The first intention you must set when thinking about embarking on an entrepreneurial journey, is emergence of first-hand practical knowledge and experience – because if you lack this – then you lack the ability to lay a firm foundation for your new business.
Embarking on an entrepreneurial journey is not a frivolous affair. It’s not a ‘walk-over’ just because right now sitting on the sidelines in a job, you are only reviewing the façade, assuming that it’s a piece of cake. That’s far from the truth.
If you are unprepared mentally, emotionally and even physically, then stop right there in your tracks and review more serious decisions you must make before activating a new era in your life. Yes, we are talking about your life here, not some unconscious decision you wish to make without the relevant preparations in place, which will negatively impact your life, because it will.
Most of the time individuals who classify themselves as entrepreneurs, activate a new business without obtaining this invaluable knowledge and experience. Many who are still in a corporate job, yearning to be successful entrepreneurs, still parallelly trying to get their new business into full operation, continue to be unsuccessful in business for a few reasons:
1. They assume they don’t need the emergence of practical knowledge and experience because they have saturated themselves within the academic sphere. Wrong! No amount of books in stores can transpose practical expertise when you wish to embark on an entrepreneurial journey, because you can only learn this from a seasoned experienced mentor, who has failed, not just succeeded.
2. Most don’t see the need to invest in themselves by approving to meet the fee of a mentor, because when you are approaching an individual in whom you have the confidence and who is experienced enough to fully support you in your business venture, then:
- a. You need to show that mentor some respect in realizing they are available to you at the fee they know they are worth, because they have a track record that you are aware of, else you would not approach them.
- b. Most individuals have no idea how much a true mentor has invested in themselves, taking the money part out of the equation, just the time, effort and the emergence of the commitment to acquire such practical knowledge and experience, including the many dues they had to pay to achieve, fail, rebuild, persevere and succeed.
- c. When you want to eliminate the monetary investment by offering them partnership, then you are insulting their intelligence and disrespecting their personal achievements and reputation, because if they are good enough, understand they are accustomed to being offered such compensation and just imagine if they had to accept all of those offers just to compromise their true value?
- d. Realise that a mentor is not on this planet awaiting offers of business partnership; rather they exist in servitude, to be available to those who are willing, able and committed to being seated at the feet of a mentor, as a willing humble protégé.
- e. Bear in mind that an experienced seasonal mentor has already achieved, initiated and owned multiple companies and has achieved all or most of their goals and objectives in life, where all of them are not measurable in actual money, but irreplaceable value unattainable to many.
3. It has been proven many times over that an individual who secures a mentor removes years from their life in business, because they are willing to learn whilst those who are not, are willing to fall into the inevitable pitfalls, lose much and gain little, where their focus is short-term, so their journey will be long, very long.
4. When you are focused on the money and service fee levied by the mentor, then you should not be thinking of going into business, because your focus is off-course. You can never equate any fee value of money to the knowledge and experience transposed from a mentor to you during your mentorship tenure. In many instances the mentor would have saved your life, saved you from losing all of your money when you decided to embark on this journey only with your academic experience. You could say that you are confident enough as you successfully climbed the ranks within a variation of corporates you were employed with, however, when you are seated in a job, with the assurance of your monthly remuneration credited to your bank account like clockwork, then realise it is incomparable to creating your own revenue flow, to actually generating an income to sustain your business and your own personal commitments, so it’s a different ballgame all together.
5. In this world today, not even within a business context but overall, good mentors are golden nuggets, individuals who have learn’t how to serve themselves and humanity, who act with absolute integrity and commitment and who know how to be humble and continue attempting to transform lives, sometimes even at minimal cost to the Protégé. The reason they can identify with a talent or gift, a lack of resource funding and the ability, drive and determination to succeed and they offer their services at this minimal fee, because their focus is not just money. They have learn’t how to be the most effective Game Changers and master the art of making money, just by changing the way they think, speak and act, which is an art that aspiring Protégés must learn and master.
The lesson for budding Entrepreneurs is make the right choices for yourself, if you are prepared to spend large amounts of money on objects that have no value to you the moment you purchased them, like a branded item you wear once and forget about? Then think of yourself as a rough branded diamond that deserves to be polished to the tee, sculptured to perfection and that is unable to crack at the least bit of resistance and who can continue its existence as an invaluable asset to those it comes into contact with, throughout its life span.
Learn not to cut yourself short in the wrong places and never underestimate the ability of a great mentor, whom you feel you can trust, who has endured a long hard journey, because you should already possess the gift of identifying such mentors since we entrepreneurs can identify with points of success we admire, wish to embrace and dream to achieve in our lifetimes. So if we find a mentor like this, you should never take 5 steps backwards and cripple your initial progress as you will regret making the wrong decisions at some point in your lives.
By Theda Muller
Note: Theda Muller is a UAE-based visionary entrepreneur, CEO & Founder of various UAE companies, business advisor and legacy mentor, US trained and globally experienced. She is also an author of two books: Embrace Financial Freedom Volume One: 10 Proven Ways To Release Debt And Emotional Fears In Today’s Economy, and Volume Two: Releasing Fear And Bouncing Back From A Debt Crisis. She also conducts webinars and workshops on debt recovery.