Entrepreneur or employee?

THE EDITOR, Sir: NOT EVERYONE can actualise their wealth ambitions by working for someone. Start your own business and be the driver of your personal wealth by starting your own business. Thing is, however, I don’t hear many people telling the frustrated that they all can’t be business owners.

Successful entrepreneurship takes a little more than passing the classes and sitting in at every conference and seminar and taking as many notes as possible. It requires a little more than meeting and shaking hands with those who have accomplished much and writing their encouraging advice on your bathroom mirror.

Before you create that business letterhead, however, make sure to assess yourself honestly to see if you have what it takes to start and maintain a successful business. Being a good entrepreneur requires one to possess some innate traits that will give them the drive to push forward and not be derailed by failure.

One has to be mentally prepared to take risks and to suffer loss. It takes a certain mental capacity to invest your life’s savings on an idea that may or may not be fruitful, require extreme hours of labour and sometimes no income. Successful entrepreneurs need to have that innate tenacity and drive, that quick eye to spot an opportunity, and the flexibility to be driven sometimes by consumer needs and corporate demands.

All of these cannot be taught in a class or acquired from reading motivational manuscripts for ‘winners of the 21st century’.

As frustrating as the job-hunting process might be, some of us are just better suited as employees rather than business owners. That’s just the harsh reality. WINSTON LOWE winstonklowe@gmail.com