How to Gently Dump Someone so You can Get On with Your New Business
by Case Lane
Ending a relationship is never an easy conversation. But it’s necessary.
A bad boyfriend or girlfriend needs to be removed so you can move on and find someone new. Ending a marriage is more dramatic and typically requires third parties to finish the process, but the reasoning is the same – both sides must be permitted to move on.
But when it comes to toxic friends and family, many aspiring entrepreneurs remain aspiring because you feel obligated to remain among those you have always have in your life. Even when you have made an effort to improve your personal development or began researching how to execute on your business idea, you play along to get along with the people who are in your life.
Define ‘why’
You want to start your own business and spend time on the product or service idea you have developed, but maybe you are married, or with someone or have other family obligations, or a lot of friends who expect you at parties and events, or you feel you must be wherever they are.
That’s your first mistake. You are holding yourself back. By discovering and reading this article, you have already declared your intention to start your own business. If the people around you do not want to move forward to the next level, you need to breakoff the relationship.
But how do you get away…gently?
Consider dumping toxic people – your friends, maybe your family too, and definitely your colleagues at work – is all for a good cause, your personal lifelong dream to start your own business.
Identify your Supporters
You don’t have to dump anyone if they are all on your side. But unfortunately for many aspiring entrepreneurs no one is cheering them on. And to break away and really do what you want to do, you have to practice some tough love.
Recognize Your Contribution
You have done everything you were supposed to do – college, professional life, family relationships, and connection with friends. You do everything the way you’re supposed to do it – you go to every birthday party and wedding, you ‘like’ every Facebook post, you stay on the phone for an hour, or more while someone goes on about some guy who just left or the girl who just showed up – and that’s your life.
At work, you attend all the right meetings, fill out the mandated reports, and smile politely and engage in idle chatter with everyone with a title.
But during those birthday parties, and phone conversations and meetings, you are thinking about your business idea, marketing for the product or service, plans for your website – and you find that thinking along those lines makes you happier than the other activities.
But you feel guilty. After all, you have dutifully gone along with all the friends and family and colleague rituals for years. You’ve laughed, cried and hugged everyone. No one would ever suspect that the whole time, you were trying to figure out how to gracefully dump everyone so you could concentrate on the real passion of your life.
Recognize Your Actions
Every day you think about your business, you also feel more and more drawn to getting started. You listen to the Ready Entrepreneur podcast, read books about entrepreneurs, and research your business idea and target industry.
In fact, in reading books about entrepreneurs, you notice a common pattern. The most successful people never settle for ‘regular’ lives. They were able to roll right into starting their own business without holding back and clinging to all those old relationship ties.
The 19th century moguls – Carnegie and Morgan – were all business, all the time. Bill Gates dropped out of college to go work on his business, so did Mark Zuckerberg. Patricia and Mel Ziegler who founded Banana Republic were both working at a newspaper and left together to start their business. Sir Richard Branson was always involved in some entrepreneurial venture right out of school.
So it seems at least as the writers tell the story, these famous entrepreneurs never had to figure out a way to sneak away. In fact, from the beginning they found friends who were also business partners, like Gates and Paul Allen, and built their business together.
So what should you do?
Strategies for Gently Dumping People from Your Life
One huge caveat: people who are married or who have minor children will probably not be able to just walk away, and should to reach an amicable solution with those to whom they are legally obligated.
For aspiring entrepreneurs who are trying to gently remove people from their present lives who do not reflect their future, your task is going to be to take these strategies and wedge them into your life.
Communicate
You do not owe everyone an explanation, but there may be people in your life who you are particularly active with and therefore you need to explain what you are doing when you decide to back away.
Tell them you are starting a business and see how they react. The people who want to laugh at you or tell you you can’t do it are the first people you can walk away from without feeling guilty.
For the people who are supportive, you won’t have to worry about stepping away. They will understand.
Start Saying ‘No’
You need to start saying ‘no.‘ For once-in-a-lifetime events like weddings and funerals, you can say yes,’ especially when you know it’s easier to say ‘yes’ than to explain why you were not there.
But for the regular occurrences of parties and dinner, saying ‘no’ is going to be difficult at first. People are going to be insulted and angry by your indifference. But you have to make time for your business and for the plans you have.
Remember you are becoming an entrepreneur because you have an idea for a product or service that will add value for people who want or need your product. You are going to be helping many people with your solution. Your new community is waiting for you. If the old one does not understand, you will have to move on.
Roll out your ‘no’s’ slowly. Start with the least important events while making sure you let your existing community know you are committed to the big events.
Be Present When You Do Attend
When you are with people, be your old self. Engage with them and let them tell you their stories. Learn to be a listener. You will be attending fewer and fewer events so these few hours when you make the effort may be tedious and boring, but limited on your agenda.
At the office, focus on the work over idle gossip. Recognizing that every office is different, and the dynamics of your situation will dictate your behavior, but the idea is to use the time at the office to your advantage.
If you’re still at the office, use the time to learn as much as you can about business operations or administration that you could use in your business. Talk to people you have never spoken to about their work, and let them teach you information you can use. You can learn what not to do, and the activities you think are good or trivial.
Once you know you’re going to leave to start your own business, stop joining in the office gossip, and going out to lunch. If anyone is in your confidence, you can tell them what you’re doing, otherwise just make your excuses. Soon your colleagues will stop asking you to join them and your time will be free.
Schedule Text and Social Media Time
You are going to have to slowly wean yourself off of texting and social media with friends and family. Schedule the time when you will look at your phone for social reasons, for example at 9 am, 3 pm and 8 pm – or something similar. Turn off the buzzer on your phone, and turn off all social media notifications.
If your work and personal phone are the same, try not to look at the personal posts and emails. You will not be able to get on with your business if you are trying to get to your phone every minute.
Those closest to you will call if there is an emergency.
Summary: How to Gently Dump Someone so You can get on with Your New Business
These simple behaviors are designed to give you the time to focus on starting your business, and moving your life towards your goal of lifestyle freedom. You are doing this to have purpose and fulfillment in your life.
Some people may not support your intent, but those that do will be with you on this gloriously fun entrepreneurship journey.
- If you have already done everything you are supposed to do, then you likely have a life of family, friends and colleagues who expect you to participate in their social interactions and casual banter just when you want to work on your business
- To move away from them – communicate – with the ones closest to you so they know what you are doing
- Start saying ‘no’ to the least important events, and work your way up until you have to say ‘yes’ to the once-in-a-lifetime events
- Be present when you attend functions and events. If you still want to be with everyone, let them know you still care
- If you’re at work, use the time to understand business concepts. If appropriate, speak to people about their work to learn information you may be able to use in your business
- Say ‘no’ to gossiping and social lunches – soon your colleagues will stop asking you to join them, and it will be easier to walk away
- Schedule text and social media time, outside of work to limit the hours when you will check for texts and social media
If you implement these tips, hopefully you can have a graceful exit from the past and a triumphant entry into your new future.
Keep Your Dreams When the World Changes
by Case Lane
When the New Year’s celebrations lit up the world on January 1, 2020, most people were bracing for an exciting year. The Olympics, elections, a growing economy, lots of travel, weddings, graduations – all round celebrations and good times…just like normal.
As an aspiring entrepreneur you may have been planning your big breakthrough – the changes that would take you to the next level.
You could have guessed a financial or operational issue might have thrown you off for a day or two, but you had no reason to believe you would end up living in a completely different world.
