In my "What motivated you to take the plunge and devote yourself to your own business full-time?" poll, the answer "losing my full-time/part-time job" is the runaway winner (if you can call it that). (Vote in the poll if you'd like - it's still open.)
Having "been there and done that" as they say, I can appreciate what a difficult transition that can be. Working for someone else is just completely different than working for yourself. One of the problems I noticed immediately is that I suddenly had to be paying attention to all sorts of things that other people used to look after for me - from getting the money I was owed through coming up with my own retirement plan.
Eventually I learned that if I was going to be successfully self-employed, I was going to have to think and act differently. I had to develop what I call an "entrepreneurial mindset". 6 Traits You Need to Move From Being an Employee to Being Self-Employed explains what I mean.
More on Thinking Like an Entrepreneur
Having "been there and done that" as they say, I can appreciate what a difficult transition that can be. Working for someone else is just completely different than working for yourself. One of the problems I noticed immediately is that I suddenly had to be paying attention to all sorts of things that other people used to look after for me - from getting the money I was owed through coming up with my own retirement plan.
Eventually I learned that if I was going to be successfully self-employed, I was going to have to think and act differently. I had to develop what I call an "entrepreneurial mindset". 6 Traits You Need to Move From Being an Employee to Being Self-Employed explains what I mean.
More on Thinking Like an Entrepreneur
- Are You Ready to Start a Business? Quiz
- Thinking of Starting a Small Business?
- The 2 Main Problems of Starting a Business and How to Overcome Them
Anita, as a serial entrepreneur and an adjunct professor at The New School, I couldn’t agree with you more about the critical list of traits of entrepreneurs, but I’d add one more. Creativity: The ability to think out of the box when problem solving.
Think about the recession, if you’re approaching your business as you always have, you just won’t dig yourself out of the whole. You really need to approach things fresh. An article in the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-linsky-and-alexander-grashow/obama-is-reset—are-you_b_181467.html) drove this point home to me. Obama is a Reset President and if entrepreneurs want to be successful in this recession they need to be Reset Entrepreneurs. While talking about the president of the country, Marty Linsky and Alexander Grashow wrote two paragraphs that apply to entrepreneurs.
“Hunkering down means cutting costs, instituting more control, conserving and protecting resources–waiting it out. We get e-mails every day from people and organizations that are pulling back everywhere possible.
Resetting means bringing closure to the past, deciding what of all that you value is worth preserving, then using the turbulence as an opportunity to change the rules of the game and invent the future. Reset is operating as if nothing is certain except uncertainty.”
I agree, Geri; creativity is absolutely essential for any entrepreneur.
This is the first I’ve read of the reset idea but it certainly makes sense to me as an alternative to just hunkering down and seeing what happens. I always prefer a more proactive approach.