Most of us were raised with the belief that life is happening to us. Since our early ages, we were told that we need to prepare ourselves for what life will bring us in the future.
Following our cultural background and our parents’ and teachers’ advice, we learned that our duty is to successfully get our diplomas and become good employees.
Not far from now, being an entrepreneur was a very rare choice for young people. Opening a business was considered a very risky option to be taken by any wise and realistic person.
On the other hand, being a good and loyal employee used to be a rewarding path in anyone’s life. Paid just to show up in a certain place and do the tasks stipulated in the job description, people learned that to live a good life they just need to be obedient and hard-working. They also learned that staying in mediocrity protects them from a lot of trouble.
But the old status quo was challenged. A new era is emerging.
And things begin to change.
Big corporations realized that they don’t need obedient people. They cannot afford to pay them anymore. They need results to can survive. Social blankets are disappearing while a lot of people are laid off and have difficulties in finding new jobs.
Struggling to pay the debts accumulated during the ‘safe’ times, most people have to find new ways to earn their living and keep afloat.
Desperation doesn’t help. The single way to follow is to take a stand, stop trading time for money and waiting to be told what to do, and become a doer, an entrepreneur.
The transition from employee to entrepreneur is difficult and painful as well, but at the same time, it might be highly rewarded for those determined to succeed.
First of all, the future entrepreneurs have to start with reframing their reality, and replacing their old values — obedience, fear, compliance — which have kept them in mediocrity with a new set of values: self-confidence, courage, innovation, self-discipline, persistence, and endurance.
Secondly, people committed to embark on this big change also have to make a tremendous shift in approaching everything in their lives: they need to become proactive instead of continuing to be reactive, as they used to be as employees. That means they need to take action only in accordance with their priorities, and to select the information they are exposed to and the opportunities they are presented with.
By becoming entrepreneurs, their lives won’t happen to them anymore. They begin to make their lives happen.
