 'like' us at our page here. If you would like to to find out or learn more about the the article above, you can email the author directly at yazdi@theelixirstore.com or be his facebook friend here.
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