Let me be real for a second….
If you’re not willing to give up at least something in your current life, you should not pursue entrepreneurship. You aren’t built for it and will most likely give up and fail because of your lack of commitment. True success isn’t as important to you as it might seem.
Think I’m wrong? In the past 6 months:
- How many times have you come in an hour early for work, or worked past 8pm?
- How many hundreds of hours have you spent voluntarily learning new skills and gaining new knowledge since you finished school/college?
- Has your salary grown by a significant amount since last year?
- Are you in a more senior position at your job than you were last year?
If not, you’re playing yourself. Your vision for success will only be a pipe dream, unless you buckle in and make some sacrifices.
Isn’t your dream WORTH sacrificing things for?!
If your goal is to become a successful entrepreneur and you’re trapped in a full-time job, find a way to make it work. I’ve had conversations with several friends of mine who have full-time corporate jobs, but really want to pursue entrepreneurship. They have all these ideas they want to pursue, but in the end, nothing ever gets done. Why? Time is the biggest issue.
But then when I ask them what they’re up to over the weekend, they’re going to brunch, day drinking, traveling, going to sports games, hanging out, or the killer, watching Netflix…
So obviously, you can see there is an issue here. According this article in The Washington Post:
People who make less than $20,000 a year, for example, told Kahneman and his colleagues that they spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure — watching television, for example. Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way — putting their legs up and relaxing.
We are always hustling. Sure we do disconnect (we all need that!), but we know how much free time we need to put towards creating or learning something. Here are some more facts. I was reading Dave Ramsey’s blog post, “20 Things the Rich Do Everyday” and four things stood out:
- 67% of wealthy watch one hour or less of TV every day vs. 23% of poor.
- 6% of wealthy watch reality TV vs. 78% of poor.
- 44% of wealthy wake up three hours before work starts vs. 3% of poor.
- 86% of wealthy believe in lifelong educational self-improvement vs. 5% of poor.
So even if you have a full-time job, you do have the time to put into something else. It’s all about prioritizing what you want to DO with your time. If you want to relax I won’t knock you, just be real with yourself and what goals you want to accomplish. Having a full time job can sometime be so much of a cushion, that it seems ok to let these ‘small entrepreneurial ventures’ go. These just remain ideas as you’re still getting a paycheck. It’s way different if you have nothing else and your fighting tooth and nail to make it a success.
But some people I know flip the script. People that I’m very close with work 60-80 hours a week on average at their full-time job and STILL find time to put into a new venture, learning new skills, or testing their assumptions of new business ideas. They know what’s important to them and they’re going after it full steam ahead. You can still do it!
Life isn’t fair. Get over it.1 Work with what you got to get what you’ve always wanted.
I believe entrepreneurs are made and not born. We are highly motivated people with a hunger to get shit done. We have strong sense of initiative and would rather do things on our own then involve a whole large group of people. We dedicated to our businesses and put as much time into them as we can. We are working for ourselves rather than for anyone else. We also know what is going on in the market around us at all times. We react to change and know how to handle situations on our own.
We figure shit out.
You might be thinking, what has this guy sacrificed. What have I sacrificed? — Time and energy mostly. I’m moving out of my apartment in Manhattan to a cheaper one elsewhere. I haven’t taken a personal vacation in over a year (since I had a full-time job). I barely go out, hit the clubs and spend money anymore. I don’t buy food from restaurants, I cook way more, usually the same boring thing. I freelance currently to get by. I don’t hang out on the weekends…I work. I always invite others who want to work to do so with me, it’s nice being around ambitious people. It’s just what I have to do to reach my goals.
If you’re read to this point, I know you’re hungry for more. Hungry for a better, more fulfilling future and life. Most people never live up to their potential. If you want to, grab a piece of paper, and write down the following RIGHT NOW:
By sacrificing I’ll make the following goal a reality for me: __________
By the following date: __________
To help me achieve this, I’m going to give up the following activity/past-time/hobby: __________
And this one: __________
I’m going to reclaim the following number of hours / dollars I spend on these activities each year: __________
I’m going to spend this much time / money learning new skills and gaining new knowledge including the following topics that will help me reach my goal: __________
Make sure you sign your name at the bottom and tape it to your wall, somewhere you can see everyday.
If you have any questions or need to talk anything out, hit me up at jesal@thephatstartup.com.
Love this track btw! MAINO FT. B.O.B. X FRENCH MONTANA “DREAMER”
Jesal Trivedi is a Founding Partner and Director of Creative Development at The Phat Startup. Holla at him at @jesaltriv!
We want to keep this conversation going. The Phatstartup is having a dope conference in NYC on November 21, 2014. RSVP now for Tech808, the tech conference thats made for all people.
