The idea of owning a company and employing other people is the new form of celebrity. Most of us are hooked on the be your own boss buzz, walking around thinking we have what it takes to be an entrepreneur -donning the CEO title on Twitter and Instagram. Truth is being an entrepreneur is as much of a skill as being a football player or an artist. You have to have it in you or you’re going to fail. Maybe you even make it financially but you'll hate your life.
First of all, if you have ever had a job and kept it for more than a year, then you are not a naturally born entrepreneur because born entrepreneurs can’t stand having a job.
I know the thought of being an entrepreneur makes you dream and feel better about yourself. You see yourself one day gaining the financial freedom it promises while being your own boss and it gets you excited- now, hold that thought for a moment.This is one case where a talent is born not made. You can make a good business man but you have to be born an entrepreneur. If you had not set up a business by the time you were 15, sorry to tell you, you are not an entrepreneur.
Some of you will ask me why I am saying this now when all I always talk about is the need for you to develop a skill that allows you to be self employed. Well, self employment is not the same as being an entrepreneur. Think of being self employed more as in the freelancer lane of things and that is perfectly fine (having a job is also fine as some of us are just not cut out to have the kind of discipline needed to be a freelancer or an entrepreneur). Remember in secondary school when some people campaigned to be prefects and others did not want to be prefects? - Think about what that means.
Some us us will be happier doing our 9-5, and not having to bother about the responsibility of looking over an entire company taking the blame for everything that goes wrong because that is how we are naturally wired.
If you still think you will like to become the owner of the next big company, think about if you are probably set up to be an investor. Keep your day job and find an entrepreneur with an idea you believe in, then invest in that idea. That is one way to put yourself in the position to finally retire on the beach and that is probably the best way for you.
Basically, the true test of whether you are an entrepreneur or not is that you can’t stand working for another person. I do not mean you hate your company and you will like to work for another company with a better corporate culture. I mean even if Apple offered you a job, the pay must be good enough that you will only take it knowing your 6 months salary will give you the capital needed to start your own business. Most entrepreneurs never even get to the point of turning in an application and when they do, they are probably doing it under pressure and they write a resume they know will never get them hired because they want that rejection- for it is fuel to them.
Secondly-
Entrepreneurship is not a reality TV show of Keeping Up with the 9-5ers.
There are many of those natural entrepreneurs out there but some of us now behave like deer in headlights. In Cameroon, many tend to tackle entrepreneurship like showbiz forgetting that many in showbiz don’t even know what they are doing either -but since it looks all good on instagram, it is the thing to do. The expensive dinners and nights out with all your fellow ‘entrepreneurs’ all suited up, using money you won from an entrepreneurship competition counts as all the wrong things you can be doing as an entrepreneur. All that can fly if you find it essential to sealing a big money deal but from my observation it is mostly a thing done to impress 9-5ers. We care too much about what people think of us and that will be the cause of many of our failures.
We all have some growing up to do and why not eat your karma now and move on with your life rather than save it for later?
Exercise the power of broke. Do the right things and don't be fancy!
Goodluck!