SocialBias :: a Digital Abstraction of Michael Parkatti

Speaking from the perspective of someone who has been in the professional workforce for 3 years and has decided to forego that life for the time-being, I think I have some hard-won insights into how younger professionals consider the full-time workforce.

On the surface, gaining corporate employment hasn’t changed much since our grandparents’ generation after WWII. It really isn’t rocket science.

1. Find corporations that make money
2. Apply to a subset of those corporations
3. Accept employment at one of them
4. Buy a cat and learn how to garden … and don’t question your success

Increasingly, I think it’s safe to suggest that younger people are straying from this tried-and-true method of professional ‘entrapment’. Most people I know my age tend to either be working for themselves or wishing they worked for themselves. I think humans have a natural bias towards self-sustenance; whether this means working for yourself, living a life of petty crime, or becoming a total recluse is up for debate.

But the idea of entrepreneurship among the vast majority of people is a worthy but ambiguous life choice. Everyone has their friend who’s trying to figure things out on their own. They talk about that person behind their back, either praising them or smugly disregarding them.

What reasons do people have to fear an entrepreneurial life? Here was my personal Top 10:

1. Work of unpredictable difficulty

2. Inconsistent cash flow

3. An inherent orientation towards sales and the sales process

4. Unconventional working schedule

5. Prospect of failure & social stigma

6. A lack of understanding of where to begin

7. No financial nest-egg to support a period of little to no income

8. General perception in the corporate world that entrepreneurial experience is subordinate to corporate experience

9. Lack of confidence in a claim to unique knowledge

10. A disrupted personal life

Each of these reasons is a legitimate fear, and not having a suitable answer for any of them may subvert a person’s entrepreneurial ambitions. To be able to confidently begin, an entrepreneur needs to personally debunk each of their own set of fears. Some fears need hard data as evidence, some require anecdotal observations, and some simply require a period of time to obtain a level of comfort.

What follows was my personal rationale for simply not fearing each fear:

1. Work of unpredictable difficulty

Would I rather do difficult work or boring work? I’ll take difficult every time.

2. Inconsistent cash flow

Who cares? Worse things have happened. I don’t need to buy a bunch of crap I don’t need. Eat. Wear Clothes. The rest is all scenery.

3. An inherent orientation towards sales and the sales process

I don’t like selling or salespeople — a lot of people don’t. But, it’s a lot different when you’re selling yourself. It becomes an act of pride rather than an act of servitude.

4. Unconventional working schedule

My most productive hours have always been different than 9-5. As long as you preserve the most important things in your life, timing doesn’t matter at all.

5. Prospect of failure & social stigma

So what happens if I fail? Holy shit, I’ll have to get a… job?

6. A lack of understanding of where to begin

Debunking this starts with an objectively good idea. Good ideas beget better ideas. Experience begets better ideas. Chances are, your first entrepreneurial idea in your early 20’s is terrible. But if it’s your 50th decent idea, you can survey that idea against the strengths of all your ideas. Once you pick the right path to walk down, you’ll instantly appreciate how much easier the walk is (ie. having the right idea makes things easier).

7. No financial nest-egg to support a period of little to no income

You can live more modestly than you could imagine. If you need to eat out every day or wear brand name fashion or keep up your crack habit, chances are you probably aren’t cut out to be an entrepreneur. But if you can get by with a reasonable diet and humble living, there’s nothing to worry about.

8. General perception in the corporate world that entrepreneurial experience is subordinate to corporate experience

If you want to rack up brownie points by being an underling for the first half of your corporate career, then go for it. However, lateral movement can skip many levels of the corporate ladder. If you can make a name for yourself, you will create your own brand that can be leveraged into a better corporate job later on (if that’s what you want).

9. Lack of confidence in a claim to unique knowledge

Here’s a universal truth: there are not that many truly extra-ordinary people on the planet. Probably the most important quality of extra-ordinary people I meet is their ability to fiercely question the status quo and to think with genuine novelty. If you don’t have unique thoughts, then how can you innovate?

10. A disrupted personal life

If you surround yourself with people who truly care about you, they will support you no matter what the odds are. On the plus side, once you start banking 16 hour days and forgetting your own birthday, you’ll get a pretty good sense of who the important people really are.