For the first few months of 2020, as a global pandemic spread around the world, and governments made the unprecedented decision to shutdown all movement – you found yourself stuck, literally – with the greatest question of your life so far – what are you going to do next?
Lessons from 1890
Unless you are over 102 years old and remember the last global plague, you are living in a world you never knew could exist. Unlike during a war when commerce and socializing continues, this disruption has forced fundamental changes in how we live, and how we view the world.
Suddenly when all the sports activities were canceled, you could feel sorry for the athletes losing their income, but also recognize the insignificance of the game in the face of thousands dying.
When the schools were closed, you could be challenged by the idea of trying to help your kids at home, but not really aware of those who would not have your resources.
As conferences were postponed, hotels shuttered, and restaurants operating only through the delivery window, you could develop an entirely new perspective on the idea of an economy. The people you debated tipping became your lifeline.
Those with professional positions mostly went to their now at-home offices to wait out the shutdown with their families, worried only about getting enough toilet paper to last for a few weeks. But those in non-essential, non-professional positions stared at bills to pay, and promises that could not be kept, and wondered what they could do.
For the first time, the people who always work, always find a job somewhere, had nowhere to go to stay independent, self-sufficient and free.
And those deemed essential – from doctors and nurses, police and fire, to delivery drivers, mail sorters, grocery store cashiers and customer service operators – found themselves with extended hours, no breaks, no vacations, and the daily threat to their lives.
The air is cleaner, you can clearly hear birds chirping, you can ride your bicycle down Las Vegas Boulevard or the Champ d’Elysee. And yet behind closed doors, an unimaginable level of suffering has been unleashed on a population that may never recover.
The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma
So where does that leave you, the aspiring entrepreneur?
If your bold pronouncements of going your own way and starting your own business fell on skeptical ears before the pandemic, how are you sounding now? Are you afraid to face the scorn of those who told you to stop being selfish, and get a real job – if you can find one?
Are you considering making yourself essential by offering to work at a warehouse, fast food restaurant or security desk – just to participate in the greatest economic upheaval of our time? Are you afraid to mention an interest in making money, adding a new product or service to the marketplace or delivering value?
If you’re saying yes, yes, yes…ask yourself once again why you want to be an entrepreneur.
Your Dream is Alive
Your life dream to be one of the risk takers who fills a gap in the economy by working day and night to deliver value for those who want or need your product or service has not ended because of the shutdown.
Your dream cannot end. In fact, it’s the opposite. People need the ambition, drive, vision, innovation and penchant for risk that entrepreneurs deliver more than they ever have before. Can you just not feel the ringing desire for someone – anyone – to come up with better solutions to our current problems?
Who but the entrepreneur can even think about what needs to be done. The failure of government in many countries has never been more acute. And the indomitable spirit of ingenious individuals has never been more pronounced.
It is not too outrageous to claim that the global visionary thinking of entrepreneurs may just get us out of this mess. From the labs that are racing to a cure, to the retooling of factories for essential goods, to the rapid adaptation of businesses from offices to home-based, entrepreneurs the world over are looking for new and innovative ways to make this world, as it exists right now, work.
Your dream to be among the entrepreneurs actually has to be stronger than ever before, and your determination to be a person who takes risks and delivers value must be galvanized at this moment.
Your Next Act
What you need to be doing is not lamenting loss, but thinking about opportunity. And not exploitive opportunity, but real value ,and real possibilities that move the world forward.
If you are that person who has always had business ideas in your head, and you wanted others to respect your vision and plans, then show now that your desire to be an entrepreneur is not just a passing fancy where you plan on earning a million bucks, living in a mansion and driving a Rolls-Royce.
Use this time – this tough economic, social and personal time – to show that your commitment to entrepreneurship is about who you are as a person.
A person who delivers value.
A person of ideas.
A contributor.
And someone who is ready to adapt and to lead.
Use this time to improve on every level, read more, research your ideas, learn new skills, enhance your business knowledge, and be part of the solution.
This is not the time for you – the forward thinking participant in the economy – to bail out in despair. You can set the example for others by doubling down on the situation you see around you to come out stronger on the other side.
How do you keep your entrepreneurial dreams when the world changes around you?
You take action. You keep moving through your plan to create your own business. And you make it happen.
The nature of being an entrepreneur and thinking as an entrepreneur means you hang on and move forward through turbulent times.
Your vision, your ideas, your perseverance are all needed more than ever.
Find a way to contribute.
Bring your value forward.
And make your impact.
How to Wake Up Ready
by Case Lane
When you set out to take control of your life, by starting your own business, there are two things you are trying to do at the same time – transform your life to the routine you really want, and start a business.
These ambitious plans and activities should not be taken lightly. To accomplish this major rewiring of your attitudes and your actions, you need to wake up ready to go. Each morning has to be about jumping at the chance to put yourself exactly where you want to be.
But at the same time you’re facing your reality – going to a job you might not like, family demands, financial issues. You need to psyche yourself up for the amazing plan you have to get to lifestyle freedom.
Image by Pexels from Pixabay
Set Your Reason for Getting Up
First and foremost, you want to control your own life – your working life. You want to be your own boss, do work that you really value, and bring your ideas forward into the global marketplace.
To do that, you want to start your own business. You want to become an entrepreneur, be that person who takes the risks, but reaps the reward of doing something unique.
Given that goal, you need your energy, perseverance and courage to make the changes you need to make to be where you want to be. You need to wake up ready.
Value Yourself
You must believe in your personal value, and your contribution to the world because when you do – you wake up with a smile on your face, ready to roll.
When you value yourself, each day is about achieving more, challenging yourself and embracing opportunity. Your ability to be ready is tied to your own vision of why it’s important for you to be ready.
You have something to offer. An idea for a product or service that the global marketplace wants or needs. And you are willing to take the risk to bring this product forward so that you can help people solve a problem.
Give yourself all these great reasons to wake up in the morning? To jump up and get on with the job. You have a clear purpose. But just as important, you know you are the person who can fulfill that purpose.
Picture Your Entrepreneurial Life
Have a clear idea in your mind of exactly the life you are trying to achieve. Not just in a general sense of a product or service you know you want to deliver. But the entire picture. What does your perfect life dream look like?
Make sure you know your own vision. If you wake up thinking about your plans, you can give yourself the spark to get to work immediately on making the dream a reality. Fall asleep with your goals too. And wake up ready to implement.
Someone once said ‘it doesn’t matter where a girl comes from, as long as she knows where she’s going.’ That’s a great phrase.
Have a Morning Phrase
Give yourself a morning phrase – a summary of your intention. Pick a line like the one above and repeat it. Make sure it’s a phrase that gives you confidence to get things done.
Establish a Morning Routine
Create a consistent morning routine. Hal Elrod’s best-selling book ‘The Miracle Morning‘ is a great place to start. Hal took six commonly known self-reflection activities – reading, mediating, visualization, affirmations, exercise and writing – and developed a process for you to do all six each day with intention. The key to getting the activities done is to get up earlier, and make the routine the first thing you do each day.
TMMers (that’s the community built around the book) recognize that the early start to specifically focus on having a great day – sets up a great day. Not all advice fits every lifestyle, and the six practices can easily be modified or adapted to suit a particular lifestyle.
But the basic concept remains the same. But the key is to give yourself something to do immediately when you wake up.
You may even prefer different activities like – sing a song, cook, check the stock market figures – any consistently done morning activity gives you a reason to get up and start your day.
