Building a business is hard, no question about it.
Often times, at least in the blast phase, you’re dealing with more stress and more work than you had to deal with at your job. It’s not until you push past the initial obstacles that you get to cruise, but most guys don’t make it that far.
If it was easy everyone would have a business. Maybe 1% of guys are cut out for business ownership, and that’s probably being generous.
The truth is most guys don’t have what it takes, and that’s not a knock, I respect any guy that puts in hard work to make an honest living.
And it’s not about intelligence either, what it really comes down to is disposition, that inborn drive to aspire for higher.
The good news is, if you’re reading this article, you probably have that drive.
If you hated being told what to do by your parents.
And you hated being told what to do by your teachers.
And you hated every job you’ve ever had…
It’s because you weren’t born to take orders, and you’ll never be satisfied until you call your own shots.
But drive isn’t enough to get you there, every other guy I worked with in sales, told me how we was going to start his own business and get off the sales floor, but none of them did.
They never left because they we’re addicted to the monthly paycheck, the toys it bought, and the social acceptance of working a corporate job. But more than that they we’re afraid, afraid of failure.
They never left because:
- They still thought they had something to lose
- They weren’t ready to do or die
As long as you think you have something to lose, you’ll never make it in business. You can’t have a corporate career as a fallback plan, otherwise you’ll fall back on it when things get hard, which they inevitably will.
You need to get to the point where you realize that you’ll never be satisified in any job. That you’ll always hate shuffling into the office on Monday morning. And that working a job for the rest of your life is no longer an option.
I can tell you with certainty, it’s not for me and it’s not for the guys I know who made it happen in business. It’s just not an option. In fact I have nightmares where I’m back at work, freezing through the Toronto winter grinding out cold calls.
That’s where you need to get to. Because once you get there, you’re ready to do or die to make it in business, and that’s where you need to be to succeed. When you’re ready to do or die, and to go all in, and to do whatever it takes, that’s when you’ll make it happen.
And that’s where I want to get you by the end of this article, to where ownership is your only move in the game of life.
11 Reasons To Quit Your Own Job And Start A Business
1) You Have A Boss
When you work a job, you as a grown man have to call another man your boss – there is nothing more to say on that point.
2) You Have Colleagues
I feel sorry for anyone with colleagues. If you’re dying at work, I feel for you, I worked with some of the most miserable, petty, boring human beings on the planet. With their idol gossip, and their meaningless chitter chatter, and their irrelevant, unrequested opinions.
And that’s just the bad people, you might work with decent human beings, but the truth is, you wouldn’t be spending time with them if you weren’t getting paid. You’d be spending time with your friends and your family and the girls in your life, instead of spending the majority of your life surrounded by a group of strangers rounded up off the street.
3) You’re Confined
You’re confined to a desk for 40 to 80 hours a week.
You’re told when to come in, where to sit, where to eat, where to piss, where to sh*t and what time you get to go home. And if you’re a good boy all year, you get one week off to what you actually want to do.
And that’s if you’re lucky, the bottom 20% don’t even have that option, they’re working 7 days a week on the night shift at McDonald’s just to get by.
The beautiful thing about owning your own business is the freedom. I’m writing this from Asia, where normal people spend their vacation, with my shirt off, on my couch.
And even though you’ll probably be working more hours in your own business, you always know you have the OPTION to cut work early at any time. And it’s the option that means everything. Even when you don’t exercise that option, you know you can cut off work at 1 PM and enjoy your afternoon.
Compare that to sitting slumped over your desk in January, at 2 PM, with the holidays over, and the day just dragging on with no end in sight, knowing you just have to sit their and take it. There is just no way you could ever work a job again once you’ve tasted the fruits of true freedom.
4) It’s Boring
If there is a hell, it involves data entry under flourescent lights.
Jobs aren’t fun, that’s why it’s called a job.
5) Your Health Takes A Hit
They say sitting is the new smoking and they’re right.
Sitting hunched over a desk all day is one of the worse things you can do to your body.
It’s no wonder people are so unhealthy and so unhappy when their expected to be chained to a desk and a computer all day.
6) You’re Settling For Mediocrity
You’re settling and you know it, no matter how hard you try and sell yourself.
When you we’re a little boy, you probably dreamed of doing something great, or at least living a great, fun, adventurous life. But you gave up on that dream because everyone told you to and because you’re scared of what might happen if you don’t stick to the script.
The question you have to ask yourself is this: would your 10 year old self be proud of what you’re doing, or would he be depressed if he knew what the future held for him?
My 10 year old self would never have settled, and neither will my 34 year old self.
