Why Most People Aren't Built For Entrepreneurship

Most people should not start a business. Not because they're lazy or not smart enough, but because entrepreneurship asks you to take on a level of uncertainty most people simply don't want in their life. You're gonna eat an unbelievable amount of horse crap for years before you taste any level of success. And the faster you figure out whether you're built for this game, this game called business, the less time you're gonna be wasting trying to force a life that isn't for you, that isn't a good fit. And there's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with you. You're just not built for this particular path, which is okay. There are many paths in life. I want to be clear, knowing this is not failure. It's actually clarity. And today I want to give you that clarity. I'm going to give you the real signs that you are built for business and the real signs that you're not built for business. But most of all, I'm going to give you one question that's going to cut through all of it. It's going to make it super simple for you. Let's get into it. I've watched a lot of people try this entrepreneurship thing for over 20 years. I've watched a lot of them fail. Most of them fail. And when I look honestly at why they failed, it's almost never the reason they give. It's never the reason they say. It's not the market. It's not the timing. It's not bad luck or the wrong idea or insufficient funding. Those are the things on the surface. The real reason is almost always the same. And I'm telling you this because I've seen this over and over and over. I'm talking about hundreds of people. And here it is. They simply don't want it bad enough. I know that sounds harsh, but I mean it in a very specific way. Most people who try entrepreneurship are drawn to the outcome, the freedom, the money, the things that come with it, the accolades, the identity of being someone who's built something., right? But they're not drawn to the actual experience of getting to those outcomes. Things like uncertainty, things like the years of work that it takes before you even get to any success. The days where nothing, nothing is moving in your direction and you have to show up anyway. You have to do the work anyway. I'm talking about the years of rejection you're going to go through, the loneliness, the total absence of someone telling you what to do and how to do it. And you got to figure it out on your own. Right. When that reality and that experience hits them, they discover that actually their previous life was not that bad. The salary was reliable. The structure was comfortable. The job that they had had its frustrations, but it did not have this level of exposure, of uncertainty, of sleepless nights, of pits in your stomach. Okay? And so they go back, they go back to their old life and they just kind of hang them up when it comes to this business idea. And listen, I want to make this clear. This is not because they're weak. This is not about weakness. This is because the outcome of entrepreneurship appealed to them more than the experience of it. And this is what I mean by they didn't want it bad enough. Right? If you want something bad enough, you will figure out a way to make it happen. And you'll actually relish in the journey, in the struggle. Think about anything you've accomplished that was hard. Okay? You look back with fond memories with all the struggles that you went through. You feel proud of yourself. And why did you do that? Why did you actually make that happen? Because you wanted it enough to make it happen. The alternative of not making it happen, the alternative of not accomplishing that goal or doing that thing was not as appealing as actually doing it. For me, when I left my teaching career and became an entrepreneur and got to fulfill my life's dream of being one of those people that are actually creating things out of thin air. I found entrepreneurship to be magical. For me, not doing that would hurt too much. Going back to my teaching job was not an option. I couldn't even handle that emotionally. I couldn't tolerate the idea of even going back to my job. That is the difference. The difference is there was no Plan B. And even though I was horrible at business at the start and I had no success at the beginning, I was happy to just be in business. The arena, right? To be fighting that battle, even though I was eating ramen every day and I was not living a very comfortable life. And I was even willing to move in back with my parents, even though I was in my 30s. It was very embarrassing, but I was happy to just be in the game. And that is the difference that differentiates people that are built for this and people that are not. It's not talent, it's not intelligence, it's not work ethic. It's the willingness to tolerate the actual experience in pursuit of the outcome. You hear me? By the way, this applies to everything that's hard to do. You want to get in great shape? You want to have a six-pack? Whatever that might be, whatever that looks like to you. Well, you're going to have to endure. You're going to have to tolerate the experience to get to that outcome. You're going to have to get up in the morning and go to the gym when you don't feel like it and do the workouts when you're not feeling full of energy and even sometimes Sometimes you're going to have to go when you're not 100% healthy because the consistency matters. But you do it because you are willing to do it. You're willing to go through that grind to get where