Know Your Daily Goals
Know the key activities you want to accomplish each day to advance your business. These goals can be set and reset as often as needed, and can be tactical activity in support of larger annual or monthly goals.
You want to give yourself designated activities to do every day. Daily goals include activities you want to be doing consistently.
Also keep a goal to review all goals on a regular basis so you are adjusting to the changing reality of your situation.
Summary for How to Wake Up Ready
You are working on transitioning to the life you really want by becoming an entrepreneur and starting your own business. To wake up ready every day…
- Start by valuing yourself. When you wake up knowing that you are a valuable person with a contribution that must be made, you can instantly put a smile on your face and a spring in your step
- Have a clear idea of the life you are trying to achieve. Go to bed thinking of the world you are building for yourself and others, and wake up each morning with that vision ready to set you up for the day
- Give yourself a morning phrase – what can you tell yourself each morning to keep yourself on track
- Have a morning routine. When you wake up and you instantly have something to do, you prompt yourself to act immediately
- Set and review your goals. If you have daily goals already set, you can look at them the night before, and be ready the next day to execute on exactly what you need to do
Disclosure: Links to books and physical products are affiliate links to Amazon.com. I earn for eligible purchases. There is no additional cost to you.
Offline U: The Education You Get from Not Going to College for Business
by Case Lane
Aspiring entrepreneurs have heard they do not need to go to college to obtain the information they need to run a business. There are other ways to obtain an education. But the ‘other ways’ are not always clearly defined.
The value of post-secondary education has always been in its formality. Not only do you do through a prescribed set of courses that result in a diploma, but also the diploma is recognized because other people understand the process, and the value of the paper.
But given the cost, time and demands of a formal college education, many are opting to move forward with a business and you do not want to use formal education to help you. Aspiring entrepreneurs want to learn in the real world, doing real business activities.
How do you succeed without the college formula?
Neither business school nor college is necessary to become an entrepreneur. Many successful entrepreneurs did not go to college, and few (as a percentage of all entrepreneurs) come out of the B-schools.
But both business school and college are also considered outstanding opportunities. College is still the ticket to higher wages, professional careers and advancing in life.
The challenge is to determine which path fits for each individual situation.
Go ‘Offline’
An aspiring entrepreneur can obtain an education, learn the facts and concepts necessary for business outside of the formal college campus. A self-disciplined person can pursue an ‘offline ‘course of study that will help achieve the success they’ve been looking for.
And self-discipline can be imposed if the person has some idea about what to do to achieve similar results to the formal college student.
This approach is Offline U because many courses of study are presented online, and are still formal methods of learning.
Offline U means turning away from all structured education to learn through direct action, observation and doing.
Image by Sebastian Šoška from Pixabay
You get the information you need from available sources, usually for free. Following this path, you have to remember the information is not going to be presented in any particular order or context like in business school. You are not going to be able to segregate the marketing information from the finance information. You are going to require your own system for doing that.
So to start, you decide how you are going to organize the information you receive.
If you already have a business idea, the ‘offline’ course of study can be even more productive because questions and information gathering can take place within the context of turning your idea into a business. The research becomes directly practical.
If you don’t have a business idea, you can use one that already exists to practice how to frame your ‘offline’ studies around a specific product or service.
Once the organizational infrastructure has been set-up for your offline education, you can implement the following practices to give yourself an Offline education that advances your business opportunities:
Read books and articles about successful entrepreneurs
The information you need about how entrepreneurs built their businesses is readily available in thousands of magazine articles and hundreds of books. The blueprints are spelled out in black and white.
If Sir Richard Branson were your best friend, you would read all his books to have the answers about how he built his business, not ask him to explain the story (or else he would know you had never read his books).
Reading the entrepreneur’s story allows you to understand the background how the enterprise was built.
Reading entrepreneurs’ stories also reveals one obvious and timeless fact – the most successful entrepreneurs did the work. They worked night and day on their business enterprise, and reaped the reward. It’s as simple, and as difficult, as that.
Interview someone who is doing what you want to do
If you know anyone near you who is a successful entrepreneur, ask for an interview. For the cost of coffee or a lunch, you may get information that is never taught in school.
To get the interview, honestly make the request from the perspective of a niche demographic that is either unique or aligned with the person’s causes or ideas. Even if you are a working professional, if you belong to any type of club or organization find a connection with the person you want to interview.
You can also interview on behalf of the organization perhaps as a profile for their newsletter. But make sure the request is legitimate.
Research the information other people are saying
Today you can find a lot of material about entrepreneurs and businesses, including interviews, documentaries and profiles that reveal more about how the business is run than you may have calculated.
Do a search for these resources, both positive and negative. Give yourself time each day to spend an extra hour or two with stories that give you ideas. Take notes, and then go back and review your notes, and put them in the context of your own business idea.
Meet like-minded people
Take a look at the meet-ups for entrepreneurs in your city or events that involve entrepreneurs. If you’re shy, approach different people with the same prepared set of questions. For example, ask:
‘I’m curious, how’d you get started as an entrepreneur?’
‘What do you wish you knew from the beginning?’
‘What do you think was the one key to growing your business?’
People love to talk about themselves, especially if they have a willing, eager audience. While stroking an ego, you can give yourself an entrepreneurship 101 lesson.
Go to work for an entrepreneur or organization you admire
If you want work that is meaningful, but are not quite ready with your own business, you can check the job openings at companies you admire, or with organizations you are interested in exploring.
One caution, going to work for any company may not be as glamorous as you could hope, and you may never meet the founding entrepreneur. In fact, the experience may even be a turn-off. But you will learn.
All experience – work, education, going to the store – could teach you something you did not already know which could help you in your business.
If there is a business run by someone you admire, and you think they could use someone like you, there’s no harm in applying, and earning money instead of spending it to get the information you believe you can use in your own business.
Attend conferences
Conferences will cost you some money, but the events are rapid-fire learning experiences. Pick the conference that focuses on your business idea or industry, and use the opportunity to not only learn about the industry, but also to meet other people working in the same field.
You might even find the connections that will feed back into interviews, meetings or employment opportunities that lead you exactly where you want to go.
In summary, to get an ‘offline’ business education outside of formal college or B-school:
- Read books and articles about successful entrepreneurs, and learn how businesses are built
- Interview someone who is doing what you want to do, and ask them about getting started and growing a business
- Research the information other people have about successful entrepreneurs including through interviews, analysis, documentaries and articles, that present both positive and negative views.
- Meet like-minded people at your local meet-ups or entrepreneurial events
- Go to work for an entrepreneur or organization you admire
- Attend conferences
Disclosure: links to books and physical products are Amazon affiliate links. I earn for eligible purchases at no additional cost to you.
How Do You Force Yourself to Do What You Really Want to Do
by Case Lane
Aspiring entrepreneurs can learn about entrepreneurship by reading about or listening to successful entrepreneurs like Bill Gates or Martha Stewart or Oprah.
But hearing about success sometimes leads to a limiting belief that what those people did is not possible for everyone. There is an idea that the successful are wired differently, and therefore have capabilities that do not apply to the average person. Aspiring entrepreneurs are left wondering, how the successful are able to actually do the work they do.
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
Famously Bill Gates spent endless hours tinkering with computers; Martha Stewart obsesses over every tablecloth; Oprah chased the good stories. They all seem to have some sort of special trigger inside them that propels them forward to success down the entrepreneurial path. If that’s true, how does the average aspirant to entrepreneurial wealth and achievement become one of the them?
Is it possible to make yourself…force yourself to become the successful person you’ve always wanted to be?
