For those of you who follow this blog, you will know that a key part of getting ahead is increasing your income.
And, you will already know that I think one of the best ways to do this is to start your own business … perhaps part-time, at first, to limit your risk … and, definitely in combination with other financial strategies that I will be sharing with you over the coming weeks.
For me, the gold-standard in this area is still The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber … a book that I will unashamedly admit changed by life.
But, for anybody heading down the entrepreneurial path, I equally highly recommend a book by Guy Kawasaki (ex-Apple, founder of garage.com) called Art of the Start.
Guy can also be found on his blog, where I found this interesting post, that deals with the various myths around being an entrepreneur.
The problem is that the guest author is an academic who uses ODDS to establish that some types of businesses are better than others, and to suggest that it is the type of business that you go into rather than your ‘entrepreneurial ability’ that determines your success.
Here’s where I disagree …
YOUR odds of succeeding in any business venture are exactly 50/50 … either you WILL or you WON’T succeed!
Obviously, that makes no MATHEMATICAL sense, but going into business rarely does.
That’s why the rewards for those who DO succeed can be so high. If it were easy – and if success was GUARANTEED – we’d ALL be doing it!
For example, we intuitively know that the ODDS of being a huge success are so small in, say, sandwich shops.
In fact, the article suggests that the odds of mega-success in that type of business are 840 times smaller than starting, say, a computer business.
Yet, who wouldn’t like to be Mr Subway, Mr Quizno, Mr Togo, or Mr Potbelly?
I’ll even put up $1,000 that says that each of them knew EXACTLY what they were getting themselves into when they started out.
But, somewhere along the line each and every one of these entrepreneurs … in fact, EVERY SINGLE SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEUR IN HISTORY … simply said: “screw the odds”.
Having done some ‘odds screwing’ of my own (a number of times, with great success) over the years, I humbly suggest that you do, too.
Please let me know how well you do …
