When I told my friends and family that I wanted to leave my management position with American Express to go into real estate investing full time you would have thought that I just announced I wanted to “find myself” backpacking through Russia.
Maybe you have experienced a similar reaction.
It’s not that they necessarily want to hold you back.
It’s just that if they don’t have the entrepreneurial spirit they just see the safety of a job.
So let’s compare being an employee at a job versus being an entrepreneur. I have done both so I feel I can give a pretty good accounting.
Yes, there is comfort and safety with a job knowing that you regularly receive a paycheck. Of course, how many times do you hear about layoffs and downsizing. Where’s the safety there?
An entrepreneur forges his own future, and can always change and adapt to the market.
The paycheck is nice, but it is the same size every time except for the 2-5% increase once a year…maybe a little more with a promotion where they expect even more from you.
An entrepreneur has unlimited potential to increase his paycheck.
If I want more money, I simply do more marketing and close more deals.
What can an employee do to change their finances next month?
As an entrepreneur I have multiple streams of profit. When we want to go on vacation, we simply tap into one of the profit streams and create more income to cover the vacation. We can just decide on the spur of the moment and take-off.
An employee gets two weeks paid vacation if they’re lucky. And they have to plan their weeks at the beginning of the year based on seniority.
An employee has a retirement plan that will pay them a percentage of their salary through retirement, IF they put in enough years of service.
An entrepreneur creates his own multi-million dollar retirement plan based on his salary paid with a check stubs template software.
No, friends and family are not always supportive.
Despite the fact that I had far more money. Despite that I was happier. Despite that I was able to be home for all the milestone moments as my children grew up…
My wonderful hard-working mother never understood why I left my position with “such a fine company as American Express”.
My answer: “To create my own fine company”.
Would you rather be an employee or an entrepreneur?
Expect Abundance,
Lou Castillo
