Those of you who have visited this blog before will know of my conviction for entrepreneurship. It really is the only way to keep the soul alive and progressing. A life spent fulfilling and building someone’s dreams other than your own, no matter how passionate you are about them, is a life partially fulfilled. Think about it! How many people have you spoken to over the years who have at one point said the famous words, “You know what would be a good idea for a business?” I hear it over and over again, yet, there is no action to follow the idea. They remain in what I like to call, the Employee Rut!

Now in past posts here at CreateFinancialWealth I have really bagged on having a job as if it was the worst punishment anyone could have in this life….and I have to apologize for that. A job has its purpose, and there are some benefits to having one, versus being self employed. It’s a lifestyle choice. Without employees there would be no employers. It’s the circle of commerce and industry. There must be both and at times you might find yourself being one or the other, wishing you were the other, struggling day in and day out to find an opportunity to become such.

Yet, when you get home from work, it’s so easy to eat dinner and just sit down on that couch for a few hours as you plug away on the internet or watch TV. Between spending time with your wife and kids and visiting with friends and family, it’s extremely difficult to find the time your entrepreneurial ideas deserve. So you find yourself attempting to stay up late at night trying to figure things out to get things moving, but you tire yourself so quickly and nearly go into a coma the rest of the week when you attempt to stay up a few more hours.

At this point, the job starts to take priority in your life. It’s much easier just to wake up, go to work, come home and not have to worry about anything until the next day when you start that drill all over again. Life becomes very predictable….with a bi-weekly paycheck and your schedule mapped out, you get on a routine. This routine is so habitual that it becomes nearly impossible to fit anything else around it. You are now 12 inches deep in the mud and are spinning your wheels every time you attempt to get out of the rut you’re in.

This is what I mean by the Employee Rut. Not that it’s a bad thing. Some do prefer and enjoy being in this rut….but it rips the spirit out of others. At times in your life, you may find yourself in this rut, not because you want to be there, but because your past choices have landed you there. Don’t become content with your lot! Get out as soon as you have the opportunity to, or the entrepreneurial spirit within will begin to diminish. Plan to succeed. Act on those ideas you have or someone else will, I promise you that. How many times have your ideas been so called, “Stolen,” by someone who acted instead of speculated about “Good ideas for a business.”

The world is full of people who can fill the ruts on the road to success…..but lacking those who have the fortitude and the ambition to make their way around, through, in and out of these ruts until they reach their destination. If there is a single ounce of entrepreneur in you, join the minority and live a life fulfilling and building your dreams! If you don’t, enjoy what you are doing now…because you’ll probably be doing it for the rest of your life.

Let’s take a look at the normal anatomy of human beings. We all have a head, arms, legs, feet, toes and the list could go on and on. Every part of the body has it’s own purpose and functionality. The legs carry the body from place to place, the hands grip and pick things up with the help of the arms but when it all comes down to it, the head is what controls the body. If something happens to the head, the other parts won’t function right, if at all.

So what happens if the arm wants to take control and do something different than what the head wants it to do? No matter how hard that arm tries to influence the head, it’s still the head operating the arm. Slap the head too many times and the head doesn’t work right, thus, neither does the arm. Beat the head to death and the arm kills itself in the process. Kill the head….the arm dies along with it. A body without the head, the mind, is nothing but a skin covered bag of bones!

What I mean by the analogy, is during certain periods of my Entrepreneur life I thought I was the head. I thought I was the one in control of the arms and legs of my business. The truth was, I was just the arm trying to turn the head the way I wanted it to go. It doesn’t work that way. An arm is just an arm and is controlled by the head.

My point…..is to always be the head of your enterprise. As long as there is a franchise, an owner, a co-owner or something with equal or more authority than you in your enterprise, you will never be the head. You will never have complete control of your financial future. Because…..say it with me….what effects the head, effects the entire body. We all know that a healthy mind equals a healthy body. It filters down…not up.

Make sure you are the one influencing the arms and the legs of your enterprise, not the one being influenced. If you are to ever achieve success and TRUE independence, you must be the head and only the head. Don’t settle for anything less. But that means that you must stop thinking like the arm or the leg, and start thinking like the head. Once you reach that point, you’ll know….and you be much, much happier and all of this will simply be a reminder.

One of the things that prevents individuals from seeing success in business are the road blocks they encounter right from the beginning, point A, to the end, point B. For those of you who have ever started a business or attempted to start a business, you know that in doing so, every step of the way isn’t sure. There is no detailed list of steps to take numbered 1 – 100. Even a detailed business plan doesn’t really give the action steps you’ll need to take to accomplish your goal. Based on your research, it’s just an educated guess at what the end result could be. From there, it’s up to the entrepreneur to create that detailed list, one step at a time.

