Business Is Not About You.
The market doesn't reward passion alone. It rewards people who solve problems and create value for others.
“Reasons NOT to start a business:
You like doing the thing.
You think it’ll make you rich.
You think it’ll become passive.
Reasons TO start a business:
To provide for your family.
To solve valuable problems.
To serve & enrich the lives of others.”
-Ray Zingler on X
There is a cultural obsession with entrepreneurship.
I think it has a lot to do with social media and perceptions of how you think that guy “has it” because he owns ‘X’.
Many people start businesses because they like doing something.
They “like” working out, so naturally starting a gym sounds like a good idea.
Until you realize the gym business has very little to do with working out and allocating all your time into the business side (that you better understand and be prepared to do the work on) can kill your own passion for working out. It happens to not some, but many gym business owners.
And most, (who fail) in business realize those initial dreams of being their own boss, printing money!, and building pAsSiVe income never see the vision materialize.
And it’s because these people were never cut out to be entrepreneurs.
A mentor once told me, “In order to be a successful entrepreneur you must love business as much or more than ‘your thing’.”
And as I’ve gone through several business maturation phases, I’ve learned the sentiment to be incredibly true.
If you’re going to build a business, you better build it on a sturdy foundation.
Not on ego.
Not on status.
Not on your fantasies of freedom, either.
But on service.
Great businesses exist because they
1) Solve valuable problems.
2) Improve people’s lives.
3) Provide stability for the people depending on you.
When you’re focused on those principles, they not only shift your perspective, they change how you operate.
You go from, “how do I make more money?” to “how do I create more value for the people who are willing to pay for my service?”
Why is this important?
It changes the work from greed driven to service driven.
And guess what?
The market rewards usefulness, not enthusiasm.
My father is one of the best entrepreneurs I know.
And to be straight with you, he isn’t even obsessed with entrepreneurship like I am.
He’s obsessed with providing practical solutions to what could become complex problems, serving people, and creating security for his family.
His business exists as a vehicle to enrich the lives of others.
That’s how and why you do it.