You probably have heard the statement: get a job and get a life. Haven’t you also heard the word ‘entrepreneur’ probably a gazillion times in your life? Countless books, magazines, podcasts, seminars and webinars, workshops, YouTube videos and even sermons exist. Their sole purpose is to teach you to work as an entrepreneur. A gazillion platforms exists as well to teach you how to get hired – how to get a job.
What are we talking about?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an entrepreneur as: one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. In other words, an entrepreneur takes risks with the hope of making profit. The same dictionary defines a job as: 1. a regular remunerative position 2. something done for private advantage. 3. a piece of work. You may earn a livelihood by engaging in any of these.
In my opinion, you can sell a skill or product to earn a livelihood. The skill or product could have been learnt or developed respectively as a result of discovering and refining your gift. Others believe that college qualifications are the only means to earn a meaningful livelihood; they argue that if only you have college degrees, can you be able to create products or get hired (you, be the judge of that).
The complexity
It is true that every human being is born with a gift. And, it is necessary to find that gift, develop, refine and use it.
Therefore, the dominant argument goes something like this: find your gift, stop working for someone else – an employer, and work for yourself. The suggestion is that being an ‘employee’ means making money for someone else. That ‘someone else’ determines your worth with a salary, treats you as they please, and may sometimes make it out like they are doing you a favor. Despite the existence of legislation and labor laws to regulate behavior at work especially with regards to employer/employee relations, this attitude still persists especially in the corporate world. Does this suggest that an employee may start their own own economic activity and quit their job to become an entrepreneur?
From the definitions of the words entrepreneur and job in the second paragraph above, becoming an entrepreneur does not necessarily mean quitting your job to become self-employed. Someone who manages, organizes and assumes the risk of a business, in my opinion may do so from within an organization where they work as an employee. The late Paul Allen was a true entrepreneur, yet he did not quit his job at Microsoft. There are millions of others like Paul Allen.
Here is the thing
The whole point I am driving at is this: you were born with a gift. That gift makes you unique. If you are able to know your gift and develop it, you can exercise your gift (creating products or selling a skill) as your work or job, within a company or as a self-employed individual. Look at this: someone who has identified and developed a skill in football to the extent of getting noticed by a club, is a gifted footballer. Yet, the footballer’s skills are useless without a team.
You see, sometimes gifts that individuals have discovered and refined may only be useful within a company. Many so-called entrepreneurs honed their gifts into powerful skills when they worked as employees. So, I think the important thing is not where you work and under what conditions; rather, an important question should be: am I in my element as I exercise my gift in this job/work, by myself or as an employee?
Let me highlight a subtle danger at this point: I am not saying these things to make you comfortable in your current work/job as an employee. You risk wasting your life and gifts earning a living instead of using your gifts to impact the world. Then someday you are going to ‘retire’ (I dread this word) and die. I sincerely do not believe life was designed by the Creator to be like that.
Therefore…
That said, my new perspective on entrepreneurship and ‘jobbing’ is that becoming an entrepreneur doesn’t necessarily mean quitting your job. I hear you screaming. But wait a minute. A true entrepreneur is someone who has found and refined their gift, made themselves invaluable as they take calculated risks and offer their product or skill to the world, and that could be done from within a company or as self-employed persons. But remember, there is a popular adage that ‘no man is an island’. Even successful entrepreneurs need a team because they can’t make it in isolation. True, right? Remember Paul Allen, Steve Jobs and many others.
Therefore I am saying that, to become a true entrepreneur, even if you read all the books you want but fail to apply the rules (yes, most entrepreneur/job hunting books are full of rules) along the lines of your gift, you may struggle a great deal with your work/job. There are already millions struggling in the world trying to apply rules they learnt while reading for their college degrees (where they graduated first class) yet they are broke. You know why? Following rules that do not align your work/job with your gift usually turns into a frustrating and mechanical experience.
Do this
So what now? Simply identify and work on those qualities that make you unique – your gifts. Those qualities will position you to organize, manage, and assume the risks of a business or enterprise, yours or someone else’s. That is possibly the only guaranteed authentic and ethical pathway to succeeding as an entrepreneur. Leverage what you are good at and passionate about, which is usually your gift, in your entrepreneurial endeavors, and you are likely to ‘make it’ big.
So, before you quit your job to ‘become’ an entrepreneur, determine your strengths and weaknesses; know yourself (see my post You were born to be a star. Do you even know?), weigh your options and consider carefully what your contribution is to fellow humans and life in general.
How are you intending to impact your world?
My books (a course on self-discovery and self-development for career success) Do Yourself a Favor. Get Up! and Move! and its Study Guide are available on Amazon.com. Click here.
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