The important thing to realize is that entrepreneurs don’t know all the steps to take. In order to make it to point B, all they know how to do is to simply take the NEXT step. As an entrepreneur, you don’t have to know all the steps, you just have to be willing to take the first step…and then continue taking steps from there, one at a time. By taking the steps we can see today, those steps then create new steps which we can take tomorrow. It’s like going up a staircase that turns at a 90 degree angle. At some point, you can’t really see the top of the staircase until turn that corner and start up the stairs. Same concept. By taking one simple step at a time, they’ll eventually add up, and you’ll soon reach the top.

You see, entrepreneurship is the ability to create something out of nothing, to take an idea and create a reality with it. Entrepreneurs are the most creative, action taking people on the planet. All growth depends on the mind of the Entrepreneur. They create jobs. They create opportunity for those who have no idea how to create it for themselves or are scared to do so. So their course is always an uncharted one. There’s no road maps or connect the dots. The only thing that exists is an internal GPS unit embedded in the heart of every Entrepreneur….constantly pointing in the right direction.

It’s not the end result that makes success so rewarding….it’s all it took to get there. It’s the journey. Would the celebration at the end of the race be a celebration if someone else had to carry you the entire way?

The reward is the knowledge that you did this. No one else did it, you did. And you did it your way…..and because you did, you deserve success, because you literally created it!

Next up to bat in the 5 Categories of Success is the fourth and most sought after category, Financial! I don’t really know anyone, anywhere, that would say “no” to making a little more money. Some pursue money as if it is the very thing they depend on to sustain life, money being the very air they breathe. Success to many means having lots and lots of money and plenty of time to spend and enjoy having all that money. It’s all about being the P.I.M.P. with the 20 inch rims, the huge mansion and money all over the place. It’s amazing to see someone rise to the top and become wealthier than they have ever been, become the high roller they had always wanted to be, spend all of their money, and end up broke, depressed and out of luck.

The Fourth Category of Success – Financial

Having a mansion, cars, boats, ATV’s, planes, maids, employees, nice clothes and all that can dress up your appearance is NOT financial success. Financial success is about having assets. An asset is something of value, or something that can bring your more income…consistent income. The only thing in the list I just mentioned that may be an asset is the mansion. Everything else is a depreciating deficit…..things that cost you more money. Having the cars, boats, atv’s, planes, maids and nice clothes are results of having assets, if you so choose to accumulate those things.

Now, I know many people think that once they achieve financial success that all the other categories will fall into place. They will then have the time and money to improve themselves, their families and their spirituality. To most people, the money fixes everything and makes everything possible. Not the case! If you were a broke, miserable person before falling into financial success, you will eventually become a broke, miserable person again unless you change you! The financial success comes and STAYS because of who you are being. If you have not become the millionaire in your mind first, then you will not remain a millionaire for long, because your money thermostat is set much, much lower than that. To learn more about how to reset your thermostat, read “Secrets of a Millionaire Mind” by T. Harv Ecker. Great read!

Now, financial success to me, is after all of my expenses (ie bills, groceries, mortgage etc) I still have plenty of money to put a portion away for savings, donate a portion for a good cause, invest some back into strengthening my assets and to live an abundant lifestyle. That’s financial success. It’s not about having  just enough to get by. That’s three months away from homeless should tragedy strike. It’s true. How many people have lost homes because they were making just enough to get by and tragedy struck, they lost their job? Too many! I apologize, but I have to recommend another book here. It’s “The Richest Man in Babylon” by George S. Clason. That short, little book will teach you a bit more about what to do with the money you make.

The portal to creating financial success is Entrepreneurship. You must become an entrepreneur. By doing so, you are in control of how much or how little you earn, and the cool thing about entrepreneurship, is you can make a lot of money doing exactly what you love to do. If that is eating donuts all day, you can own a donut shop. If you enjoy teaching kids how to play basketball, you can organize basketball camps and three on three tournaments. If you enjoy it, chances are, you will do well. It’s about finding a way to make it happen. Most likely, things won’t be laid out perfectly for you with ABC instructions on how to create success. To me, that’s the exciting part of it all. You get to take ALL the credit for what you create!

If I can give you a few tips of advice in creating your financial success, it would be this:

1. Know what you want. Get very clear. Be creative with your ideas. Be different.
2. Mastermind with those people who have the results you desire to have.
3. Persist without exception until you get what you want. Learn that “The Buck Stops Here!” To learn more about that you can read “The Travelers Gift” by Andy Andrews.
4. Burn your boats, meaning, leave no escape routes or back doors. Play with all out MASSIVE action. Play small, get small results. Play big, get big results.
5. Be extremely consistent.