The Success Words
The chapter headings from Lewis Howes’ book The School of Greatness, read like the step-by-step lines from any familiar success manual. The headings are: create a vision, turn adversity into advantage, cultivate a champion’s mindset, develop hustle, master your body, practice positive habits, build a winning team, live a life of service.
The book emphasizes greatness in general, in how you live your life.
But the challenge for so many is that those success lines and even the tips that come along with it are all great advice that so many people have difficulty implementing. These are the actions and ideas you need to develop if you want to reverse the struggles of your life, or any type of past backwards pace. But understanding that fundamental fact is often only the first step.
Understanding the intention of the advice helps you realize what you need to do. The next, and more complicated step is to determine ‘how’ you are going to fulfill those success goals. And the ‘how’ must be compatible with your personality, your lifestyle and your best efforts.
The step to learn next is to figure out how you do the activities that you know you want to do because you want to achieve greatness by building your entrepreneurial dream.
Here are 4 strategies to help you achieve the ‘how’ for making yourself that person you wish you were…
1. Think about Your Plan all the time
The best way to cultivate your entrepreneurial mindset is to think about your business idea and your plans 24/7/365. Immerse yourself in your own vision of being a successful entrepreneur with a business you own, and control of your lifestyle.
The most successful entrepreneurs think about their business – the opportunity, scope for improvement, operations, the team, all aspects of the enterprises – in all situations. You can do the same with your business idea, and the plan for your business.
Image by Pexels from Pixabay
You become an entrepreneur, by being an entrepreneur. Transforming to your dream life through entrepreneurship is about reinventing yourself, changing who you imagine yourself to be, and doing what you have always wanted to do.
You may feel that constantly thinking and talking about your business will alienate you from your friends or family. But you are on a mission to improve your life. If those around you do not support your actions, they have alienated themselves from you.
Create a vision in your mind of your future as an entrepreneur, and hold to that vision in your present. Think it, operate in it, push it all the time as your singular purpose. At a certain point, you are going to want to be living that vision. You are going to want it as your reality because you have made it possible.
2. Clear Your Space
With the minimalist movement gaining support and adherents the idea of working in a less-cluttered environment has become a trend. But the clean-up is also a proactive way to set yourself up in a success-promoting environment.
You want to operate in an environment without distractions. Sometimes our inability to do the activities we need to do to become successful are a reflection of being around too many things we do not want to do – like cleaning up – that all provide an excuse for not moving forward.
Begin your movement towards being your own champion by clearing away a piece of clutter each day. Pick up the piece of clutter you have been seen in the same place for more than six months and…throw it away.
Top performers work in an environment that focuses on their business. You need the tools and resources you will use to be close at hand, and all other diversions to be tucked away. You are trying to put yourself in the same shoes as the most successful entrepreneurs you know. People who focused on building their business. If you want to be one of those people, you have to focus too.
Any item that is truly meaningful or beneficial to you should be appropriately organized. You may already have shelves, boxes or envelopes where you can put items of value. Everything else can go.
Clearing your space can reduce your sense of overwhelm by giving yourself room to function in the best environment you can create.
3. Look for allies
Setting out to build your own business can be lonely and difficult. You may not have any support among family or friends. You may be afraid to talk about entrepreneurship at work because you think people will think you’re out of your league. And you may be tolling away with trying to create your business idea without any help.
But you can find motivation and support by quietly, and confidently, asking around to find out if anyone is doing, or wants to do, what you want to be doing.
Unless you’re in Silicon Valley, finding people who support the idea of starting their own business may be a quick way to lose friends. But you can carefully begin looking for allies by speaking about your business whenever it’s appropriate. Learn who responds well and who quickly changes the subject. You may be surprised to learn who your allies are.
Say to your spouse, partner, sibling, colleague, friend a statement like: ‘hey, I’m doing some research about the business idea I’ve had for years, would you be interested in the things I learn?’
For every person who replies ‘no way,’ there may be one who says ‘yeah, I’ve always been interested in starting a business, tell me more.’ The idea is to find someone who aligns with you. If that person becomes your accountability buddy that’s even better.
To help you stay on track with your dream, and make your plan a reality, you can make a commitment to someone other than yourself. If you form an alliance with someone, you’re more likely to get things done.
However, if you come from a world where no one at all responds favorably to your low-key approach, you can still form alliances – with virtual mentors. Your virtual mentors are the people whose books, videos, speeches, interviews, courses and shows become part of your life when you are researching how to be successful with your business.
You can listen to hours of someone encouraging you to be strong, stay committed to your dream and so on. This provides you with effectively the background soundtrack to your aspirations. And a chance to be aligned with people who are on your side, even if you’ve never met them before in your life.
4. Plan to Work
Writing down goals you plan to complete is much easier than actually doing the work to see those goals finished. To make the exercise more tangible, write down goals, that are accompanied by specific action.
Step-by-step, hour-by-hour goals are designed to take you exactly where you want to be in an orderly and planned fashion. Instead of a lofty ‘I want to be a millionaire’ goal, write down exactly what you would have to do to become a millionaire. What would you have to do every day?
For example, in my book A Better Plan, I encourage financially challenged readers to calculate exactly how many hours they would have to work, at their current wage to earn one million dollars. If your current wage is $12 an hour, you would need to work eight hours a day for about 83,000 hours or 40 years. Once you have that baseline, you can figure which variables to change to reach your goal faster.
But at the same time, each hour that you’re working is still getting you towards your goal.
A detailed plan for building your business may take you months to write, but the goal is to get started. Think of the plan like the notes for your autobiography, how would you describe the detailed story for anyone who wanted to ask.
The plan becomes your blueprint for how you are going to create the business. Write the story in all its detail. For example if you get a loan for one million dollars, write out how you would go about procuring that loan. Who would help you and why? Write out every word. And take all the time you need on doing it.
You can write a line or two in the morning, or at work. Buy a planner or desk calendar and write on each of the days of the week. Lay out your plan in all its glorious detail.
The point is to give your a roadmap, a point of reference, a vision that you can use to lead yourself exactly where you want to go. And to help you to move forward on achieving your life dream.
These four strategies can help you think clearly about yourself as an entrepreneur. You can force yourself to do what you really want to do – which in our case is transition to lifestyle freedom by becoming an entrepreneur – by making strategic moves towards your goal.
Even if you’re still saying – but how? – think of these four strategies as the activities that help you identify the ‘how.’
If you want to know how to literally force your fingers to start writing, or how to open your mouth to ask a friend if they’re interested in business, you may not be committed to the goal of achieving the life you want through entrepreneurship.
If you are sit on the couch and do not move in any form or direction because you believe your dream will materialize without effort, then neither these strategies or any others will help you.
But if you’re ready to move forward, to take the initial steps, then you are on your way. Improve your life for yourself and take action to achieve your dreams.
To help yourself do what you really want to do:
1. Think about what you want to do all the time
2. Clear the space around you of distractions and diversions
3. Find some allies, either real or virtual, who will support you
4. Plan the work you have to do in specific detail
When you lay out your vision, you find you are compelled to move forward and bring it all into fruition. And before you know it, you will be walking, talking and living as the entrepreneur you have always wanted to be.
Disclosure: links to Amazon.com are affiliate links. I participate in the Amazon Affiliates program and earn for eligible purchases
What the UN says about entrepreneurship
by Case Lane
Entrepreneurs exist in every country, region, gender, ethnicity and neighborhood.
