Following Your Dream

Following Your Dream

A Dream is in the eye of the beholder, and can be anything.  My dream is something that I’ve always equated with entrepreneurship (business).  You may think to ask why not a dream related to family.  A dream to me is something that you aspire to achieve.  Family is something that is real and you work to make it happen.  I don’t dream of a nice and happy family, I work hard every day to make it a reality, and once achieved, I work harder to maintain it.

A dream to some people might be an extravagant vacation, the kind that only a wealthy person can afford. To another person the dream might be to win the lotto.  My dream is not to have the ultimate successful business, even though it would be nice to have something like Yahoo, or Google.  My dream includes having a series of successful businesses that I would be the creator of.

I have been involved in operating my own business since about the age of 22, while either attending school or holding down a full time job or both at the same time.  Every once in a while the success of the business has as much to do with timing as anything else.  Some people get an idea for a business, and then do nothing about it for five or ten years, and by the time they think to act, either someone else already implemented the concept or it has become an outdated idea.

I recently had a conversation about business with a person that I hold in high regard.  He is very successful in the performance of his career duties, but he admitted that he has always worked at a job and has very high respect for people that operate their own business and have to meet a payroll as a way of life.  Starting a business is like rolling a snowball downhill.  If you perform your due diligence (the required permits, and licenses, reports to State Revenue, and IRS), and acquire the adequate funds (investors) the business should grow like a snowball would grow going down the hill.

However, unless you are the top dog in your endeavor, the competition will eat away at your business share, and you should know when to sell, and move on to a new venture.  Knowing when to get out is equally important to knowing when to start a business.  I have known people that have stayed in their business trying to re-ignite the magic that once was only to end up in bankruptcy, and worst yet with no retirement plan for their families.

 

At some point in life you should play it safe and not gamble with your retirement fund and/or savings.  While the fact remains that the U.S Economy is built on the back of small business, a majority of small businesses fail within the first three years of inception.  So the fact remains unchanged; business has an element of gamble.  With the intricacies of taxes and fluctuation costs for resources (many affected by fuel costs – transportation), what starts out as a well-researched business plan, can change overnight.

Business entrepreneurship is always a good gamble as long as you are aware of how much you are willing to/or can afford to lose.  If you have a special or even great skill you can make a living but it isn’t an automatic qualifier to go into business successfully.  You need business savvy to operate a business of any size.  On the other hand if you have business savvy and no other skill, you can operate a business successfully, by simply knowing what skills your business will require to succeed and then hiring those skills.

If you have a dream to operate your own business make sure that you are doing it for the right reasons.  If you only want to be your own boss, that would be a wrong reason.  Self-employed people work longer hours, and have more bosses than a person with just a job.

If your dream is about something other than business, do some research, and make it happen. Life is too short not to live your dream.  The best is yet to come……