The sign reads: ‘Starting Own Business, Every Nickel Helps’. That’s what the gentleman down on his luck (and sitting on the curb) wanted you to believe he would do with my money.
“It’s not a loan,” he says. “But it’s going toward a worthwhile cause…”
May be the joke is worth the nickel.
But in this economy, it’s going to take much more than a smile to get you making money quick, if right now you’re like a hobo all down and out on your luck.
Still…you’re not alone.
Tackling failure at starting own business is a familiar tune for most successful entrepreneurs. Several have been down and out as well:
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- Milton S. Hershey of Hersheys Chocolate fame – Bankrupted twice in 14 years
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- Henry J. Heinz of Heinz Catsup fame – Bankrupted once after 6 years in business
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- Walter E. Disney of Disneyland fame – Bankrupted twice after 2 years in business
And the list goes on, because failures are learning opportunities.
You internalize an experience far better after the clear-headedness of a business failure than after the fumes of success have finished intoxicating your brains.
The men above became such household names that even their products got christened after them. How did they do it? But how then do poor entrepreneurs turn into rich tycoons?
Successful Hobos Don’t Go To College
Its not as if they were born with a mutated brain for business. Honestly, these guys were not any different than the average Joe. The majority of these most successful entrepreneurs grew up in poverty.
All of these millionaires dropped out of school to make a living for their families or for themselves. So, you can’t attribute their success to an academic education.
Starting out as they did, they had little money. They had little or no business experience.
They knew not what business model to take after. They made mistakes. Lots of them! And yet here they stand after starting own business as some of the most successful entrepreneurs in history.
Here’s what made them extraordinary. It was not their beginnings. It was the way that they handled failure.
First, they were willing to try something new.
They chose to adopt change. When they said, “Im starting my own business”, they meant it.
For them, starting own business meant putting it all on the line, going for broke literally! What motivates a man to do that? In a word, desperation.
But I mean they were motivated by a desperation for success and a fear of complaisance.
Are You Comfortable In Your Hobo Clothes?
The way another entrepreneur put it, “It only gets harder to start a company as time goes on…you start getting comfortable with a certain lifestyle, which becomes hard to leave for the uncertainty of being an entrepreneur.”
Don’t get comfortable in these wholly uncertain times with a wage slave lifestyle to the point where you can’t think like an independent service provider once your “master” cuts you off.
If you were in the process of starting own company, then you’d be feeling quite out of sorts going door to door also asking for a job as if it were a nickel handout.
You’ve got to make up your mind and decide which one is priority.
Dale Carnegie, who worked his way out of extreme poverty, said that “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage.
If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
He did just that to the tune of a massively successful bestseller and a highly profitable lecture circuit, teaching public speaking techniques to businessmen at the peak of the Great Depression. Talk about poor timing for success!
Yet successful he was in starting own business!
Likewise he helped many others because, as he put it, it is possible to change other people’s behavior by changing your reaction to theirs. So, if you’re not desperate yet, let me help you get there.
How To Get Desperate At Starting Own Business Like A Startup Tycoon
Lose some hope in the old ways. That’s how you can become desperate for something.
Lose that hope of ever finding another job like the one you liked best by doing the same old, same old.
Lose that hope of ever getting the career you wanted after studying for so long for it. Lose that hope of ever finding fulfilling work using the same old job hunting techniques that are not working for the other 15+ million unemployed workers out there right now.
Once you’ve lost your hope of ever accomplishing what you want using methods that do not work for you, then you will begin to see that starting own business is the only viable alternative for you to achieve new objectives like so many others before you did, including Hershey, Heinz, Disney and Carnegie.
It won’t matter if you start as a poor entrepreneur. It won’t matter if money for starting a business ain’t cheap.
With a desperation for success, a tenacity for work and a fear of staying comfortably fettered to a wage job mentality, you will be on the road to becoming your own tycoon. Just find that ideal type of persons you’d be thrilled to serve. And then focus on creating a USP to present to them.