MBA2450 Q&A Wednesday: I feel like quitting my business and getting a job. Should I?

0:08Heyo! Welcome to the$100 MBA show, business truths for you delivered in business lesson format. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. And today's episode is Q &A Wednesday, where I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net. Today's question is from Val, and Val asks, I feel like quitting my business and getting a job. Should I? Oof, this is a tough question because maybe you should. And I don't mean that in a mean way or facetious way, but we're going to find out in today's lesson.

0:42I'm going to share with you some exercises that you can do to get to the bottom of this answer. Sometimes when we struggle with something and it's painful, we are looking for relief. And we think the grass is greening on the other side, think the answer is something else or a job in this case. But maybe it just isn't. And in some cases, entrepreneurship is not a good fit for somebody. And they're looking to find success in other ways, in a different way in a career through a job. And there's nothing wrong with that. That is absolutely fine if that's what makes you happy. But let's find out if it will make you happy.

1:15Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I want to start by saying that business is hard. It's difficult to be an entrepreneur. This is not easy. This is why most people don't do this. So if you're going through a tough time in your business right now, that is normal. That is just a rite of passage. That is exactly the way it should be. It should be hard. There's nothing wrong with you, okay? So I just want to say that because a lot of people are not aware of that. I wasn't aware of that when I got started. I thought I was deficient or there's something wrong with me. Why is this so hard?

1:46Am I a loser here? But I'm here to tell you that it's supposed to be hard. So if you're having difficulty, if you're having challenges, that is normal. Secondly, I'm not really sure how long you've been in business or been trying to be an entrepreneur and how much of the effort it's been full time. Because it takes time to become great at this business thing. We expect lawyers and doctors and plumbers and electricians to have many years of experience before they can get good at something. They have many years of training and education before they can actually be decent at their job. Being an entrepreneur is no different.

2:23You have to put in the time, the work, the effort to build your skills, build your experience so that this can be a little easier on you and for you to get some success. So I'm saying these things because I don't want you to shortchange yourself. Maybe you just need a bit more time learning the ropes, trying new things, failing a few times, and learning from those failures. If you're just frustrated with the losses, that is one thing. And that's okay. You could be frustrated. Frustration is actually a really good thing. It can actually motivate you to change your situation. And the fact that you're asking this question is a sign that you actually want to change your situation, which is great.

2:59So like my initial reaction to this is that if you can persevere from a financial point of view, like you can continue to live and it's just a matter of you just grinding it out and absorbing the pain a little bit longer so you can learn and grow and get better, then I actually recommend you do that if you want it. And we're going to go into an exercise to figure out if you do want it. But first, that perseverance is important. I often use the analogy, learning how to snowboard, to explain what it's like to start a business. When you learn how to snowboard, definitely the first time you do it, like the first day you do it, it's horrible.

3:36It's a disaster. You're just falling over and over and over, and it's painful. You're not having any fun. You're just trying to not fall. You're not trying to not hurt yourself. It's just not a fun day out. You're sweating. You're hot and cold at the same time. You have all this equipment on. You're not used to it. You're hearing all these different pieces of advice, and it's just not clicking, and it's just frustrating. It's like zero reward, maximum effort. But then you try it again the next day, and it's just a little bit less painful. It's still painful, but it's a little bit less painful.

4:07Then you try it again another day and another day and another day. And then after maybe going snowboarding five to ten times, you're starting to get the hang of it. It's starting to click, and you're starting to actually enjoy yourself a little bit. And it's starting to become worth all that investment. But in the beginning, it's no fun. And the same goes with starting a business. So let's figure out if you want this or not. I want you to grab a piece of paper. If you're driving, you can do this later. But grab a piece of paper or maybe even a note-taking app or something like that on your phone.

4:36And I want you to list all the things you love about being an entrepreneur, about having a business. What are the things you absolutely love? And I want you to force yourself to list at least 10 things, okay? This might be you love the fact that you have unlimited potential to earn as much money as possible. There's so much upside when it comes to financial reward. You might love the fact that you have the ability to build something for yourself, a legacy. You might love the fact that you have the flexibility to work when you want, how you want, when you want. It's different for everybody, but list 10 things you love about running your business, running a business in general, being an entrepreneur.

