Is Entrepreneurship a Job? Is it a Career? Is it an Attitude? What is it?
You don’t need to overthink it. Being an entrepreneur is a job, it is an occupation. Despite what a bunch of people say, entrepreneurship is a completely valid career path as long as you know what you’re doing.
While being an entrepreneur counts as having a job and occupation, there’s a bit more to it than just that. Let’s dive into the topic so that you can have a better understanding of why being an entrepreneur is an occupation.
There are so many examples of entrepreneurs who have been able to build a successful career online. A great example is Dean Graziosi, whose mission is to deliver self-education in the personal development field.
Entrepreneurship is an occupation since you can list it as your job.
That being said, just saying you’re an entrepreneur is incredibly vague and non-specific. While you can officially list entrepreneur or business owner as your occupation on many government forms and documents, that doesn’t really specify what you do from day to day. Saying that you’re an entrepreneur would clarify that you started a business but no one would know exactly what your actual business is.
So aside from filling in forms and other stuff, it’s good practice to say that you’re an entrepreneur and briefly explain what your business is. For example, if someone asks what you do for a living, you can say that you’re an entrepreneur that started a watch brand. That clears up a lot of ambiguity compared to if you just say that you’re an entrepreneur.
Can you have a day job while being an entrepreneur?
Yes, you can have a regular 9-5 job while being an entrepreneur building a business. You can also do freelance work while being an entrepreneur. The vast majority of aspiring entrepreneurs probably need to do it like this since getting enough capital to start a business is a difficult task, to begin with, and you really want to avoid business loans as much as you can. Starting a business is already risky enough and having to take out business loans just adds to that risk. However, if you need a loan to cover some business expenses, you can visit this website to learn about an alternative option.
There are both benefits and problems that come with having a job or working freelance while being an entrepreneur. Depending on you and your situation, having a job while building your business can either be the best thing you can do or the absolute worst mistake you can make. However, with the right balance and maybe availing a good coaching business service, you might not have to struggle too much.
Having a 9-5 job or doing freelance work is a great way to minimize the risk and stresses of starting a business. Having a set paycheck every month takes away a lot of mental fatigue since you have a way to keep your bills paid on time when your business isn’t doing too well. One of the greatest downsides of starting and owning a business is that your income from your business can fluctuate wildly from month to month.
The other big benefit of having a stable income while you’re starting your business is that you can use that stable income to keep your business afloat or even help grow it. Sometimes you do need a bit of cash to get your business going and doing work outside of your business is a great way to get that cash. Having a job or working freelance is also a good way to get money to grow your business because it helps you avoid taking out business loans.
Having a 9-5 job or doing freelance work on the side while building your business has another major benefit. You’re pretty much forced to level up and get better if you go this route. If you don’t, you will burn out and wash up.
Here’s how having a job or working freelance while building your business can level you up:
- You build transferable skills while working at your job. For example, if your day job is selling cars, the skills you gain as a salesman will transfer over to your business. The skills you gain will directly benefit your business.
- You gain a ton of experience very quickly. If you’re working a day job and running a business, you’re doing a lot. You’ll rack up a lot of work experience much faster than an average person.
- You build self-discipline because relying on motivation just isn’t enough for this. Juggling both a job and a business is tough. So to do both, you need to become disciplined to handle everything that you need to get done every day.
- You become great at time management. If you want to settle all your duties at both your normal job and your business, you’ll need to get very good at managing your time. Time management is a skill that would benefit pretty much anyone and definitely is beneficial for business owners.
- You get great at managing money. Having to handle both the money that comes from your job and your business will require that you get good at bookkeeping pretty fast. If you don’t, you’ll learn very quickly that finances can get messy.
Now that the benefits are out of the way, let’s move on to the potential downsides of working a job or doing freelance work while being an entrepreneur.
The main downside of working at a job or taking freelance jobs as an entrepreneur is that you can’t put your full focus on your business. You have to split yourself between your work responsibilities and growing your business. This will slow down how fast you can scale and grow your business.
The other downside is that working both a job and building a business is incredibly tiring. You think you understand this fact before you jump in but you won’t understand how taxing it is until you try it yourself. You’ll probably suffer from burnout from the stress that comes with taking on all that work. You’ll also more than likely fall sick more often since overworked people have compromised immune systems from the lack of adequate amount of rest.
Another downside of working while you live out your dream of entrepreneurship is that you’ll need to work under a boss at your job. This doesn’t seem too bad but a lot of people turn to entrepreneurship because they hate working for a boss. Also, if you work freelance it can be argued that every single one of your clients is your boss. You’ll have to grin and bear it if you’re a boss-hating entrepreneur.
Having a normal 9-5 job while you grow your business is great for adding stability to your life, but you need to have a good amount of self-discipline to make it work. Working freelance while you build your business is a good way to take pressure off yourself when you’re trying to make ends meet, but it’s much more chaotic than working a stable 9-5. Seeking financial support from a money lender in Singapore can provide the necessary resources to manage the challenges of freelancing and entrepreneurship, offering a smoother path to business growth.
Does running a business on the side mean you’re an entrepreneur?
Yes, it does. The definition of being an entrepreneur is being a person who starts a business while taking on all the financial risks associated with starting a business. You can do all that while working a regular 9-5 job.
So yes, that means everyone who starts a side business is an entrepreneur. Countless successful businesses were started as a side hustle but eventually grew into behemoths. People have started successful businesses while they were working normal 9-5 jobs, while they were studying in college, and even while they were in high school.
Closing
Being an entrepreneur is a job.
Don’t let disapproving relatives, elders, or friends tell you otherwise. Whether you choose to tackle your journey into entrepreneurship full-time from the very beginning or you start your business as a side project that you hope will eventually grow, you’re an entrepreneur.
And entrepreneurship is an occupation.