Common Cents
Many entrepreneurs I have dealt with are driven by their highly creative side. There’s a little compartment in the inner workings of their constantly active minds that never ceases to create. And it’s this little section of the engine room that’s their blessing and their curse. From my own experience with various audiences, most of the people I have had the pleasure of lecturing (about 98%) are driven by motivators that exclude the highly elusive and dangerous entrepreneurial factor. People need financial security. They strive to climb the corporate ladder and be the best at what they do. They come alive when presented with challenging problems to solve. But all this within the context of a secure financial environment called a job. The very word that causes the other 2% to run screaming for the nearest exit, waving their arms wildly, clutching claustrophobically at their throats, rapidly searching for an open space in which to take a deep breath and clear that word from their ears.
Those entrepreneurs driven by the entrepreneurial motivator, the overridingly strong need to create new products, new markets, new gadgets, gizmos and goodies at the expense of financial security, have conflicting voices of reason arguing inside their heads using any basis other than logic. As long as money isn’t a problem, the entrepreneur can continue to explore new ideas. 96% of them will fail within the first 5 years. This alarming statistic has been proven more than once in the research of the E-Myth Worldwide. In the absence of a really deep-pocketed spouse, angel investor, or trust fund, this can’t be great news for entrepreneurs who regard a pay slip in much the same way that most of us would welcome orange overalls accompanied by handcuffs, cellmates, and heavily armed travelling companions.
Yet formal employment is so often the very last resort that entrepreneurs consider when things aren’t working out on the cutting edge. I know. I’m mentoring one or two, and I’m seeing exactly this.
Think about when you’re at your most creative. That is, of course, if you have such a thing as a creative side. If you don’t, imagine for a moment that you had one. There – you have just discovered your creative side. No extra fee. When everything within you is in harmony, or at least, at peace, creative energy flows. It usually follows happiness. When there’s no ulcer-generating stress to keep your mind churning out horrible scenarios over and over again at three in the morning, you can set your imagination afloat and charter all kinds of crystal clear, calm, unknown waters. But when your mind is preoccupied with wolves at doors, and phone calls, letters and emails from those horribly unfriendly creatures we like to call bank managers, there’s little potential for clear, lucid thought. And for the entrepreneur, that thought is the very oxygen they need to keep themselves alive.
We’ve all heard that success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. That 99% includes the kind of perspiration you get from hard work, not the kind you get from hard worry or from dodging unwanted visitors, wolves and bank managers. Worry doesn’t get you closer to your dreams or your goals. Worry is about as helpful to the entrepreneur as running on a treadmill is to a traveler. It keeps your wheels turning, but it gets you nowhere.
The message to entrepreneurs is simple. If your financial footwork is failing, find formal employment fast. If your business isn’t making money, or if it isn’t making enough money, then you are paying for your clients to use your product. Is any product out there so good that you need to pay people to use it? My thoughts exactly. If it was that good, they’d be paying you, right? So, once you’ve launched your idea into a business, and you’re still battling to pay the bills, you have two options: get rid of the bills, or get more money to pay them with. And if the business isn’t performing as well as it should be, get some objective advice as to whether it’s worth continuing to flog this horse, or whether it’s time to park it in a secure financial stable while you get your inner calm back long enough to decide on the right next step. No decision is forever. There’s always a time to change the course of your life back to where you want it to be. In the meanwhile, insurmountable financial pressure is what’s keeping the entrepreneur on that treadmill.
It’s just common…cents.
Till next time.
The Imaginator™
Adam Rabinowitz is the Senior Lecturer at Regenesys Business School
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