How many people have actually owned a real business?
'Entrepreneur' seems to be the buzz word of the 21st century – as though by using the word alone, it will make you a successful business man.
‘Entrepreneur’ is a glib, sexy concept, that discounts all the graft, sweat, stress, blood and tears, that go into making a business.
‘I’m going to be a entrepreneur’ as if that is a fucking job title in itself - and not a mindset needed with which to launch a business.
I see the word banded around, shouting it out - like enthusiastic children shout out ‘merry Christmas’ on a Christmas day morning.
It’s just a word.
Nothing more.
It is not ‘doing business’.
And so I’m gonna write a series of posts about my life.
My 'business' life.
My very hard working life .
My non flashy business(es).
‘Entrepreneur’ is a mindset, not a destination.
Most people do not have that mindset – no matter how much they love to use that ‘E’ word.
The way I see it....
...If you don’t prefer the ‘living on the edge’ kind of life (good and bad), then don't try to be an entrepreneur.
If you have to 'try' at it, then you're already in the wrong mental space.
Contrary to the cultural enthusiasm of attaching that word to describe yourself – most people can’t handle it. …And for good reasons, btw...
So, I’ll tell you a real story of events of my life – and my mindset.
You don’t need a degree for it (I would posit quite the opposite ) and if you feel the need to have a degree, it’s more indicative of the non entrepreneurial mindset.
...If you find the ‘security’ of a job more attractive than not knowing where the next meal’s coming from, it’s indicative on a non entrepreneurial mindset.
Anyways, let me descend from my philosophical pontifications, and lets get down and dirty in to what it really means ‘to do the business’.
Lucylin, aged 14…
I wanted some money. I wanted LOTS of money.
I wanted a gun.
And some telescopic sights for said rifle.
This didn’t come cheap.
They cost a good two weeks work. (at that time, around $500 - ish)
My family was very cash poor, very work ethic rich, and supportive of me trying my new idea with which to obtain my $500 for the gun.
....My Idea?
A car washing round.
At the weekends. (I was still in school at the time).
This was decades before the car washing ‘drive thru’s’ emerged, and I saw an opportunity.
I lived on a farm, and three miles away, was the ‘rich part’ of town. It was the ‘business commuter belt’ into the city.
It was detached houses on a very ‘well to do’ housing estates.
It was two car families.
It was full of cash rich, lazy people who thought their image was important.
It was ripe for extracting wealth from - with just a little bit of hard work.
(I’ll work in dollars, but I was actually working in GBP).
I charged $3 FOR A FULL CAR WASH.... AND $3 MORE FOR A WAX AND SHINE.
(They hardly ever refused 'the wax and shine' – ‘keeping up appearances’ and all that - the idiots).
I had to walk there (and back - around 6 miles in total) each Saturday and Sunday with buckets, polish, detergents, and cloths in hand.
If I worked hard, and did a good job – I could wash around 6 cars per day.
My overhead costs were so minimal - to be calculated at virtually zero.
10 cars per weekend.
Around $60/70, per weekend….
Within a couple of months, I'd ‘hired’ some friends, who I paid. $2 per car wash, and $2 per wax.
I then started to make around $120 per weekend - for a few months.
Then I got bored ( I had a shiny new gun to go shooting with at weekends, now!).
I gave the car wash round away to my friends – and they never really stayed motivated enough to keep it going...which gave me my first insights into human behaviors..
I was not greedy.
I loved the capitalistic , free market nature of my endeavor.
I loved making money by myself, for myself.
Money was never my god.
Working for things that I wanted was my motivation.
(acquiring money just for it’s own sake – is, from my perspective - indicative of an intelligence just slightly less than that of a low IQ'd amoeba).
That was my first foray into free markets, business, profits, employing people, and enjoying the whole process.
A couple of years later, I decided to ‘get a real job’, while waiting to go college for my certs to get me into studying law.
'Employment’ would be new experience - and my passion for cleaning cars was, alas, no more.
So, I woke up in the morning, and - quite literally – got on my bike!
I knocked on every door that I came across , that looked like a business of any kind, and asked them if 'they had any work'...
...By 3:30 that same day – and 14 miles away from home – I landed a job for the summer in a textile warehouse.
28 miles a day of cycling! - just to get to - and from - work.
And eight hours a day of shifting around boxes - of very heavy textiles.
And a wage packet each week.
I liked that money in my pocket.
...After three months working there, I left and went to college for my so called ‘education’.
It took me less than a year to realize that the 'corporate route’ that I would be enrolling for, by going through the system ‘ was not for me'.
And deep down, I knew it never would be.
So I left the indoctrination camp.
The warehouse (the one where I’d worked during the summer) told me that if I'd ever want a job, there was one there for me – so I returned.
...Two years later , I was the UK sales manager for the company (19 years old ffs! lol), and was in charge of a multi million dollar business.
I got the job in sales because – without being taught – I would service the customers needs and advise them, when I was delivery product to them .
(‘living’ in the warehouse and running that - meant that I knew my stock better than most of the sales team).
Serving the customers needs without being asked , was a natural – entrepreneurial, mindset.
It’s NOT something that can be taught in my experience (from my own observations).
Actually, that's not strictly true, but the 'instinctual entrepreneur' will always be better at this kind of endevour.
You either ‘have it’ - or you don’t.
In Part two...
I’ll share my journey of further entrepreneurial endeavors, as walked away from the job I just mentioned above ( I got bored!lol) ... and went globe trotting for two decades!
...and LOTS of entrepreneurial opportunities!
