In entrepreneurship, there are many lessons you may never understand in class or theory. You’ll have to experience them. And each entrepreneur’s journey is very unique. So, you can’t really compare.
From the outside, entrepreneurship looks and feels good.
The glamour and glitz!
The attention and spotlight!
Celebrations and congratulations!
While all the shiny things are visible, the process is always hidden. Always!
Starting entrepreneurs do not always understand the nuances of “process” until they experience it themselves.
No business school can teach you these things.
You just have to be “in the fire and smoke” yourself to learn your own unique lessons and become your own “special person“.
In this article, I will share some personal experiences from the few years I have spent building my unique entrepreneurial path.
Here are five things you need to know before becoming an entrepreneur. Maybe you’ll change your mind after reading and considering them or be strengthened to give it your all!
Key Takeaways
- Entrepreneurship is not easy! It’s a tough path filled with fears, worries, failures, painful sacrifices, obstacles and many ups and downs.
- Nevertheless, it’s possible to become a successful entrepreneur with the right mindset, intense focus, continuous learning, discipline and a very robust network.
- Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. There might be people who are just cut out for it. It may depend on certain inherent factors, like talents and gifts, environmental factors, and upbringing.
Welcome To The Unknown
Make plans, follow your strict productivity regimen, and ensure all blocks are laid properly. However, doing everything right does not guarantee that everything will go as you’ve envisioned.
The entrepreneur’s journey is riddled with the unknown!
You can never predict when the next storm will appear, what direction it will come from, or how it will look.
To survive the unknown in entrepreneurship, you must develop a mindset ready to adapt. You must be flexible and malleable enough to adjust.
If you’re rigid, slow, or hard to learn, you might not be able to succeed in entrepreneurship.
In my experience as a Critical Care Nurse, a Cath-lab and ER Nurse, there’s no way you can know what you will encounter when your shift starts. Absolutely no way.
Some shifts can be so calm and relaxed, while others will be so chaotic you’d think you were in a warzone!
And the only way we survived was to have a mindset ready for the unknown!
Sometimes, I was on my feet for almost 14 hours straight or more trying to save a patient’s life. You might not even get enough rest before you resume again, only to find yourself struggling all through the next shift!
Our minds had to be prepared for anything! ANYTHING!
Entrepreneurship is the same.
You need to be prepared like a soldier on guard.
It is in these challenging and “unknowing” situations and circumstances you can better understand how deep your creativity and resilience are.
A fancy business school or course can’t give you the same flavour.
This is the sieve that separates successful entrepreneurs from the rest and is one of the primary reasons why most people don’t want to become entrepreneurs.
In my entrepreneurial journey, there are many, many, many times that I have found myself in situations I never saw coming.
I had to adjust, learn and adapt quickly.
I wouldn’t be writing today if I hadn’t learned to adjust.
There was the season when I had to get married and quickly adjust my entrepreneurial pursuit to fit into my new life.
When that season passed, the season of financial challenges came. I had to look for ways to manage my finances across all sections of my life and ensure my entrepreneurial dreams don’t die because I am now married.
It was a whole new ball game when I welcomed my first child.
I now had to learn new ways to balance things out.
And that brings us to the next lesson…
Does Work-life Balance Really Exist?
In the early stages of entrepreneurship, achieving a perfect work and personal life is always a dream in the clouds.
You can’t have it.
Early entrepreneurship demands pure dedication, long hours of work and the ability to sacrifice plenty of personal time.
You’re always almost doing everything yourself. I mean it. You’ll not have the money to hire people to do things for you, so you must learn to do things yourself.
Herein lies one big reason why many starting entrepreneurs fail.
Most of them are waiting for people to do things for them in the early stages of their labours. When no one comes to their rescue or if they don’t have the money to pay for certain services, they allow their dreams to die.
I had to learn many things myself early in my entrepreneurial journey.
I didn’t have a dime to pay for anything. And I had to get things done.
Wait until I had the money? Not an option. So, I had to learn many of those things myself (crudely).
If you want to keep your entrepreneurial dreams alive, there’s a certain amount of work that must go into building, and it will definitely disrupt your everyday life.
Things will improve when you settle and have some resources to hire people to help you.
