Have you ever been told you couldn’t do something? Have you listened to society telling you that you have to get an education to be somebody? Society is bad about making us believe that we have to go to school, get good grades, go to college, get a degree so we can get a good job. But how many actually use the degree they receive? Not many, not many at all. Don’t get me wrong here, education is a great thing but it seems like we are learning the same things over and over. I had some of the same courses and teachings that I learned in high school, why would you repeat this? I was never the school type, I love to learn but I love to learn things that I like or that will help me with what I want to do not algebra where you try and figure out what happened to x. For a long time I denied that I had the entrepreneur spirit in me mainly because I had it in my head that I had to choose something generic in college. My father always owned his own businesses and always told me the sky was the limit but I seemed to think “oh the sky is the limit to be a teacher, medical field, nurse, etc.”
Another reason I strayed away from pursuing it was friends. They would say “oh why would you want to go and do that when you could do this or you could go to grad school?” Let me tell you a little something about grad school… all it’s for is to take more money out of your pockets and prolong your process of getting out into the real world and working. So many people are in debt because of school fees and now they can’t even get a job. Okay so you can’t get a job so the best thing to do is to go spend more money and get in debt by going to grad school? Let me say also, yes some schooling for medical fields and all of those careers are understandable. Imagine if they just let the doctors graduate in four years and sent them out to start surgeries? Yeah, no thank you. So that is not what I’m talking about, that is different. I am talking about those that are a college student for life, you’re only prolonging the great things you could be doing.
Not Everyone Gets It
Being an entrepreneur is not easy by any means and it’s definitely not easy when you have everyone around you telling you that what you want to do won’t work or it’s impossible to achieve. Those who are not entrepreneurs don’t understand and won’t ever understand. There are those who are meant to be 9-5 workers and those who provide the 9-5 workers with jobs, also known as the entrepreneurs who started the business or company. There is absolutely nothing wrong with working a 9-5 job and calling it a day right at 5 p.m. But entrepreneurs are the ones who work a job or all day and then go home or use the weekends to learn more and push forward to reach their goal. Yes, you do miss out on things and have to make sacrifices but if you’re passionate about what you do and want to succeed you will not think of it as a sacrifice at all.
Scared?
If you’re scared that you will fail and others will be there to say “I told you so,” don’t worry about it. We all fail with things but it’s how you make it work for you and learn from your mistakes that will help you succeed. “We fail over and over, but that is how we learn to succeed,” was once said by Michael Jordan, who actually was told he was not good enough in high school to play basketball. Walt Disney was turned away numerous times with his idea and concept about Disney and we all know how that one turned out. You can’t be afraid of going after what you want to do. If you have an idea and nobody else is doing it or you can do it better, then do it! “You just have to take the first step,” which is what Sarah Shaw of Entreprenette.com says all the time. If you don’t take that first step you will never know. That goes for anything in life but especially when you are about to become an entrepreneur. Never say the words “I can’t” because you never know until you try.
Ashley Bodi founder of Business Beware
