book.chapter Developing a profit mindset over salary

Making the mental transition between working for someone else and working towards building your own business is often a daunting challenge. The focus shifts dramatically from a paycheck mentality to a profit centered way of thinking. The key to making this transition doesn’t lie in strong capital reserves or even an impressive resume. Instead, the key lies in the way you think about yourself and your work. The traditional education system is not geared towards teaching people how to be in business for themselves. In fact, the education system is really working towards the goal of producing good employees, people who will show up on schedule, take breaks when scheduled and do whatever they’re told to do. That’s the payroll mentality, do what’s expected and you might even get a raise. In the world of self employment, however, having good work habits is irrelevant. In fact, there are no rules except one, do whatever it takes to make a profit. That demands an entirely different way of thinking and acting where even the most well intentioned advice others give you, like thinking positively and working hard, can be counter productive. Historically, people working for themselves have been described as entrepreneurs. In today’s business environment, however, entrepreneurs have been superseded by propreneurs. What’s the difference between the two? Entrepreneurs create commercial endeavors that require considerable initiative and risk. Propreneurs work for a purpose beyond just building a business, they create a livelihood for themselves that enables them to do what they most enjoy doing. They enjoy doing the work of the business rather than building a commercial enterprise. For an entrepreneur, the nature of the business is secondary to the success that can be achieved, measured in the terms of their own choice. For a propreneur, the nature of the business is the main motivation, and the need to be in business simply provides the opportunity to excel in a career they love. That is, entrepreneurs want to work on building a business while propreneurs want to work in a business they love. The difference becomes more clear cut once the business grows. Entrepreneurs will be closely involved with managing the growth while a propreneur will prefer to bring in someone to manage the business details leaving them free to do what they most enjoy doing. Most self employment material tends to focus on how to get more involved in the nitty-gritty details of business and is geared more towards entrepreneurs rather than propreneurs. Yet it is actually the ranks of the propreneurs that are today growing much faster, and that trend will continue well into the future as significant changes take place in the broader business community. The keys of succeeding as a propreneur are realizing the odds now favor working for yourself, acknowledging that job security is merely an illusion, shifting from waiting for a break to making your own breaks, changing from following rules to tracking results, shifting from mastery of skills to marketing, making mistakes stepping stones rather than end points, keeping options open at all times, focusing on breakthroughs not boundaries, looking at money as a multiplier, focusing on charisma not position, looking at success as a joint venture, and being your own coaches, colleagues and cheerleaders. In short, propreneuring involves leaving behind both the payroll mentality and the classical approach to doing business. It means operating with a new approach. While most good employees have learned to operate effectively within a system of rules, most entrepreneurial profiles suggest that successful entrepreneurs traditionally have a propensity to operate outside the rules, to be mavericks. Today’s new entrepreneurs, the propreneurs, don’t meet that maverick profile. They usually did their best in school and have been good employees. Many get as near to the top as they can before hitting a plateau. They go out on their own to achieve more. Today’s propreneurs are highly achievement oriented and strive for excellence in their work.