Often when I hear someone talking about being an entrepreneur or read an article about it… I hear the word “entrepreneur” being said with the same hollow, commercialized tone that a used car lot advertises their “Sunday Funday Super Sale!.” Our world has been polluted by late night infomercials hacking get-rich-quick schemes and self-help gurus selling books with good common sense packaged as mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting wisdom.
Being an entrepreneur is a risky business, and it isn’t for everyone. It takes dedication. Passion. (The kind that gets an athlete up every morning at 5am to run 10 miles. / Not the kind of passion where he loves how he looks in his running suit.) I didn’t make the decision to be an entrepreneur because “making millions and owning my own island” sounded like a pretty good life… I can’t turn the ideas off in my head, and if I wasn’t actively trying to build them I’d go nuts.
Going out on your own as an entrepreneur is a scary journey in un-charted waters where you either reach a distant land filled with riches, or sink along the way. The problem is, people are willing to pay for advice or help in order to make the journey a little easier… and there are always sharks in the water waiting to help you out.
Entrepreneurial self tests or articles like this one kill me. You might as well replace the title of the article with “You might have a pulse if…”
A better list of questions for Entrepreneurial Self-Evaluation:
1.) Do you love working long hours without the guarantee of receiving financial compensation for your efforts?
2.) Does failing more often than succeeding excite you?
3.) Are you passionate about being head first and up to your ass in debt?
4.) Are you disgusted by the idea of a comfortable job that isn’t that bad, that allows you to plan your weekends and vacations?
5.) Do you love explaining your ideas to your closest friends and family, despite the fact it may push some of them away and make you appear as though you’ve gone off the deep end?
6.) Does constantly evaluating your dreams / life goals as either “on target” or “totally ridiculous” fit well with your self-confidence levels.
7.) Are you happy to watch friends with stable incomes party it up on the weekends while you spend another weekend working 20+ hours?
In my opinion, there is a difference between being a small business owner and an entrepreneur, and there is a special breed of entrepreneurs that I like to call Internet Astronauts. They have dreams of doing something nobody has done before. They are pioneers and explore new ideas and worlds. These “Netronauts” either rapidly rocket to the stars and stardom or come crashing and burning down to earth… most likely to build a new spaceship with what they learned from the last attempt.
There shouldn’t be any sort of stigma against small business owners, entrepreneurs, netronauts, or 9-5 workers. All are making a decision to live their lives the way that it works for them. The constant glamorization of one life over the other just breed false hopes and animosity. Find the right way that works for you and that allows you to be happy with your life.
RSS