Increasingly more and more on the internet I read comments on blogs, forums and other social networks where people are posting that they are starting their own business because they hate the 9 to 5 grind and that Corporate America truly sucks. And for anybody who has this mentality let me tell you what sucks more YOU DO! Punch buggy green, no punch backs.

Need I explain why?

(And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with working long hours when you start your own business)

Once upon a time I worked the grind…for nearly 12 years to be exact…at the SAME company no less. Some days I worked more than 8 hours. I worked weekends. I worked lots of days in a row with no days off. I ate lunch at my desk. I worked with people full of drama. My boss liked to swear and push people to the limit. And one day I said to myself ”Self, I am not going to do this anymore or deal with these folks anymore. They have no frickin’ clue what they are doing (even though they have been in business for 16 years and are doing several million years in revenue, lol). I am going to start my own business doing something BETTER.”

 And so I did.

It took me 3 years later to realize that I didn’t want to do something better, I wanted to do something DIFFERENT. And I wanted to do something much different than what I was doing. Much different than my experiences and skill set had long dictated. I think today we call that a ’social entrepreneur’ :) And as I sat down to build that different vision doing that different thing…what I realized was something quite ironic:

Most small businesses aspire to grow their own little empire to a nice healthy 6 or 7 figure company…so in fact we want to be the very place we resented working at. And what if we ended up hiring a person for our company who had an attitude like ours? What might we think? How might we feel if one of our best employees went out to start a better business than ours with all our knowledge that we taught them and all our resources we shared with them. But you know- that is just the beginning.

So today, I have decided to share the valuable small business lessons I personally learned from my experiences in working in Corporate America:

1.  An entrepreneurial mindset is not a different approach to thinking, but the ONLY approach to thinking. Whether you work for yourself or someone else, if you think like an entrepreneur, seek to selflessly solve problems and have a personal brand, you inevitably will go further. And this carries to other aspects of your life as well, albeit your academic life, your community life or your family life. You can have a “personal brand” without compromising the values of the greater objective of the organization. This is what helps you grow, get recognition and ultimately promotions.

2. Problems equal opportunities. And solving those problems whether within the company you worked for or your own company is how new products and services come to surface and money is made. Too often we think that we are not being taken seriously by our boss or our company because we came up with so many good ideas and have yet to get credit for any of them. The reality is that the idea was a great one but it may have not been presented correctly. It did not solve an immediate problem for the target customer so it would make it difficult as far as positioning it in the marketplace. Also, is it not the problems and bureacracy that exists within corporations and government that gives us the very opportunity to be creative and visionary entrepreneurs? If big organizations did not have problems and drama then it would be difficult for you to get out there and do your thing wouldn’t it? So AMEN to that. It’s the least you can be grateful for… DUH

3. Run To Something Not From Something. If you quit your job because you hated it you might be in for a very long and challenging road ahead. When things don’t go your way you will be hating everything and everyone (even if only for a short time). You will see things as obstacles to success that others see as tools to success. When I left the company that I worked for to start something that I thought would be better, yeah I started it. I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder and I was confident (ok- cocky) and a darn good salesperson. So I sold stuff and I made money. But I didn’t have the continued motivation and opportunities didn’t come easy (whether partnerships or marketing related). It was because that thing wasn’t for me because IT WASN’T ME! I was running my business for all the wrong reasons. So if you are going to leave your company, don’t look for a stepping stone or to prove a point. As an entrepreneur there is no such thing as failing easily or slowly.  In fact it’s quite the opposite. As long as you keep pushing forward, there is no such thing as failure….only delayed gratification.

Nor is there any such thing as being better than your competitor. Your only competition truly is yourself. And you are not better or worse than anyone…just different. So do the thing that you really and truly have always wanted to do whether you have lots of experience or no experience at all. It is your love, your ongoing curiosity and natural fascination for that thing that will internally and eternally drive you in the direction you want to go and help the answers come before the questions. Run from something and you will trip and fall and run into things again and again. Run to something and who cares if you lose the map because if you are headed in the right direction you will surely find your way :)