you want to go. So let me tell you the signs that you are not built for this. You are not built for entrepreneurship. This is something that I've learned to recognize after 20 years of doing business, the behaviors and the attitudes that tell me before someone even gets started, okay? That this is probably not for them. This is not going to work for them. Here's number 1 with a bullet, and it's not even questionable why this is number 1, and here it is. They're waiting for certainty. The person who says, "I will start when I have more savings, when the timing is better, when I have the right idea, when the economy improves." If they say these things, I know that they are not built for this. There is always a reason to wait. There is never a perfect time. This is a myth. Okay? This is like an illusion in your head, right? The entrepreneurial path never becomes certain. This is what makes it so exciting. Uncertainty. The person who needs certainty before they move and do something will never find enough certainty to move. You get it? Right? So in order for you to have everything in order and know exactly what's going to happen before you do it, and then you're going to do it. Well, you're just never going to have that. It's never going to happen that way. That's not what business is. Business is taking calculated risks. And when you take risks, there's uncertainty. And guess what? If there wasn't any risk, there would be no reward. Everybody would just do it. The next trait, they treat the plan as if it's the work. You know what I'm talking about? They have a business plan. They have a brand name. They have a logo they spent 2 weeks refining or even spending hundreds or thousands of dollars are on. They have a spreadsheet with revenue projections, right? This is how much money I'm going to make, going to make, haven't made anything yet, but they have not spoken to a single potential customer yet. The rubber has not met the road. They plan in a way that feels productive. They feel like they're actually doing something. They like to play business, is what I call it, but they're not actually doing business. They're not taking any risk, right? They're not finding out if anyone wants to buy what I have. Okay? And when I say taking any risk, a risk could just be like risking getting a no, being rejected. Real entrepreneurs find out if what they have is a real thing or not, right? They find out that people actually want it. They talk to people. They're not afraid to hear some negative criticism about what they have so they can improve it. And that leads me to the next trait. They fold as soon as they hear no. The reason why I have any success, I believe one of the traits that I have is that I'm not afraid of no. Right. I'm okay with rejection. I'm okay with looking silly. I'm okay with embarrassing myself. I've been punched in the face so many times and doors have been slammed so many times. It doesn't mean anything to me anymore. And this is an essential trait because every business faces rejection. And I'm talking about lots of rejection, more rejection than you can even imagine, especially in the early days, because you haven't refined your product yet. You haven't refined your pitch. You haven't refined your whole system. You haven't refined who you're supposed to be speaking to in the first place or who you should be pitching to in the first place. Here's the thing. The person who takes on no as evidence that the business will not work, if they think that no means the business won't work and they use it as a reason to stop, they will stop. If no stops you from continuing, if nos demotivate you to the point where you just can't keep going, you will not keep going. That's just a fact. People that understand what it takes to be an entrepreneur understand no is data. No is information. No is not a verdict. It's not a judgment. Right? One of the best things you can do is whenever you get a no, ask why. Right? This is gold. Right? You're talking to somebody and they're rejecting. You have nothing to lose now. Right? You're not going to sell to them anymore. It's not for them. But they're going to give you the reason why they didn't buy. They're going to give the reason why they're not— Right. Interested. And then you're going to learn something. You're going to learn either you're talking to the wrong type of person. This person is not, you know, made for your product or service, or you're going to realize your product or service needs improvement. It needs a change. You need to address that objection in your product. The next trait that proves you're not built for this. They want the life more than the work. Okay? They constantly are about the lifestyle that they want to build and create. Through the business. They love the idea of being able to work from anywhere and setting their own hours and being their own boss and being, you know, having all the freedom and the creativity. And they very rarely talk about the customer that they're trying to serve. They're not actually obsessed with the problem they're solving. They're not psyched about the value they're about to create for these people. Entrepreneurship fundamentally is about serving someone else. exceptionally well. That's what it is. You're in the service business. Whatever business you're in, you're in the problem-solving business. And if you don't get excited about solving a problem, helping other people, making people's lives better, then you will not make it. Okay? If you're just doing this so that you can have a