When I left university I spent months working different jobs.   It can be tough finding work these days for quite obvious reasons, but back then I was kind of just wandering, trying to find something to do.   Business and entrepreneurship were a million miles away…

This report offers a stark warning that jobs are becoming hard to find for all job seekers.   We knew that the degree system was being devalued, but I think this news shows just how quickly the academic world is becoming, well, less relevant.

Academia is needed, but not in the same way it used to be.   This has nothing to do with a government’s theories about industry, but a lot to do with the way the world is changing.

So while we can sympathise with those graduates who cannot find work, we can also appreciate the fact that immediately applicable skills are now becoming more important than ever.   Entrepreneurs will find it easier to raise money because they can add quick value to the economy.   Businesses will live or die by the passion they contain.   And if you have a degree in anything, even the top level subjects, your chances will be lessened, sadly.

Any thoughts?

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I’ve been thinking of writing a post like this one for some time now.   The thing is, I’ve been carrying out a lot of research into other sites like this one, and other sources of advice on how to start and develop a home business or a small business with premises etc.   And, speaking frankly, I am yet to find any honest answers to the question in the title of this post.

I believe it is important that people have an appropriate amount of leverage when they are faced with big decisions.   Leaving their job is one of those decisions.   And having ‘you will gain more financial freedom’ or ‘you can work your own hours’ as reasons for leaving your job and starting a business isn’t good enough for me.   That kind of thing doesn’t cut it.   It isn’t leverage.

I’ve worked some tough day jobs before.   I’ve worked in a factory where I had to pack trifles into cases.   They were sticky and dripping with whatever substitute for real cream they were using.   It was hard, I had to work through the night sometimes, and it was definitely not glamorous.   But it didn’t kill me, and I met some people who were great to be with.   I left the job once I got the next job, working in telesales.

If you have ever worked in telesales, there isn’t much I have to tell you.   I worked in a reasonably smart office first of all, for a magazine that carried articles for school leavers who wanted to go to university.   So you had all of this info about courses and degrees, and we had to book ad space for the schools.   Not the greatest product I’m sure you will agree.   I lasted about six months.   Met some great people though, and realised what selling was about.   Didn’t mean I was any good at it, but I knew what it was all about.

A sucker for punishment, I took on another telesales role.  In this one I went all Ricky Roma on the CEOs and MDs of areospace firms, air parts suppliers and airport management teams, in a bid to sell them space in another magazine (this was before the Internet really took off).   I really put my all into it, putting in the hours, staying until late for the US market and getting in early so I could hit Australia and so on.   I made a tonne of friends here, learnt a lot about how companies work and a hell of a lot more about how selling works.   I made good money for about six months, but then the leads started to dry up.   So I quit the job.

I worked for a recruitment consultancy (one of the best in the world).   I froze every time I went on the phone to try and gain clients because I had to share an office with a dragon of a boss.   And no one likes having to sit next to a dragon, and pitch.   So I got fired from that job.

Then I worked in furniture retail.   Management was soon in my sights.   I left because I was bored.

Then I gained a degree in education, became a teacher.

My point?   These jobs I talk about were just jobs.  They made me money.

Prior to getting these jobs I had left home, so I had to eat, I had no one to give me money or resources so I had to work so that people who valued what I was doing to a certain degree would pay me accordingly.  

However, I left/was fired from all of these jobs (apart from teaching).   And I left them months after starting.   And the reasons were:

• I felt the pressure of no leads for sales (the sales jobs)
• I found a different opportunity that seemed better (the factory job)
• I was intimidated by my superior (the recruitment consultancy)
• I was bored (furniture retail)

In the sales cases, I was terrified of not being able to make sales in front of my colleagues.   I felt I had lost it, like I was not going to perform at a standard that had been set by another person.   I was afraid, frankly, of failure.

With the factory job, I wanted the next best thing, better conditions, better money.    In effect, I was afraid of not realising my potential.

With that dragon at the recruitment consultancy, I was afraid of having to be my own person.

And the furniture store?   Pretty much afraid of  ’the game’.

Looking back on this now it is easy for me to see these underlying emotions and feelings of fear and greed, boredom and so on.   They drove me to leave  a job.   I am fully prepared to believe (for example) that at least one member of any sales team I worked for stayed on after my exit for at least five years.   They were not scared.  They knew what they were doing and they were clear on their reasons for being there.

And there is probably an old timer or two still packing those damn trifles.   They haven’t left.  they don’t yearn for something better.

Our emotions drive us.

You see, nearly every major life decision we make is driven by emotion.   We can spend our adult lives in a variety of jobs, a string of jobs, pretending there are legitimate reasons for leaving each one and moving on.   We can say things like:

• There are no opportunities to move up the ladder
• The boss is squeezing me out
• This is not challenging me
• I can get better pay elsewhere

But the truth is, we are all just scared.   That is the real reason why anyone, from your international CEO to your trifle packer, leaves their job.   They are scared.

The one thing we are all certain of in our lives is that we are going to die.   No one is exempt from this, everyone’s name is in The Big Hat.   Deep inside ourselves, this little fact keeps ticking away.   It drives us.

It drives some of us more powerfully than others.   Look at the woman who runs a successful company but knows she has an incurable disease.   Only place you’ll find her is at work, making deals, creating business.   Making a legacy.

For some it just pushes us along.   Look at the man who has worked in the same factory for forty years.    Never late or sick, and always with one eye on his pension.

You see, no one works for money, not really.   People work the jobs they do because they gain some kind of emotional benefit from the job.    The woman who runs the company knows what it feels like to make a difference, and likes that feeling.

The factory guy knows what it is like to feel secure, so he works hard to keep that feeling.

Our personal growth pushes us along.

Every job we do helps us to grow in some way.   In the jobs I outline above I learnt, for example, that I wasn’t too hot at selling.   I learnt that I am intimidated by powerful people (or was at least), and that I had to find a way around that.   I learnt that I didn’t ‘do’ the management career game, and that working in a furniture store until I made manager was not for me.   And I learnt that I wasn’t satisfied with staying still.

All of these problems would haunt me on my deathbed.   This I knew, so I moved on or was pushed out because my bosses knew it wasn’t working for me.

Leaving your job so that you can create your own small business or your own home business is a decision that will come at the end of a large amount of learning.   You won’t choose to quit your day job because you want to be rich.   Chances are you have made some money anyway.   Chances are you have drawn a salary for some time.   It’s no big deal, making money.

However, the learning you have been through is a big deal.   If you are truly focused on making a home business you will have decided that you can’t just make money for the sake of it, or for reasons that exist outside your own spiritual needs.   You will have learnt that you cannot work for someone else and not be able to set your own direction.   You will have learnt that there is only really one thing that truly scares you.   And that one thing is the fear of never making your mark.  

You can’t make your mark on a $100,000 a year job that helps a big company sell products quicker and to more people.

You can’t make your mark in a factory packing trifles.

You can’t make your mark selling advertising space.

So the answer to the question in the title, and the answer that seemingly eludes a lot of ‘resources’ out there on entrepreneurship and small business creation, can be summed up quite neatly really, by a couple of questions.

What would you like everyone to read on your tombstone?

How are you going to make your mark?

Thanks for your patience.   And until next time, work smart.

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Just a quick link today.   I just liked the spirit of these guys.   They have created their small business and made it into a big part of their lives.   However, a recession can bite everyone.

Being an entrepreneur means having no fear, and being optimistic even when times are rough.   This is exactly what these entrepreneurs are doing.   They are doing anything (even working for free) to keep their small business dreams alive.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124510133735816437.html

Until next time, work smart.

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