Jul
Look Before You Leap (Into The World of Entrepreneurship)
Can you remember a time when you worked for someone else and thought to yourself, “I cannot wait to work for myself, then I won’t have to deal with my nagging boss, annoying clients or [fill in the blank]“?
And then you launched into the world of entrepreneurship and running your own business and now you think, “I wish I had a boss telling me exactly what to do each day and how do I get more clients?”.
The grass is always greener, eh?!
As an entrepreneur you need to either have or cultivate the following qualities:
- Self-discipline
- Good time management skills
- Creativity in problem-solving
- An eye for detail
- Determination
- Staying power
- Forward planning
When you run your own business there is no-one telling you what to do nor how to do it; there’s no-one nagging you to work on your client pipeline nor telling to you get off Facebook and go do some work. There is no-one streamlining your processes nor checking the quality of your output.
You’re on your own…are you cut out for that?
(Because not everyone is – and that’s ok, it might just be easier to find this out before you take the plunge).
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1st short. simple. Yet great post.
I completely agree. What most people do in making the leap from corporate (or normal jobs) to the entrepreneurship is side with their right brain. The creative spark fulled by unrivaled emotion.
While that spark is essential to be your own CEO there are a few other things needed to be successful.
And all this begins with first knowing oneself. It would not be a bad move to do some serious introspection, be detailed in understanding what motivates you, what you are good at, what you love…and most of all what you don’t. What things are you poor at, despise doing? Guess what, those things you hate or avoid at the job. STILL have to get done in your own endeavor.
Books like:
Now Discover Your Strengths – Marcus Buckingham
7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Steven Covey
maybe a goodone to read might be…
X Marks the Spot….(just a hint)
These will help you determine where you are strongest and weakest. And those weak points are better to be addressed now before the plunge, rather than after and trying to tread water.
Sun Tzu: Taught your enemies weakness shall be our (your) strength
Be sure not to be on the receiving end. Know thyself!
Great stuff Lea
Great article. A few books that I would add to that list are The 4 hour work week
Time Power
Eat that frog
The magic of Thinking Big
@Ashantus – thank you for the thoughtful response, recommended resources and plug for my book! I’d never thought about the right brain driver you mentioned but that definitely makes sense. Thanks!
@nick – Yes, second your suggestions too…definitely great books that I’d recommend. Thanks!
Lea, thanks for an interesting post on entrepreneurship. You are right on in encouraging people to look before they leap. For the people who do want to consider entrepreneurship, there are a host of opportunities to change the world.In fact, in November of this year there will be a new effort to promote entrepreneurship. This will be the current first time effort among more than 60 countries to establish Global Entrepreneurship Week.
I hope this international effort will be an inspiration to young people across the world to face the challenge of their dreams and not to be frozen by the fear of loss. Let’s hope your blog will encourage people to give it a try.
Shallie Bey