yacht or that you can have endless holidays or whatever it might be, you want to be a trust fund baby, right? You don't want to do the work. The work is what makes it exciting. And the work is what's going to make it sustainable. Omar Zenhom. When the lifestyle is the goal and the business is the means to that goal, the foundation's all wrong and it's going to be very hard for you to have any level of success because you just can't show up when things are tough. Listen, I had some dark days when I was trying to grow our software company, Webinar Ninja. Some days I didn't know what we were going to do, how we're going to get out of this situation, how we're going to make sure that we continue to grow and continue to pay our bills and make sure we hit payroll and all that kind of stuff. And the only reason why I kept going is because of that drive, because I felt like we're doing something that was meaningful, that we're helping people sell their products and services, build a lifestyle they love, being able to serve their families through their business, through our software, Webinar Ninja. I literally have a folder on my computer from those days, and that folder is called the rainy day folder. Okay? This folder was just filled with praise, testimonials, positive reviews of the products and the services that I've created over the years. Any nice thing that anybody has said to me about what I've created, what I've done, whether it's my podcast, whether it's the content, whether it's the product itself, Webinar Ninja, when I was doing that, whatever it was, I would put it in this folder. And there's literally hundreds of files in this folder. And I would go through this folder just for 5 minutes and just remind myself, I'm doing all right, right? I'm doing something good here. I'm actually impacting people. I'm helping people. I got to keep doing this. And that would give me the fuel to get through those dark days. So what are the signs that you are built for this? Let's flip it now. The real signs I'm talking about, someone is actually going to make it in this game called business. And these are the ones I actually look for. Any time somebody is pitching me their business, they're looking for investment, they're looking for advice. They want me to be an advisor on their board. I look for these things. Number 1, they are hungry. You cannot buy hunger. Okay? It has to come within. You got to see it in them. They are hungry to see this thing manifest in the world, whatever they're building. I'm not talking about aggressive, not aggressive. Okay? Not loud. We're talking about hungry. They want it bad and you can see it in their eyes. And listen, they might not have everything that they need to have to build a successful business yet. They may not have all the skills yet, but they carry a quiet confidence that they're going to figure it out one day. They're going to make this happen come hell or high water. That whatever they don't know, they will learn. That whatever obstacle appears in front of them, they will find a way through. That is certainty that you got to look for. And it's certainty that you need to have if you want to win in business. This is something that you can't fake. Okay? You can't— pretend to want something. You can't pretend to be hungry. And I could tell this from the first 5 minutes of a conversation. So make sure you be honest with yourself. Be honest with yourself. Do I have the hunger to make this happen? Do I have an unsatiable appetite to see this thing in the world? Next, if you want to win in business, you want to make it in business, you have to have a reasonable risk appetite. I'm not talking about reckless. You don't have to be reckless. OK, I'm not talking about fearless. I'm not talking about somebody that's just, you know, doing things without thinking, but they can tolerate uncertainty without it paralyzing them, without them stopping from taking action. They understand that building something means not knowing how it's going to end, that they have to take a few steps forward to figure out what the next steps are. And they're OK with that. OK. They're comfortable with that. Maybe comfortable is too strong of a word, but they can accept that. Listen, the best metaphor I can give you is that you're driving on a foggy night in your car. When you're driving on a very foggy night, all you can see is about maybe 10 meters ahead of you. And that's about the distance of what your headlights shine forward on your car. Right. And every 10 meters, you see the next 10 meters, 10 meters. And that's how business is like. You're going to find out when you move forward. Next, if you're going to have any level of success in business, you got to be genuinely curious. People that are curious are just learners. They're people that want to continue to learn. They read, they listen, they ask questions in conversations. They actually ask more questions than they talk. They're constantly trying to understand more about the world that they're in, the greater world, but also the world of their business. And this is not because somebody told them to do this. Like, this is a tip that they're following. No, it's because they can't help it. They're curious. Automatically. Next, every entrepreneur that I've seen that has made it, that's had any level of success, they are action takers. They're action takers in general in life, not just in business. When something needs to happen, they make it happen. They're like the first person to say, "Hey, I'll do that." When there's