Anyone and everyone that has a desire to succeed and the willpower to pursue their dreams has to potential to achieve them. One of the most important concepts that I have learned on the path of financial success, is to simply “Enjoy the Journey!” Life is good and because of you, it will become better and better. Money isn’t everything. Money is a tool, or a gateway to achieving greater things in life. Use it to bless your life, the life of your family and the lives of others in a positive way…….and guys, there’s plenty to go around!

Before taking a look at my past, I had always assumed that I was one of the best employees that ever walked the face of the earth. I have held job positions that I absolutely excelled in. There wasn’t anything out there that I couldn’t do, or learn how to do, at a quicker rate than most of my co-workers. My employers always praised my work and how well I was doing. All was good.

Everything I just mentioned above is completely accurate and true. I was the best employee a wage could buy…..at least for a while. Then, I started to think of how all of my jobs ended. I was fired from a restaurant job during college because, in their words, “I didn’t have what it takes to work with food!” Translation…..I liked to eat it more than sell it! I worked construction and couldn’t handle getting told what to do all the time, “get that hammer, get me a 10′ 2×6, etc.” I learned what I needed there and actually went on to build two homes on my own for a few hundred thousand in profit. Working in the glass industry, I excelled to a certain point, and wanted to continue learning and growing but was kept within my job description and held back from higher earnings. So I quit and started my own glass company for a period of time.

I started to see that even though I was able to do well, I wasn’t able to keep doing the same things over and over again. I always wanted more.

So here are five simple signs that you might be fit for entrepreneurship:

1. If someone told you to stare at a screen all day long for a set amount of money, and you couldn’t do it without wanting more responsibility or without feeling like you were wasting away your life.
2. You’ve never really been a great employee, although you accomplish great things when you are and may jump from job to job frequently.
3. The thought of having someone dictate your time during the day sickens you.
4. You have so many ideas flowing through your head that you find yourself writing them down in a journal or notebook to keep track of them all.
5. Instead of being content with where you are, you are constantly engaged in thought about where you want to be financially, in the near and distant future.

Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. Some people like the so called “comfort” of a steady bi-weekly paycheck or 40 hour work week. Some enjoy the fact that they can check out at 5pm and not have to think about their job until 8 am the next day.

I once read a quote that I’ll end this post with, and it went something like this: As entrepreneurs, we do the things now, that most people won’t…..so that we can later, live a life that most people can’t!

What is one of the main causes of discouragement for an entrepreneur? Rejection is. Throughout the process of creating success in any given business opportunity lies opportunities for rejection. When you apply for a business loan, you may get rejected. When you out in a quote for a job, they may reject your offer. When you make your sales calls, most likely, you will get rejected before you make a sale. Heck, you will probably get rejected over and over again.

Rejection is not personal

Rejection is a natural part of the process of success in any venture, even in a job setting as well as an entrepreneurial venture. How many job applications and interviews does a person have to go through to find the perfect job? How many “No’s” does an entrepreneur have to sort through to find the yes? That’s the key! The more “no’s,” or rejections you get, the closer you are to the “Yes’s!” In addition to a thought out business plan, a great location, a proven system and a customer base, that’s all business is. It’s the process of sorting through the “no’s” until you find the “Yes.”

Discouragement from rejection comes to entrepreneurs who don’t have a strong enough goal, or vision for where they are headed. Rejection can get monotonous, repetitive and quite annoying. It’s easy to look at rejection as failure. Failure brings a lack of motivation, poor mindset and very little progress. It’s grounds to think about the forbidden “Q” word. QUITTING! Which is why it takes a lot of self motivation and ambition to succeed as an entrepreneur. It’s all on your shoulders, success and failure.

What you have to realize is that rejection is not personal. The person on the other end of the phone line, directly in front of you, behind the application, looking at your product or whatever it may be, may reject your offer because of them, not you. Rejection is something that happens when a person doesn’t understand the value of your product or service in their life. That’s it! They don’t say no because of who you are. It’s not a personal attack. It’s just the process of sorting. Success happens when your product or service finds customers who can see it’s value in their own life. That’s who you are sorting for.

So the more “No’s” you get, the better. You can’t treat every potential customer like they are the only potential buyer you will ever see, as you drool with dollar signs in your eyes. That’s insane. They are either a no or a yes. That’s it. As long as your presentation, display, product or service provides value and is presented properly, you will make the sale. Don’t read into it too deeply. Don’t get your feelings hurt when you encounter rejection because it will happen. Learn from it and move forward until you find that “Yes,” again and again and again. If you can do that, then welcome to Entrepreneurship!