In my experience of dealing with people who go into business for themselves, they driven by and are looking for certain things by being an entrepreneur. When they lose sight of these five things, they usually feel down and depressed or like they are hitting a wall of frustration.
Also, I would estimate that I have very seldom seen an entrepreneur who has mastered the ability to have all five things in their lives. Most of the time the businesses is managing them instead of them managing the business. I call this the ‘Frankenstein-syndrome”, instead of being able to control the thing they created, not the thing they created controls them. They feel like a slave to the enterprise, instead of the enterprise empowering them and delivering the five things they wanted.
Here are the five things every entrepreneur wants:
Freedom- Most entrepreneurs are somewhat free-spirits and abstract thinkers. They want to be free of the constraints employees feel at the companies and jobs. They do not like having a boss to report to daily and they want a tremendous amount of flexibility in their working hours. As I said, the freedom many business owners wanted is now elusive to them due to the business.
Time- They want to spend their working time doing what they really enjoy, and they have thoughts about having more freedom to spend with family and other interests. They don’t want to be limited by the vacation policies of other employers but set their own hours and time off.
Money- They do not want a limit on the amount of money they can earn for doing a great job. They want to live off the results of their ideas, solutions or models. If any of these generate money, they don’t want anyone telling them how much they can keep.
People- They want to have freedom to control who they are around during their work. They want people they like working with and for, both inside and outside the business. They want people they appreciate and also those who are loyal and appreciate them.
Purpose Fulfillment- They want to experience the joy of doing what they feel they are supposed to do. They are solving problems or providing a product or service to a segment of people who need it. Many times, it also connects to the entrepreneur’s ideals and values in life.
Most of the time the businesses is managing you instead of you managing the business
If you need help getting back to a few of these five things, our business consultants can help you not only scale your business to new levels of effectiveness and profitability, but we can help you get back some of the five things you wanted when you decided to go into business.
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