Ever since I was little, I always dreamed of being an entrepreneur. I would watch people who do not have to wake up in the early morning to go to work and work for money; money worked for them. They are the masters of their own time and they dictate when to go to work and when to relax at home with their families. This desire for dictating our time stems from our innate wish to be free and as human beings we do not like idea of something enslaving us.
This enslavement can come in the form of waking up in the early morning to work for an ungrateful employer or paying that huge business loan that you took to buy your first car. We all have a desire to break free from the vicious unending rat race and starting your own business is the best promise towards realizing financial freedom.
A year ago, I decided to jump in the bandwagon and establish my own business in order to realize financial freedom. It is this journey that I embarked on that taught me firsthand the myths that every aspiring entrepreneur should be aware of.
First, that your business will be as successful as Facebook or Microsoft. Nothing could be further from the truth because the founders of those businesses are unique in their own right and so are you. Your business could end up as successful as Microsoft but then again it might not reach the heights of that success. In hindsight, let your focus not be the millions you expect to mint from your business but the exceptional service you wish to deliver to your prospective target audience. Concentrate on offerings the best product or service to your customers and they will sense your honesty and the money will start rolling in.
Second, business men have flexible hours. This is all hogwash especially for start up businesses. When you start your business, you will put in more hours than normal and this is not a rumour but a fact. Your social life might suffer in the initial years but this is a necessary sacrifice, if you want to realize financial freedom. Your start up business is like a new born baby who needs all the attention it can get from its parents until he/she is old enough to ease the burden of dependability from the parents.
Lastly, you are not at liberty to leave your business and let your employees slave for you. This is the biggest mistake any entrepreneur can commit. Employees can sense whether you have the ownership of your business or not. As a business owner, it’s your job to lead from within and this drive, passion and vision that you have for your business will convince your employees too gladly plug in to your business in order to achieve the desired goal for which your business was founded to accomplish.