Even in countries facing oppression or government control, there always appears to be a go-getter who is trying to make a deal. And at the highest levels of international multi-lateral organizations that provide ideas and guidance to governments, countries agree that entrepreneurship is vital to economies.
So why is it that at the grassroots level, at our level, entrepreneurship is discouraged? And so many people want to start a business but do not actually get started? Why is there this conflict between the official policies of multilateral organizations you pay for, and the actions you and others take on your own?
Prefer to ‘listen’ to this blog. Check out the podcast of the same name: Episode 47 of The Ready Entrepreneur Podcast at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
The Value of Entrepreneurship
The idea is clear: “entrepreneurship is a vital component of economic growth and development. The creation of new business entities not only generates value added, fiscal revenues, employment and innovation, but is an essential ingredient for the development of a vibrant small and medium sized business sector—the core of most competitive economies. It has the potential to contribute to specific sustainable development objectives, such as the employment of women, young people or disadvantaged groups.”
Those words appear in the Introduction to the Entrepreneurship Policy Framework and Implementation Guidance created by UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. A UN organization taxpayers pay for that among other things believes in entrepreneurship, and therefore believes in you.
Part of the mandate of the various UN organizations is to develop policies that countries can implement to achieve set goals. Effectively, they provide information about how to do the things you want to do.
You may be just starting out as an entrepreneur, and think you really don’t know if you have the skill or are the right type of person for the job.
The Definition of an Entrepreneur
UNCTAD states an entrepreneur is an individual who identifies opportunities in the marketplace, allocates resources, and creates value. Entrepreneurship—the act of being an entrepreneur—implies the capacity and willingness to undertake conception, organization, and management of a productive new venture, accepting all attendant risks and seeking profit as a reward.
But you should realize that entrepreneurship is a core global initiative, and you are exactly the person for the job.
The UNCTAD document is used to help countries develop their entrepreneurship policies. Money and time is being spent helping every country in the world develop entrepreneurs.
You may think you’re doing something bizarre because you’re the only person in your family who wants to run a business, or the only person among your friends. But in reality, you are the one who is taking the initiative, and in doing so, you join million of others around the world who are doing the same thing.
The UN policy framework at its core wants to “unleash entrepreneurial capacity and facilitate start-ups.” A goal that is directly aligned with yours.
UNCTAD focuses on 6 components for what they want to do for you:
1. National entrepreneurship strategy
2. Optimize regulatory environment
3. Enhance entrepreneurship education and skills development
4. Facilitate technology exchange and innovation
5. Improve access to finance
6. Promote awareness and networking.
Numbers one and two – national strategy and regulation involve talking about government. But three through six are directly about talking to you, the aspiring entrepreneur.
Enhance entrepreneurship education and skills development
Starting at number three, your skills and education, you can begin to develop your entrepreneurial dream immediately.
The best way to start a business is to start a business. Many aspiring entrepreneurs do not start because of concern about their knowledge and skill. But you do not know what you can do unless you go forward and try with the skills that you have.
If you have a business idea in your head, you need to do the preliminary research necessary to transform it into an active business. You do not need to study every facet of the business until you are too worried about having the right skills to actually get it done. You need to give yourself the confidence to move forward by taking on your business building tasks.
In the introduction to the skills section UNCTAD states “Entrepreneurial skills center around attitudes (soft skills), such as persistence, networking and self-confidence; and enabling skills (hard skills), including basic start- up knowledge, business planning, financial literacy and managerial skills.”
As you strengthen your own capabilities and desire by working on your business, doing research, and discovering the resources you need to move forward, you will indirectly be building the entrepreneurial culture in your own community. You will lead by example.
Mentoring is a major part of the initiative whether through formal programs, courses or the private sector. Many aspiring entrepreneurs are concerned about where to find a mentor, and how to get a mentor, but you do not have to find someone who will help you before you begin.
The purpose of a mentor is to help you navigate by providing knowledge you do not have. To that end, you can surround yourself with virtual mentors. You can follow people you admire online, watch YouTube videos of speeches and interviews, and read their books or articles.
You do not have to personally know all your mentors. But you do have to know what you would ask if you ever met them.
Create your own mentors and incorporate them into your life. As you go forward with building your business, you will meet people who are in your industry, or interested in your ideas. Those opportunities will eventually lead you to your personal mentor.
Technology exchange and innovation
Technology is absolutely critical to building a scalable global-business in the 21st century. For this factor UNCTAD states “technology provides entrepreneurs with new tools to improve the efficiency and productivity of their business, or with new platforms on which to build their ventures. In turn, entrepreneurs fuel technological innovation by developing new or improving existing products, services or processes and ensuring commercialization.”
Aspiring entrepreneurs have two parallel goals. You want to improve your own business by using technology resources, and you want to improve technology by providing new ideas to the global marketplace.
You may be thinking of your business idea in isolation of these larger goals, but your idea might be fuel for others. You never know what kind of impact you can have. That’s why you just have to get started.
Access to Finance
When you are ready to scale your business, or in some cases to just get started, you may face the issue of financing. Improving entrepreneurs’ access to financing is a key factor in the entrepreneurship policy framework for the UN.
Governments are encouraged to motivate lenders and investors to invest in the great business ideas of rising entrepreneurs. And entrepreneurs are encouraged to prepare to meet investors’ expectations.
Many initiatives to support entrepreneurs are aimed at fostering connections with the private sector. As an aspiring entrepreneur who is looking for financing, that is where you direct your attention.
NOTE to readers: For additional ideas about finding financing for your business, check out the video How to Find Money to Start a Business on the Case Lane You Tube channel. The video is specifically focuses on how you find your own financial resources from your own funds, but also covers some of the different avenues that are open to entrepreneurs.
Promote awareness and networking
A hesitant aspiring entrepreneur needs to find an entrepreneurial culture that will support the business dream. Many aspiring entrepreneurs do not get started because there is no general atmosphere aimed at new business people.
How many of you are simply afraid of what others will say, or of doing something that is not common in the neighborhood?
The UN wants countries to create an entrepreneurial culture.
UNCTAD says negative socio-cultural perceptions about entrepreneurship can act as significant barriers to enterprise creation and can undermine the impact of policy intervention in support of entrepreneurship. Under the UN, all governments are ‘officially’ aware of this conflict between what they say and what they do. And aspiring entrepreneurs should be aware of this disconnect also.
When receiving negative feedback around wanting to start a business, or being out on your own, you have to recognize that it’s a global issue that the world is trying to counteract. You are not alone in trying to get people to understand your desire to be an entrepreneur. But this all-too common issue has some universal solutions.
Aspiring entrepreneurs should create networks – of models, champions and references of success. You can go where other entrepreneurs are gathered and speak to them about their experiences. There are many similar stories of discouragement in the entrepreneurship world. Knowing you are not alone is a step towards counteracting the unfavorable comments.
You must also improve communication. The UNCTAD framework states “A country’s (or in your case friends and families) general attitude towards entrepreneurship is a product of societal values, tolerance of risk, fear of failure, rewards of success, encouragement of creativity and experimentation and recognition of persistence.
All of these factors are important.
So-called “soft” barriers to entrepreneurship, including negative cultural perceptions, are as equally important as the “hard” barriers, and because they tend to be deeply ingrained in a society, they take time to address.
But the positive image of entrepreneurs comes from you – the aspiring entrepreneur – and the people you highlight as examples. You can point out that entrepreneurs play an important role in addressing problems that are important to society, such as unemployment, social inequality and poverty, and by showing how entrepreneurship, including social entrepreneurship, serves as a key component of national development.