a problem, they don't wait for someone else to solve it, right? They actually can't sleep until it's solved. I'm one of those people where I really can't go to bed If there's an open-ended problem, I have to at least have some options of solutions on the table. I got to at least be in progress of solving that problem. Why? Because by default, I'm a problem solver. And this is why I love entrepreneurship. And I want to take action. I don't want to just hope the problem solves itself. And this is a pattern of behavior that shows up in every area of your life. As an entrepreneur, you're always solving problems in life and in business. And what I found is that this is not really a skill that you develop. You either have this in you or you don't. You're either somebody that wants to solve problems, that wants to take action, that you're a doer or you're not. Hey, if this episode is making you think honestly about your own situation in life and business, I want you to subscribe to the show, not only because you'll be supporting the show, but also because we have an upcoming episode that I don't want you to miss. People that know me personally know that I read a lot of books. I read about 50 books a year. And what I found is that most books are a waste of time. Right. I would probably say out of those 50 books, 1 or 2, maybe 3 are actually ones that I recommend. Now, I still love those other, you know, 47 books that I read. And there are a couple of insights in there, but they're not really worth all the time that I spent reading them. I just enjoy reading. So I have an episode I'm working on that just tells you straight up that here are the books that you only need to read to be successful. This is it. Anything beyond this is just really extra credit for fun, you know, but really the foundation of all success, especially in business, are contained in these books. So hit subscribe so you don't miss that episode when it comes out. Recently I was in Bangkok. I was speaking at a conference and somebody in the crowd asked me, were you always built for business? Were you somebody that you felt was always an entrepreneur? And my answer was, and still is, I believe I was, but I suppressed that for years. In 9th grade, I used to sell my Halloween candy to my classmates. I used to save up all my Halloween candy and then I would never eat it. And I would bundle 3 pieces of candy for a dollar. Of course, 2 of those candies were duds and one of them was a Snickers or something like that. And when I say dud, you know what I'm talking about? That marshmallow peanut that tasted disgusting, right? And I didn't do that because somebody taught me or somebody modeled that behavior in my family. I did that at the age of 12 because it seemed like the obvious thing to do. Like, I got all this free stuff. I can turn this into money. It's all profit. Both my parents were immigrants from Egypt. They worked tremendously hard. My dad was in car sales for many years. He worked 9 to 9 every day, including Saturday. Sunday was the only day off he had. And I used to go to work with him on the weekends to wash cars at the wash bay. And I used to watch him sell cars when my shift was over at 3. But I did what most people from my background did. I followed a traditional path. I went to university. I started a teaching career. I seeked out stability and security, and I was good at my job as an educator, but I could not help myself. At 22, while I was working my first job as a teacher, I started my first business. It was a side hustle. I was selling rare Air Jordans on eBay. Not Mm-hmm. because I had a plan or not because I wanted to become like, you know, the next Warren Buffett or whatever it might be. It was because I honestly was curious about this world of business because I could not not do it. That is the most honest thing I can say about whether I was built for entrepreneurship or not. I just felt like I was compelled to do it. I had this urge to build something that did not exist, something that I chose, something that was in my head and then manifest it in the world. To me, that seemed like magic. And even though I suppressed it for years when I was in my career as a teacher, I eventually allowed myself to and allowed to indulge myself in those ideas. At the age of 32, I resigned from my teaching job and I became a full-time entrepreneur after side hustling for about 10 years. Not because the timing is right, not because I was brave, not because you know, there was a shift in the market because I've always wanted to do this. And at that time, the pivotal time when I quit my job, the pain of continuing to not do what I was meant to do was greater than the fear of being successful or not in entrepreneurship. I basically said, anything's better than this. Life is too short. I got to go for it. I mean, if not now, whenever, like I'm 32 at the time, like I have to do this now or I'm going to be 40. I'm going to be 50. I'm going to be 60 in a blink of an eye. Now I want to say something. Something about this idea of traits and a list of traits, whether it's like being resilient and passionate and risk tolerant and being a visionary and self-motivated. You read these articles all the time and it kind of feels cliché because they are. Because you can recognize those traits and say, "Oh, that's me." But traits on a list tell you nothing about how you would actually respond when things go wrong. Mm-hmm. In life, in business, when you have a choice to make and whether you make the choice based on fear or based