08/01/2020
Reconciling your employee mind
According to Proverbs 23:7, what you think about is what you will do. If you think of yourself as an employee, you will always be an employee. However, if you begin to expand your thinking and think as an entrepreneur, you will become an entrepreneur. Some say you are what you eat; I say you are what you think.
If you are like me, you went through high school and college thinking of yourself as destined to work for someone else because our educational system is not designed to produce entrepreneurs. It is designed to produce employees.
Therefore, we are well programmed to become employees in someone else’s company. To break that mind-set, we must change how we think of ourselves. Successful entrepreneurs believe in themselves and in their ability to build a successful organization.
Being an employee is not bad in the short term, but in the long term, as employees, we are handing over our financial security to another person. They provide us with a consistent paycheck, health insurance, vacations and sick leave, and a retirement plan. All that is required of us is to work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and produce their services/products as specified by them. In effect, we have enslaved ourselves to our employers in exchange for financial security.
It’s extremely hard to let go of that security. I call it the golden handcuffs. I have a friend who was an executive with a Fortune 500 company, making a six-figure salary with great perks, including housing, a car, and travel allowances. He wanted to start his own business, but he felt trapped by the salary, job security, and perks. He told me that it was as though he had on golden handcuffs. He was enslaved and could not get free.
However, one day he made the decision to free himself from thinking as an employee and to become an entrepreneur. Now, as an entrepreneur, he can make more in one business day than he made all year as an employee. Your potential is unlimited as an entrepreneur.
