A successful pre-entrepreneurship career could be stifling your startup success. Here’s how (and why) to ditch the shackles ASAP.
One of the greatest debates around entrepreneurship surrounds the topic of side hustling versus quiet quitting versus burning the ships pre-revenue and never turning back. Despite my own career decisions (and prior failures and regrets) — or perhaps because of them — I typically take a more conservative approach to starting new businesses.
In other words: I like safety nets. I preach diversification. I live for backups for my backup plans. However, I can admit that entrepreneurship doesn’t often thrive within the confines of one’s comfort zone, and it’s these very safety measures and backup plans that can, at times, keep founders from reaching their true potential.
I was recently speaking with a founder who, on paper, shouldn’t have been all that successful; yet, a thirty-minute conversion about her “why” revealed the secret that’s made her millions more than her much more educated, connected, and privileged colleagues and peers.
Her secret? Unemployability…or so she thought. Let’s unpack how unemployability — or the wholehearted belief that there is no safety raft in sight — can push you to faster, greater success than you’d otherwise think possible.
What do a felon, a high school dropout, and a young woman with a bold, unconcealable tattoo all have in common? If you guessed they all belong to the same person, in this case, you’d be wrong. Instead, all three are representative of the individual crutches that made these three people believe — whether valid or not — that they were (and still are) unemployable.
- The felon went on to build a massive fitness business (as well as to author a best-selling book).
- The high school dropout built a 7-figure real estate venture with zero full-time employees.
- The tattooed woman ended up designing houses for celebrities, socialites, and billionaires.