7) Your Company Is Dirty
If you’re working for a company, especially a big company, chances are your company is dirty. If you can’t see it from where you sit, it’s only because you’re not on the salesfloor. I’ve never worked on a sales floor that operated ethically. Some we’re better than others, but I was never 100% comfortable with what I was doing.
It wasn’t until I started my own business, where I had full control over my products, and my sales material and my marketing, that I was able to feel completely comfortable with what I was doing.
8) You Don’t Have A Passion For It
You don’t have a passion for your marketing job… you liar.
I can’t tell you how many people I met in Corporate America who would drone on about whatever punkass job they had as if it was important and as if they liked it.
I used to do it to, back when I was still wasting time at networking conferences me and all the other sales guys would spend all night talking about how passionate we were about our jobs.
If you had a passion for it you’d do it for free, and no one would be filling out TPS reports for free. If I had 100 mil in the bank I would be doing this business, I promise you that.
Your business doesn’t have to be your biggest passion in life, but you have to enjoy it. Or maybe it’s not the actual business you enjoy, but you enjoy the idea of closing deals and making money. As long as you get up on Monday morning, happy with what you’re doing, then you’ve got the right business.
9) Travel Time
I remember it like it was yesterday.
I wake up at 5 AM to the dark, grey, Canadian winter in February.
I hurry through my morning routine to go catch the streetcar.
I stand on the corner freezing to death, waiting for the streetcar that’s 20 minutes late and try and squeeze my way inside with all the other miserable commuters.
I take the streetcar to the subway.
I take the subway to the bus stop and wait another 20 minutes for a bus that’s running late, freezing my bag off, and contemplating jumping into traffic.
I take the bus to my job.
At my job I make 100 cold calls harassing people for money.
At the end of the day, I take the bus to the subway to the streetcar to my home.
An hour and a half each way, in the freezing cold, three hours total travel time, all to get back and forth from a job I hate with a vengeance.
10) Money
You can’t get rich as an employee, that’s not how capitalism works.
You need to own the means of production to get what you’re worth.
When you settle for 60k, you’re saying you can’t make 100k on your own.
In sales it’s even worse, you get 12% of what you make and you’re supposed to be happy with it.
You can bring in a 100k a month in revenue and they still treat you like sh*t.
Sure you can make good money as a salesman, but you can make way more on your own.
Same goes with being a professional. Sure you can make good money as a lawyer or a doctor, if you’re willing to work like a dog and live a high stress lifestyle.
And that’s only after the 5-10 years of school you had to go to, and the 50 to 200k you spent on your education. And if you don’t have a rich daddy, you’re going to be paying off those student loans into your late 30’s.
Compare that to 5-7 years of intensive work in your business and taking that 50 to 200k and throwing it into advertising and marketing and it’s not even a question that you’d be making more cash on your own.
It’s no accident that every single guy on the Forbes list is a business owner.
11) Hatred
I’ve had a job since I was 14 and I hated every job I ever had. My mom used to tell me I should be luckytoI have work, she couldn’t understand why I thought mowing lawns and working retail was beneath me. She couldn’t understand because she’s not like me, and she’s not like you.
You’ve hated every job you’ve ever had.
You hate the job you have now.
You’ll hate every job you’ll ever have.
And you know it.
If you’re being honest, you know that business ownership is the only option.
How To Start Your Own Business
1) Get Your Mind right
Get your mind to where you:
- Realize you have nothing to lose because a job is not an option
- Realize that you need to be ready to do or die to make it happen
If you’re already there, then keep reading. If not, reread this article again until it sinks in.
2) Decide On What Business You Want To Start And Take Action
I recommend two options:
- Starting a service based business (this is the easier option and the one I recommend for most guys)
- Growing your business online through organic content marketing like I did
- Advertising online
Set Your Exit Plan
Your exit plan is your timeline to freedom, because you can’t quit yet.
To quit your job you need for things:
- A comfortable amount of savings
- Consistent montly revenue from your business that will pay all your expenses
- As much credit as you can get (just in case of emergencies)
- A hard due date for your exit from wage slavery
Now you might be in a place where you of money, and saving cash is hard. Or maybe you don’t even have a job. Or you feel like you don’t have the skills. And that’s ok.
In my book How To Sell I outline:
- How to get hired in sales
- How to survive and thrive
- How to make six figures and save your cash
- How to set your exit plan
- And how to take your sales skills and turn them into a service business
Now, I won’t lie to you, life in sales is sh*t, it’s like your job now but worse. But working in sales gave me the balls and the skills and the cash to get free.
With that said, my path doesn’t have to be your path, and you don’t need to book to get free. What you do need to do is take action. You need to define your niche, start your business, set your exit plan, and execute it. Because working a job for the rest of of your life is not an option.