When this harsh reality stands before most entrepreneurs, they ditch the idea of entrepreneurship entirely.
Ideas, Ideas, Ideas!
Ideas are good—very good. But a good idea in your head, on your laptop, or in your notebook does not change any lives.
What really matters is bringing that idea to life–execution.
Many people have fantastic ideas—beautiful and brilliant ideas—but what separates the thinkers from the doers is execution.
Successful entrepreneurs know how to give their ideas life.
“Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.”
Jeff Bezos.
Starting entrepreneurs need to understand that ideas will remain ideas unless they take the pain to birth them.
You must have a very clear and detailed execution strategy. Dreaming is good. It’s part of the whole process. But don’t stop at just dreaming.
Unfortunately, most people don’t know how to turn dreams (ideas) into tangible structures. It’s not easy; bringing an idea to life takes a lot of work.
I have had lovely ideas that never materialised because I didn’t know how to bring them to life. It took me some time to realise the importance of learning to take ideas in your head and turn them into tangible structures.
It comes with a lot of learning, making mistakes and rising up again.
Ideas look and sound sweet when you think, talk, dream, and even plan them.
The actual labour starts when you now have to start building. This is where many entrepreneurs come to a halt!
A High Dose Of Grit
“Grit is sticking with your future, day in and day out, and not just for the week, not just for the month, but years.”
Angela Duckworth.
Entrepreneurship is not a dash.
It’s a never-ending marathon.
You just keep moving!
One of the virtues that separates successful entrepreneurs from others is grit.
The ability to thrive through adversity.
Grit is a powerful combination of passion, perseverance and resilience.
Without it, challenges, failures, mistakes and mishaps will knock you out and down.
If you’re looking for a shortcut to success, entrepreneurship is not for you. If you want to achieve more without working, sweating and labouring, entrepreneurship isn’t for you.
Nobody can teach you how to develop grit. You’ll have to do it yourself. Our “grit levels” also increase as we age and become wiser.
The more challenges you encounter and overcome. The more mistakes you learn from and the more valleys you jump out of, the bigger and better you become.
I can’t count the number of times I have wanted to throw in the towel and call it quits.
I have found myself face to face with many obstacles big enough to crush me. Still, in those moments, I have stood and persevered, and when I emerged, I came out wiser, stronger, and better.
Network And Relationship
One of the most overlooked aspects of entrepreneurship is building the right relationships.
There’s nothing like a “lone ranger” in entrepreneurship.
There are resources, opportunities and wisdom that you don’t have that others do, and you must reach out to them and build those relationships with them.
You don’t know it all, and you can never know it all. This is why you need others better than you to teach you.
Entrepreneurs know how to build the right relationships.
Relationships with mentors–those better than you, with peers–those on your level and even competitors–those who want to kick you out of business can help you tremendously and contribute to your growth as an entrepreneur.
The success of your business as an entrepreneur will depend, if not always, on the relationships you’ve built.
Starting and fresh entrepreneurs need to know how to build networks.
Networking is not a one-time Zoom meeting or a get-together at the park. It’s about making “CONNECTIONS.” And in maintaining these connections, you must nurture them the way you do any relationship.
Networking has kept me alive all these years.
I have successfully courted the attention of a few folks who have been with me for some time. Their presence in my life and journey has really helped me.
You should do the same.
When you start your entrepreneurial journey, look for people with whom you can journey together.
These lessons are personal, and every entrepreneur who has stayed long in the jungle of entrepreneurship has a unique experience.
Remember, it’s a journey that never ends until you leave this world. To remain relevant and grow, you must keep learning, build the right relationship, and feed your grit!
Is Entrepreneurship For Everyone?
Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. There might be people who are just cut out for it—right?
It may depend on certain inherent factors, like talents and gifts, environmental factors, and upbringing.
I firmly believe that anyone with a brain and a heart willing to learn can become an entrepreneur despite not being in the natural environment or having certain privileges.
I will extensively write about this idea in the next article.
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I write about leadership and entrepreneurship every Monday here on Care City. Though my writings are targeted at healthcare entrepreneurs, I feel entrepreneurs, in general, can learn from them.
Catch you next week Monday. Have a productive week ahead. Bye.
