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Employee or Entrepreneur... which one are you?David Hooper
How many times have you heard people say, "Oh, yeah a home-business is good for that kind of person, but not for me... I'm just not like that." Have you ever wondered what the "that" is they are talking about. It seems to be something elusive, almost mystical, that they are talking about... something you can't quite put your finger on... Those with more business acumen will point out that successful people have much higher skills in the areas of communication, leadership, sales, self-motivation etc, but there is something even beyond all of these skills that a successful person has that is at the very root of how they see their place in the world. To put it simply, the success stories of the world see themselves as entrepreneurs, not employees, and that difference sets them apart in a myriad of ways. Understanding the difference between the employee mentality and the entrepreneur mentality, and how it relates to our business, can cut literally years off the learning curve of a prospective home business owner. So what's the difference? The employee mentality values stability and security over freedom. A person in this mentality looks outside of themselves, to an employer, for their security. They have willingly traded their time freedom for the security of not having to worry about their short term maintenance. The employee mentality is content to trade their time for money, knowing that if they stop working before retirement age, they will stop getting paid. Consequently, an employee needs to know exactly how much he is making for his time, because he always thinks in terms of how much immediate income he got from the time invested. On the other hand, the entrepreneur values their freedom above all else, and wants to design their own life, free from the restrictions of an employer. Such a person is comfortable taking risks, because they know that even mistakes are a great learning experience, and so long as they keep learning, they will keep progressing towards ultimate success. The entrepreneur knows that they will have to work for some time at their business without much result. They understand the concept of investing into their future for their long term benefit, and they have a longer term vision – they judge their efforts in terms of how many “seeds” they are planting for future business success, not immediate results. The biggest difference, however, is that the entrepreneur looks within for their security and investment: they know that the more they progress in their own personal development, inner strength, leadership etc, the more they will profit. The employee also looks to advance himself, but this is generally in terms of external job skills such as extra qualifications or job skills; for the entrepreneur, he/she is truly investing in their own personal qualities for success. The mistake that people often make when starting their own home-based business is that they don't realize the 180° paradigm shift that they have to make from their previous employee mentality to the mentality of an entrepreneur. What this means practically, is that they start to judge their business in terms of the immediate output of profits and wages, rather than looking at how they are developing their business skills and planting good seed, which, if tended properly, can fructify into tremendous success in good time. Understanding our own mentality, and how to adapt to the mentality of a successful entrepreneur, rather than an employee, is therefore a vital key to achieving success with our own home-business. |
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