Focusing on this factor is about allowing you to be free from criticism so you can do what you most want to do. Get your business up and running.
Using the UN’s own words as a guide, the aspiring entrepreneur can feel encouraged that the world is working on making entrepreneurial dream come true. You are supported, and there are initiatives designed for you and people like you to become business people in the global economy.
Knowing that these initiatives exist should help you recognize you are on the right track.
The United Nations position on entrepreneurship is important to aspiring entrepreneurs because it reflects the collective intentions of global governments. You are a participant in a worldwide movement to enhance economic development through individual businesses. But you need to get started.
This blog is also a podcast. Check out Episode 47 of The Ready Entrepreneur Podcast at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
Yes, Shy People Can Be Entrepreneurs too
Aspiring entrepreneurs who are a little intimidated by those ‘slick Willie’ type of entrepreneurs who come at you strong, almost shouting, about how you can do it too, as they ooze confidence and bluster all over a stage may think that the world of entrepreneurship has no place for those with less bombastic approaches.
For the quiet, serious and methodical in life, the question of whether or not there is an entrepreneurial personality type, also evokes the question of whether or not you’re on the right path.
But you are.
In studying entrepreneurs all over the world, one trait is clear, the common denominator is not personality type – it’s doing the work.
Entrepreneurial Personalities
When asked to name some entrepreneurs , many people pick from the same same dozen or so familiar people who are known to have started their own business. The most famous people are seen on TV, and make news.
And that’s not a coincidence. People who make noise, make news, and some make themselves famous as part of their overall business strategy. So outgoing people who happen to be entrepreneurs can become well known.
But the most famous people do not represent al entrepreneurs.
In the United States alone in 2016, the census bureau says there are 5.6 million employer firms, and that does not count the big Fortune 500 companies that were started by one person whose name you know. Around the world, estimates say there are 600 million entrepreneurs. That’s a lot of personalities. And it is doubtful that every one of them is a Slick Willie Salesman.
An entrepreneur is anyone with an idea that they are willing to bring into the public marketplace.
Using the definition from UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development:
An entrepreneur is an individual who identifies opportunities in the marketplace, allocates resources, and creates value.
Entrepreneurship—the act of being an entrepreneur—implies the capacity and willingness to undertake conception, organization, and management of a productive new venture, accepting all attendant risks and seeking profit as a reward.
The definition applies to action, not personality.
The definition does not say an entrepreneur must be able able to talk to strangers.
Nor does it say the entrepreneur has to be funny and make jokes in an interview, or on stage.
The definition definitely does not imply the ability to get rich quick, make a million dollars in ten minutes and let others know about it.
Being an entrepreneur is about identifying a big idea…and running with it. Since you cannot copyright an idea, you have to write the book. You have to bring your idea into fruition.
Entrepreneurs allocate resources – often your own. If you’re shy or slow or both, you only need yourself to get your business going. Allocate your own resources to researching your business idea, figuring out how to bring it to the marketplace, and defining the other tools and resources you may need to help you.
Working this way, you do not need to ensure that thousands of people ‘like’ you before you get started.
You need to create value. Entrepreneurs create value. And thousands or millions of people recognize that value if appeals to them and their needs.
If you have business ideas in your head and you are thinking about opportunities to bring a product or service to market that will help people. You have to get it out there. No one will know about it if it stays in your head. The key is to bring it forward for people to see. The validation comes from the market.
New products and services are introduced all the time. When speaking about your business idea, people love to make comments like – ‘it’s been done before,’ or ‘no one is asking for that’ or ‘why would anyone buy that.’
But time and again the market defines what it wants – after the product or service has been introduced.
So many products that we take for granted today like corn flakes – which apparently was a cooking experiment by a guy named Kellogg – were just invented and placed in the market. No one asked for the exact product, but the entrepreneur had an idea that could appeal to many others.
The definition of entrepreneurship does not include the need to laugh, smile or glad-hand (pretend to be nice).
You have to be a person – often exactly the type of person who is shy and slow – who is willing and able to turn the idea into a business, and willing and able to meet the risks – and more than willing to reap the rewards.
Options for promoting your venture
Even knowing this definition, an entrepreneur may struggle with the idea of bringing a product or service into the marketplace. At some point, the new venture must be presented to people in some forum.
When the product or service is developed, a shy entrepreneur can look for other methods for introducing the venture. For example, advertising, giving away free samples, writing promotional materials or creating a video.
When Help from Others is not Intimidating
If those activities fail to attract attention, you can partner with one or two kindred spirits, outsource to someone you pay to promote for you, or hire someone else with the skill to promote your product or service.
Each option has its own risks and rewards. But those factors can be considered in any plan you move forward.
The key is go ahead and create your business even if you think you are too shy or too slow. The personality traits you need to start the business applies to you regardless of who you see on TV, and who you think might be a more classic example of an entrepreneur.
It’s the people who start the business who are entrepreneurs. Willing and able to make it happen – that’s the key.
The common trait for entrepreneurs is getting the work done to bring the product or service to market. Successful people get the job done. You can work full-time, part-time, weekends, do all-nighters, take a month from work, take 15 minutes a day, update on the ride home – any time frame or time allotment that you can give yourself brings you one step closer to realizing your dream.
If you have business ideas in your head, you are already thinking like an entrepreneur. The next step to being one is based on your ability to accomplish your own dream.
If you are shy, or slow or doubting your entrepreneurial personality traits, understand that entrepreneurship is for anyone who is willing and able to do the work.
You are an entrepreneur if you identify an opportunity in the marketplace, allocate resource to it, and create value, which is something the shy and slow can definitely do.
Read to Wealth: How to Select Books for the Road to Success
by Case Lane
You have probably read that many successful people read. The world’s movers and shakers, billionaires and influencers read books (and magazines and newspapers). They read to stay informed, learn practices and strategies for success, and to continuously improve their minds.
Part of your success strategy for transitioning your life to entrepreneurship, should include reading.
But where do you start?
There are hundreds (probably thousands) of “best book” lists that you can Google and reference. But how do you even choose which books to read from that list?
One way to start is to think first about what you want to get out of the books. What do you want books to teach you? You want to be reading for implementable action, things you can do to improve yourself as you build your business.
Here are five categories of books to begin with:
The Definition of an Entrepreneur: Read biographies, autobiographies, and books about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship to learn who entrepreneurs are, what they do and how they are formed.
Skills of Successful people: Read personal development books to learn how to improve your success skills and yourself, so you can move more efficiently in the entrepreneurial world.
General business environment: Read books about the business of business, the histories of specific industries and companies to learn how the broader global economy functions.
Think like a Billionaire: Read books about investing, the road to super-wealth to understand how markets work, and how entrepreneurs access private funds to fuel growth.
Life in Action: Read fiction about successful people, business people and business-related ideas to see the big picture, and get background and inside information about how people function in a success-driven life.
Here are suggestions in each of these categories. There are dozens of books in every category considered “the best” or “must-haves,” below are only some initial suggestions. You can start in any order.
If you find you would prefer to read books about your specific product or industry, of course add those ones as well. The key is you want to understand which books to read, and why. You want to be able to implement the learnings from the book into your lifestyle
DEFINITION OF AN ENTREPRENEUR
When you are starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur, and the only idea you have in your head the concept of starting a business, you might not be confident about what your vision will really mean.