on ambition or based on the hope that things can be better. I'm talking about when you're 3 months into your business or in your journey and nothing has moved. You haven't made a single sale. When your first product launches and it absolutely falls flat. By the way, you're looking at somebody who experiences firsthand. When you've spent your savings. And the customers that you were looking for just have not arrived yet. Again, looking at somebody who experienced that. And here's the big one. When people around you are quietly waiting for you just to admit that you failed and they're just waiting for the day you just go back to your old job. How you respond to those moments is really the test if you're built for it. And you cannot know how you will respond until you are in them. You get it? You can't know for sure until you're actually in the situation. So I promised you one question that tells you everything you need to know. Let me paint the picture. Here's what I would say to a person that's sitting right in front of me and asking me genuinely, "Am I built for entrepreneurship?" I would ask them this question: "How do you find out if you like pineapple? How do you know if you like pineapple or not?" And usually they respond and say, "Well, I try it. I've tried it before, so I know if I like pineapple or not." And then I respond with, "Exactly. That's how you know if you're built for entrepreneurship. It's the only way you're going to know. You got to try it. You can't think your way to the answer. You can't read through articles and try to figure it out. You got to put yourself through the paces and discover on your own if you have what it takes. You can't watch enough videos or listen to enough podcasts to get a 100% clear answer." Okay? And I— my job is to tell you the truth. The truth is, is that I can't tell you 100% because I don't know who you are, right? I don't know everything about you. I don't know your history. You won't know until you actually try. The only data that tells you whether you're built for the building a business and being an entrepreneur is the data you generate by actually doing the thing that you want to do. So my advice is to start something, find a customer, make a sale, start building something. Those actions will give you the information that is required to know for sure. And you could do this while you still have a job, while you still have income. You could do this on the side. I did this for 10 years and I learned and discovered over and over, this is what I want to do. This is what I— that lights me up. I'm excited about it. I couldn't wait to finish my job so I can go and work on my business. And you're going to learn more and more, one client at a time, one offer at a time, one conversation at a time. You're going to learn more and more about who you are and what kind of entrepreneur you're going to become. You don't need to take some personality test. You don't need to memorize a list of traits. It's not in any of that. Okay? It's in the doing. It's in the doing something. Get started. Start small, but start. Because the only thing worse than trying and finding out it's not for you is spending years wondering and never knowing. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Most people in the world statistically are just not built for business. And I mean that without judgment because the world doesn't need everybody to be an entrepreneur. Okay? The world needs teachers and doctors and engineers and artists and people who do extraordinary work inside of organizations that are built by entrepreneurs. That's fine. Or by governments or by nonprofits or whatever it might be. Those paths are valid paths. They're not consolation prizes. Okay? They're legitimate. They're meaningful. They're important in many ways. And by the way, you know, it's not like the entrepreneurial life is better than everybody else's life. There's a lot of cost to being in business. You're constantly thinking about it. The level of stress that you go through in terms of the highs of stress is incredible and more than most people can bear. So it's not some sort of glamorous life. Don't believe that. Okay? There are negatives to that life, just like any path. But my advice is that you need to find out for yourself if that is something that you would like to do. People that love to exercise, like people that love marathons, you think about it, they're running for like 3 hours, they're 43 kilometers or whatever it might be. Okay. It's a painful, grueling, exhausting experience, but they love it. And that's what business is all about. It's like no matter how painful it is, if you enjoy it, you can't help but continue to do it. And every marathon starts with the first step. Take that first step and find out. If this episode made you want to find out if you're built for business, good. I want you to go ahead and find out. If you want to take those first steps, then I highly recommend you check out an episode we recently published called The Honest Truth About Quitting Your Job to Start a Business. I'm gonna give you my exact blueprint, what I did to make it happen. Because knowing that you're built for this is one thing and knowing how to do it is another. Go ahead and check out that episode. Thanks for making it to the end. You're my kind of person. You like to finish things, which is awesome, but you're also serious about making things happen in your life and in your business. So I'm proud of you. Thanks for being here and I'll check you in the next one. Mm.