You're NOT an Entrepreneur
YOU’RE NOT AN ENTREPRENEUR
NOTE: THIS ARTICLE IS TEST OF HOW MUCH YOU VALUE TRUTH.
I started my own business 5 years ago. I instantly thought I was an Entrepreneur and technically if you go by the dictionary definition, I was an I am.
en·tre·pre·neur (noun)
“a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so”
BUT, I have started to understand this definition is bullshit. I have learned over the past 5 years, anyone can start a business, anyone can put in their Instagram profile that they are an Entrepreneur and list themselves on their own website as CEO. That is not the hard part.
Anyone who has been in business for longer than a year knows that this definition is not complete and simply describes a SMALL BUSINESS OWNER.
I get to spend time with a lot of business owners and very, very few actual Entrepreneur’s. Most small business owners like myself tend to talk about how busy they are, how they are still working 20 hours a day in their business and how they can’t find the so-called “right people” to help push their business’ forward.
Michael Gerber in the E-Myth Revisited describes this rhetoric as “Greedy & Self Indulgent”. I have heard it said a thousand ways and I am sure you have too; “you can’t work on your business, when you are in your business”, “work smarter, not harder”, etc etc. It wasn’t until I heard Michael Gerber call me greedy and self-indulgent that it finally resonated with me.
I can’t do it better than most people, I am not special and there is no pride in working 20 hours per day. When I first started my business, I had to do it all, my first business failed, my second business has been open 3 years and my third business has been open for 4 months.
In order for the businesses I currently have to be successful, I have a responsibility to actually become an Entrepreneur and not a small business owner who created a terrible low paying job for myself. This means leaving the comfort zone we all know as “busy” and working on creating the difficult systems and structures a business needs to grow, without me doing everything.
I am not an Entrepreneur and chances are if you are reading this, you are not either… NOT YET!!!
At OxWork, we are working to develop this “Entrepreneur Mindset” and kill the small business owner bullshit! If you value the truth and want to be held accountable to a higher standard come join the team.