To develop a more specific idea of how entrepreneurs are formed and what entrepreneurs do, you can read biographies and autobiographies, and books about entrepreneurial ideas. People often wonder: how did so-and-so get rich? One of the best ways to find out is to read the biographies about rich people, and learn the facts for yourself.
You are looking for an in-depth accounting of the entrepreneur’s story – what were the actual steps this person took to become successful. The best biographies tend to be those thick ones that take you back not only to the entrepreneur’s childhood, but also through his or her parents, or other significant influences. This additional insight will help you realize the most successful entrepreneurs come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and have had an even wider variety of experiences on the road to success.
While industry and technology do change our economic landscape, the day-to-day realities of humans rarely change. Everyone still must secure food, clothes and shelter to have a civilized life. The actions taken by John D. Rockefeller in the 1800s – walking up and down the street to ask for a job – are still relevant today. Despite all the online employment services, in the 21st century people still often find work by word-of-mouth.
Use biographies and autobiographies to help you understand how you can write your own story as you transition to entrepreneurship. Look for the lessons that explain the idea of an entrepreneur.
Books in this category include: Biographies and Autobiographies
The Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
Shark Tales: How I Turned $1000 into a Billion Dollar Business by Barbara Corcoran
Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw
Morgan, American Financier by Jean Strouse
Entrepreneurship:
The Four-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-to-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
The Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness by Jeffery Gitomer
Zero to One: Notes on Start-ups or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel
SKILLS OF SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE
Most of us are not born ready to take on the world with our entrepreneurial ideas. In fact, when you realize how big the personal development book market is, you realize that being an organized, attentive, polished, successful person takes information – ideas and strategies that you can learn and implement for yourself.
Successful people have a mix of skills, but they are not always the same. If you learn some of the basic, timeless behaviors, you can use those attributes anywhere. Personal development must be taught and practiced. It is not enough to read the books, you also have to implement the ideas from the book. And you must be consistent in applying the changes to your life.
Perennial sellers like Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich have been around for decades, yet the number of people who stick to the advice is certainly not visible in today’s economy. If everyone who had bought or read Think and Grow Rich had applied all the activities, average incomes would likely be much higher.
You can be an exception. You can use personal development books to actually make changes to the way you behave. The advice exists (and continues to sell) because it works. And it works because people like you make it happen.
Books in this category include: Personal Development:
Choose Yourself by James Altucher
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale
GLOBAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
As an entrepreneur, you want to be thinking about the global economy in which you run your business. Even if you have a small enterprise, you are affected by global economic changes in the price of oil or the value of the dollar. Having a more knowledgeable background on these issues can help you manage your business rationally.
You can muse about inflation or trade like the average person, or you can read books that explain current economic development and trends. These books will provide you with an insight that you can use to develop your own business. They tend to be interesting histories giving you the information you did not know, and helping to dispel certain fallacies about business, trade and investment.
Although these reads can often be dense, they are well worth the effort to give you a broader grounding and overview of the business world that you now occupy.
Books in this category include: Business of Business:
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William J. Bernstein
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras
Guns, Germs, Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power by Daniel Yergin
THINK LIKE A BILLIONAIRE
As you read the biographies of entrepreneurs, you may notice a pattern – the big money, mega wealth, came from the stock market. Either the entrepreneur became an investor or was invested in, when the company was taken public. The real jump to billionaire wealth, comes from owning the factors of production, from owning capital.
You can begin to build your billionaire mindset by reading books about investing. These are books that help you develop a money consciousness, to see money not just as the tool that pays the bills, but as a factor that can be transformed into changing your life for the long run.
Many people have a poor financial management and investing education. Without these types of books, the situation would be even worse since this information is not taught in schools. In fact, good investment advice is passed on from one generation to the next within the same family, but not transferred horizontally through a society. This is information you are unlikely to hear.
So your best bet for putting yourself in line to understand the business of money is through an investment in time spent learning more about how investment works in the global economy. Educate yourself before you become an investor.
Books in this category include: Investing and Financial Management:
The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing by Benjamin Graham
Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy by Thomas J. Stanley
LIFE IN ACTION
As a bonus, fiction books featuring characters in business can give you a broader overview of the world you are entering. By reading about fiction characters, you have a sense of day-to-day life, as well as the road to wealth.
Unlike a biographer, a fiction writer can tell you everything. You get inside the character’s head, and maybe even read words that resonate with you, and your entrepreneurial vision for yourself. You may even decide to emulate the behaviors and practices of business or success-oriented fiction characters who you feel connected to through the story.
Books in this category include: Fiction
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The High Flyer by Susan Howatch
The Financier by Theodore Dreiser
If you are starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur and looking for guidance on how to face the entrepreneurial world, start by reading. When you set aside, 15 minutes a day to work on your business, your time can be focused on reading, your research for creating the life you really want.
Many of the classic books now have e-reader versions and you can upload copies to your phone or tablet to read when you are standing in line or commuting on public transit.
If you have no idea where you want to start, begin with a few books. You will likely find yourself inspired to keep going until you have your business up and running, and you can begin to live your life on your terms.
NOTE: In future blogs, I will follow-up on each of these books and provide more detail about what you may be able to learn from each (especially the fiction) as you move forward on your entrepreneurial journey.
Disclosure: book links are affiliate links to Amazon.com which if used may result in compensation to the author to help support this business and future posts
Five Practical Tips to Get Started as an Entrepreneur
Maybe today was the day. The rudest person at work interrupted you for the tenth time, your supervisor ignored your brilliant suggestions, and you had to cancel lunch with a friend because a useless meeting was just scheduled up against your lunch break.
You’ve had it.
It’s time to get serious about starting your own business.
First question: Where do you start?
Many people know they want to start a business. And for many the reason to start is to gain control of your own schedule and manage your time as you see fit. Entrepreneurship is not easy, and will often be frustrating, but being the boss means you have ownership. You can make the process as difficult or complex as your resources permit.
Yet even after you’ve made the decision to start your business, you are often distracted by the endless directions advice you receive. From start a business plan to build a website to complete market research, deciding where to start your entrepreneurial dream can be confusing.
Here are five tips:
1. Pick a business idea (which can, and probably will, change)
If you already have a business idea, skip to point 2.
If you do not have a business idea, pick one. You do not have to stick with your pick. Having a business idea simply gives you the context for getting started on the rest of your business. Points you will learn about Idea A may help you with Idea B. So the time you spend on an idea you do not actually turn into a business will still be useful.
If you have no idea, start with your hobbies and interests. Where is there a gap you have identified in the marketplace when people say about a particular good or service: I wish we could have this? Or I wish it could do that? That is your opening to slip in your business idea.
Pick your business idea first because this will give you a specific topic to focus on while you get through the next four tips. It’s easier to say, you need 15 minutes to work on a specific idea than it is to continue to sound as if you are just “thinking about” starting a business.
But if you are still lost for an idea and really want to move forward with your entrepreneurial dream, then keep going. Part of “starting” your business will be to define your idea, you can still move forward on the next four steps.
2. Identify your Space
You will want to have somewhere to work on your business. But when you are just getting started your space does not have to be elaborate. You can decide to work in the bathroom or closet if that’s the only quiet place you can find.
Maybe you prefer the library or local coffee shop. All of these options are viable.
But if you choose a space that is not near your home or work, include the time it will take you to travel to and from that space in the time you are setting aside for work. So if you are going to do 15 minutes of work and it takes you 15 minutes to get where you need to go, you need to set aside 45 minutes to make it happen.
