9-5 VS. Entrepreneurship – Pros & Cons
You all know I love business building and the path of entrepreneurship! I think it’s a great way to challenge yourself and to create self-improvement, it exposes us to adversity, so we can learn grown and refine. Entrepreneurship has been so fulfilling and value adding to me and my life and in return I get to share this value and fulfillment with others.
I have noticed along my journey that a lot of people tend to be on the fence about whether the path of entrepreneurship is for them, what’s really involved when it comes to leaving your 9-5 and whether it’s worth it or not. My hope is that I can bring some clarity about the differences between working a 9-5 vs. Entrepreneurship the benefits and the downsides as well.
9-5 PROS
1. Steady work, income and clients
It’s not up to you to make sure the business is up and running. Your main responsibility is the one task at hand, the task you have been hired for and typically the pay scale reflects the amount of difficulty or responsibility you’ve taken on.
2. Integrated Benefits
Wages are, typically, withheld, its common to receive a store discount and even health insurance, this makes things easy, straight forward, consistent and routine. You just have to show up, do the job and get paid.
3. Community
I’ve made some really great friends through work and I’ve always looked forward to starting a new job knowing that the potential to meet new people and build a community, was there.
Entrepreneur PROS
1. You have full and total control
Some might call us control freaks ;) that’s fine by me. Honestly, though I love being able to control my time, the amount of time work, for how long, how much or how little. You have control over what type of work you do and the amount of money you make for that job.
2. Full optimization
You can focus on the things that you enjoy.
9-5 CONS
1. You’re at the mercy of your job
You’re capped at how often you can work, you only have so many vacation days and sick days, if you don’t like working with somebody… you’ve got to deal with it, same goes for some of your tasks. Of course, often times you can talk with a manager to work something out, but most of the time you are at the mercy of the job, boss or company and their expectations of you.
Entrepreneur CONS
1. Your responsible for everything
If you’re not bringing business in, if you’re not making money… It’s your fault.
2. We were never properly trained for this
In school we were trained to be “factory workers” we clock in, we clock out, we show up, we stand in a line, we do what we are told. This has made it difficult to navigate the unknown of entrepreneurship while learning to solve problems we didn’t even know we had!
3. No work integrated benefits
It’s up to you to figure out what insurance plan to go with and pay for, you need to file your own taxes… you need to file your own taxes… one more time, you need to file your own taxes! If you’ve been following my journey, you’ll know there was one year I had a wonderful lesson with this one!
It’s so important to figure out the important stuff and be sure to have your ducks in a row.
If you think there is anything I’ve missed please let me know by leaving it in the comments below, and I am curious which do you prefer? I think its pretty obvious which way I lean.
Until next time,
Be good, be great and most of all be grateful.
-MJ