Start on Your Own Successfully

Think of what you do every day at work. Do you give your 100% to it? Do you enjoy your work? Does it bring out the best in you? Is it aligned with your core purpose in life?

For your long term satisfaction, it is essential that your work meets all the above criteria. However, in reality, many people do not like their work. A happier employee is more productive, hence good companies try their best to increase employee engagement by finding alignment between the work and the employee’s capabilities and interest. While this has helped a lot, it still does not address the case when there is a major mismatch of aptitude.

Why would someone land in a job that does not suit his aptitude or interest? Partly our education system is responsible as it encourages students to take well defined routes. Study science, do engineering and management degree, take up a lucrative job and work your way up in the career. At a young age, the student’s choice is guided solely by the prospects that the career offers. As a result, she takes up a career that looks promising even if it is not in line with her interest.

Stuck in such a situation, people make different trade-offs as a compromise. Some choose to give 100% to their career with single minded focus, while others find a balance and pursue their dreams on the side. Some people are bold enough to take a plunge, quit the job to follow their dreams – like starting a business or consultancy, becoming a singer, actor, dancer, etc. This results in an immediate hit on their earnings and a long period of struggle is mandatory with a thin chance of success.

So, while a job offers financial security and predictable chances of ‘making it’, starting out on your own looks attractive but a risky proposition. Is there a third choice by which we can follow our dreams without getting broke?   

In his book “The Education of Millionaires”, Michael Ellsberg offers great insights on this topic from his own experience. He places greater emphasis on real-life education as compared to formal college education. To stress the point, Michael gives example of many successful people who are college dropouts. He gives a simple four point formula to safely start out on your own without crashing:

1. The first step is to get financial stability through any job that you may get into and become independent. Use your earnings to ensure you are free of debts, and build up some savings for a rainy day.
2. The second step is to create room for experimentation while on the job. Figure out a job schedule which frees up some time for you for experimentation. e.g. you may find free time in the evenings or on weekends.
3. Use the money from your savings to start exploring your interest in your free time. Make sure to keep the regular source of income intact at this stage.
4. Once you gain confidence that you are ready to sustain yourself without a job, strike out on your own.

Remember, there is no guarantee of success in your venture. Failures are unavoidable in entrepreneurship and are an integral part of learning. However this gradual approach provides you adequate resilience to withstand the failure without getting broke.

Michael lists the following essential skills that one has to learn to be successful in his own venture. These skills should together form the essential curriculum of education for success, but are rarely taught formally in college:

Change the Mindset
Transition from employee mindset to entrepreneurial mindset, where you carve out your own path as opposed to working on path carved out by someone else. This is a vital shift, which can make you add more value even as an employee. Some of the differences between the two mindsets are as follows:

Entrepreneurial mind-set	Employee mind-set
Focus on contribution	Focus on entitlement
Focus on outcome	Focus on output
Sort for what’s needed	Sort for what’s requested
Go towards big decisions even without authority	Turn away from even the small decisions you have authority to make

Find Great Mentors and Build Network
Connect with powerful and influential people and build a world class network. Key point to remember is that great networking is not about taking advantage of your connections, but giving with no expectation of anything in return. Find people with great future potential and help them reach their goal. Add value to life of someone who is already established. 

Learn about Marketing
A lot of businesses fail because they are not able to reach out to right customers. The general perception of marketing is that its sleazy and manipulative, on the contrary, good marketing is making your potential customers know about you or your company.

Learn about Sales
Look at successful people in any field and they are not always the best individuals of that craft. You can be the very best in your craft but being able to sell is equally important for you. Again sales is often perceived in a negative manner. Sales is about knowing what customer needs and if you have a good solution/product, offering it.

Invest for Success
Reinvest your earnings for learning new skills to help take your endeavor to new heights.

Build a brand for Yourself
Your brand is what people think about when they hear your name.

This is indeed very valuable advice to everyone who wants to be successful in his own venture. This book has a promise of such a powerful paradigm shift that I strongly recommend that you should read it.

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About This Post
I do not agree with Michael's view that college education is not useful at all. However, even after college education there is a need to learn real-life skills discussed in this book to be successful.