Be realistic about the time you need and how you plan to use it before settling on a space. You might find you need a spot closer to home to preserve your time.
3. Gather your tools
The tools you need to work depend on how you like to work.
When you are first getting started you might not even think about this topic, but the minute you sit down to do some research you realize you need a notebook (digital or paper?), a cup of coffee or tea, a brighter light (artificial or natural), a power outlet, a sweater/blanket, a timer, a bottle of water, some chips, maybe cookies, light music (Spotify or playlists?)….
And you do not want to make excuses or get up every minute because you forgot to put one of your productivity tools in your work space.
If you have no idea which tools you like to have around you, go ahead and start with nothing, and add your preferences at the end of that day’s work session.
4. Clear your distractions
In our busy worlds, distractions are not only living all around us – ie. kids and dogs – but digital also. You have to figure out how to turn everything off for the time you want to work on your business.
For the family, find the time to do your work within the family schedule. However that works best for you. Since you have your business idea (see #1), you can tell everyone what you are doing and how you really need to move forward with transitioning to lifestyle freedom.
For digital, you know what you have to do. Turn off the phone. Or at least turn off the sound and lay the phone upside down so you cannot see the screen. And don’t try and work around any other screens like the TV or your partner’s mobile.
You only need to give yourself that first 15 minutes to get the ball rolling, so push the distractions away.
5. Take 15 minutes
The best way to start a business is just to get started.
That may sound roundabout but it’s true. People often make excuses like they do not have enough money or are not sufficiently qualified for a business idea. But you really do not know the truth behind those excuses because you have never spent any time working on the business.
Take 15 minutes. I know you have it. Before you start bingeing on Netflix take 15 minutes to research your business idea.
What are you researching?
- Similar businesses to see what other people are doing
- Specifics about your business idea and your industry.
- Courses in your area of expertise or about the product or service you are interested in.
As you continue researching, you will begin to move towards creating your action plan for starting the business. But it’s just brain-storming at this point. You do not have to pursue anything formal. You will likely find that the more time you spend researching your business and putting together ideas, the more time you will have to work on your business.
Before you know it, you will forget to watch Netflix.
Once you get to number 5, you have started your business. Because when you set aside time to transition your life, every step counts. From here you will begin to formulate the questions you want to ask, the activities you want to do and even the courses you may want to take to transform your business idea into a viable reality.
You will also start to build your confidence. The more you know about your business idea and industry, the stronger you will feel about your capabilities and the possibilities you have for making your lifestyle dream come true.
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How to Keep Your Entrepreneurial Dreams Alive
Some of us come from cultures where being a businessperson or entrepreneur may be frowned upon. You might hear phrases like: “Get a Real Job,” “You can’t dream your way to paying the bills,” “Your ideas are just dirty business not helpful.”
Have you heard those types of phrases? In some cultures, if you do not become a doctor or a lawyer, you are a failure. You have responsibilities to ‘do the right thing,’ and you cannot take any risks.
People may go after you about becoming a businessperson because they either fear for you and want to keep you safe from risk OR they are afraid you will surpass them in life and be lost to them forever. Both of these reactions are primal responses to our basic human instinct for survival.
If you become a successful entrepreneur you may become be the richest, and therefore most powerful person among your family and friends. Someone else currently holds this title, and if that person is insulting your entrepreneurial dreams it’s could be because they do not want to give up the crown.
If you are an entrepreneur running your own business, you may also be the only person in your circle with lifestyle freedom. For some around you, your ability to do what you want may be worse than your ability to make more money. When they go off to work every day, fighting traffic and colleagues they cannot stand, you will go into your own domain, maybe a comfortable home office, a coffee shop or the beach. If you have an online business, you may even wear your PJs all day or at least comfortable sweats. You will have no commute, no gasoline expenses, no office gossip, no internal fighting.
Is this your office?
Although no commute and no time wasted at the office water cooler may mean you also work at least four hours a day longer than those who are envying your freedom, but they will not see that. They will only see that you can arrange your own schedule, attend the events your really want to see, and get work done on your terms.
If negative emotions arise, like jealously, anger and conflict, you could be facing someone who simply does not know how to compete with you.
For humans, survival is at the heart of all their reactions. It’s that classic concept: if you and your friend come upon a bear in the woods, you do not have to outrun the bear, you only have to outrun your friend.
It’s a rare person, maybe Mother Theresa type nuns, who is not in some kind of competition with the people around them. Look at social media. The number of “likes” and “followers” you have is your way of showing people your value in the world. People love to tell you how many people are following, implying behind, them. If their number is higher than yours, you are subtly reminded the bear will stop to devour you.
But if you are running your own business, focused on your value and the product or service idea you plan to deliver to the world, you can ignore social media and all the other distractions designed to make you feel like you should put your dreams in check.
“Likes” and “follows,” are not the most important metric when you are your own CEO. You are going to be looking at growing an audience, earning revenue, and investing for your own benefit.
You will be operating on a stage those around you cannot even see. You will be out there, hustling, with like-minded people in your own separate world. And you’ll be loving it because you have business ideas in your head and have always wanted to be an independent operator.
You will put in the time every day knowing every drop of sweat is coming right back to you in direct compensation you control. Those around you may be facing struggles at work, you will not have those concerns. If the business is facing hard times, you will know about it. If it’s thriving, you’ll be planning how to reinvest your money. Your entire picture defining entrepreneurial success will be written on your terms.
Keep your entrepreneurial dreams alive by remembering these factors:
- Those around you who are against your plans are activating their own survival mechanism, which essentially says they need to hang on to you to keep you at their level. Understand where they are coming from, but do not let them win. For the ones who say they do not want you to get hurt in the entrepreneurial arena, tell them that will be impossible. Everything that happens as you are working on setting up your business will be part of your learning. If the first business does not work out, you take the lessons learned and move on to the next one.
- Do not linger on your decision and give naysayers a chance to say “I told you so.” Keep moving forward. People will tell you most businesses fail – but what about most entrepreneurs. Do you know the term “serial entrepreneur?” Those are the people who keep setting up businesses until they find one that works.
- For the people who say you should not move forward with your entrepreneurial dreams because they are afraid of losing their own place in your world, you can say good-bye. There is not enough time in life to fight with people who do not support your hopes, dreams and plans for your life.
You could be an entrepreneurial success if you keep pursuing your goals.
Everything you are doing as an entrepreneur is to have a better life. Whether to gain control of your work schedule so you can spend more time with your friends or family, or to earn more money so you can build financial security. All of these activities are about improvement.
People who do not support your plans to have a better life do not deserve to be in your life unless they are willing to grow with you. If they are afraid for their futures, you might want to encourage them to start a business too, and be part of the solution, not the problem.
In a world where everyone should lead, follow or get-out-of -the-way, those who choose neither and become obstructionists have cost society a fortune. They have slowed down progress that could have helped people, in the name only of protecting their own status quo. I’m not talking about governments and kings here, only your siblings, colleagues, friends, teachers, or the guy next door who can’t wait to tell you: “you will never make it in business.”
Those people are not your people.
You keep your entrepreneurial dream alive, by first recognizing why others are trying to slow you down. Separate the naysayers into two groups. Those who love you and want to protect you from risk can be educated about the value of entrepreneurship.
Those who are acting on their evolutionary instinct to be king of the jungle can be removed from your life.
This may be a tough call. But it’s a lot tougher to live a life you do not want to live, and die disappointed you did not even try to fulfill your dreams.
