Risks are my friends. I believe that risks create opportunities (and pitfalls at the same time.) My job as an entrepreneur is to control the risks and capitalize on them for my benefits.
Unfortunately, not many people see risks the way I see them.
The fact above is really bugging me. Why? Because, while people are reluctant to enter entrepreneurship and enjoy staying in dead-end job, they keep taking risky actions that can risks not only their well-being, but also others.
People tend to sell-destruct themselves
First of all, jobs today are riskier than business ownership. A job is not an asset and it doesn’t bring you any assets on its own. Being a business owner, you can build assets (you can also lose them, though – But it present you with heaps of opportunities.)
Secondly, people are worse than ever in managing their personal finance. With ‘free’ and easy-to-sign-up credit card offers and such, people are easy falling into debts. The recession does ‘forces’ them to slow down and go frugal, but some of them don’t survive and gone bankrupt, personally.
My question: If people are easy in ruining their personal finance, putting their own lives in risks, why do they consider positive and potentially life-changing things, such as entrepreneurship, as ‘risky’?
Focus your energy to things more beneficial – something like entrepreneurship
So why not we ‘channel’ our non-productive risk-taking endeavours into the productive ones – something like entrepreneurship?
People just need to realise that entrepreneurship is not all about making money (…and take benefit of, as well as suffer other people, like many entrepreneurship nay-sayers accused.)
Entrepreneurship can bring you not only monetary rewards, but also psychological rewards (provided you take the ethical and socially-responsible entrepreneurship paths.)
How making a difference in your local community while making a decent profit out of it sounds? How about starting a business to open job opportunities and foster local economic recovery sounds? How about becoming financially independent and do whatever you want to do sounds?
Of course, being an entrepreneur is challenging. The biggest challenge that many of my fellow entrepreneurs face is balancing their business financial endeavours with employees’ welfare. So, yes – you need to manage your employees and juggle things, including your work-life balance.
Nevertheless, I do urge you to be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are the ones who are going to make huge impact in economic recovery today – In other words, no entrepreneur, no economic recovery.
Ivan Widjaya
Being an entrepreneur
Image by brkic87.