5:13Then I want you to list the top five things you do not like about being an entrepreneur. After you do those two exercises, I want you to put it aside and you can do the same thing, but now you need to be brutally honest and do the same about having a job, any kind of job, even if it's a good job that you like. What are the top 10 things you love about it? And what are the top five things you don't love about it? You hate about it. So now you have basically four lists, right? Two for entrepreneurship and two for having a job. Now, you might think this exercise is all about what's on the list, but it's really about how you created this list.

5:49How easy was it for you to write down 10 things about what you love about entrepreneurship and how easy was it for having a job? Maybe you struggled with that. How easy was it for you to list the top five things you hate about a job versus entrepreneurship? That's the first part of the exercise, just recognizing how easy it was for you to jot down those things, how fast those ideas came to your mind. Some people really struggle to write 10 things that they love about one or the other. And that's a sign that maybe that thing is not for you, whether it's a job or entrepreneurship. The second thing I want you to look at is the actual items on each list.

6:22The reason why we do this is because it makes it clear to you that, hey, everything is a trade-off. I might get this with entrepreneurship, but the trade-off is one of these negative things. Is it worth the trade-off? With the job, I get this positive thing, maybe a steady paycheck and stability, but I have very limited time off. Or maybe I hate having a boss. There's trade-offs. Which trade-off are you comfortable with? Which trade-off are you happy to take? Which trade-off are you like, yes, please give me that. For example, on my list, I would write, I love the fact that I have full autonomy to do what I want, to produce what I want as an entrepreneur.

7:00The trade-off of that is that I'm going to work more hours to create that and make that happen. I'm happy with that trade-off. I'm happy to put in those hours because that means I get to be my own boss. I get to create whatever I want. I don't have to deal with red tape. I don't have to get approval for anybody else. I have the say, the first and last say to do what I want to do. So this exercise also allows you to see the trade-offs because you're going to have to make a choice based on what you're comfortable trading off with. The third thing this does is that it makes it clear that maybe the grass is not so much greener on the other side.

7:36We think that a change, any kind of change might help, but maybe that change might just mean pivoting your business or tweaking your products or services, or maybe starting something else that's more aligned to your strengths and the value you can add to the marketplace. Maybe you think you're going to love a job, but when you write this stuff down, you're like, hmm, maybe I won't love it at all. Maybe actually I have it pretty good right now, or maybe vice versa. Only the information that you write down will tell you the answer. So you've got to go through the exercise. This episode is actually quite important because most people, this is not a gray area.

8:11But there are some people that are not sure. What do I mean by that? For most people, they do what they do because they can't help it. For example, great artists, they cannot do anything else other than create art. If you have somebody who's a great painter or sculptor, even if they're really poor and struggling, they'll find a way to create their art. They can't help it. They're compelled to do it. And the same thing goes with entrepreneurship for the most part. Most people, they can't help it. They want to create something for themselves and they just don't fit in a job. They actually get fired.

8:44They're not good employees. But there are people that are in between. I'm one of those people. What I mean by that is I love entrepreneurship. I fell in love with it, but it was a struggle and I had to learn to love it in the first few years after I got over a few humps. But I was a great employee. I was great at my job as a teacher. I loved it. I strived. I did well. But I loved entrepreneurship more, enough so to leave my job and to roll the dice and bet on myself and become an entrepreneur. So I'm here to tell you it's okay to kind of not be sure. It's okay that you're struggling with this a little bit, wrestling with it.

9:19It's totally fine. And what you'll find is through that struggle, through that wrestling with this feeling and these decisions, you'll become stronger as a person. You'll be clearer about what you want out of life, and you'll have more conviction about the direction you want to move in. So this is actually a good thing for you that you're going through the struggle. I know it might not seem like this right now. It seems very tiresome and painstaking, but it will pay off in the long run. To wrap up today's Q &A Wednesdays episode and question from Val, go through the exercises, give some thought to what I said.

9:51And worst case scenario, if you got a close up shop and get a job, you can always jump back into entrepreneurship. The job will be there if you need it, if you want it, if you want to just kind of do that for a while and see how it feels. But there is a trade-off. Like I mentioned, there are always trade-offs. You are spending your precious time in that job. You are delaying your ability to become successful. You're delaying the years to become successful as an entrepreneur, like I mentioned in a previous episode, by doing something else. There's an opportunity cost here. You're doing the job instead of entrepreneurship.

10:26So let's say, for example, you jump into a job for a few years, let's say three years. Those are three years you're not working on becoming an entrepreneur. You're not building that asset, building those skills, building that reputation, building that credibility, at least not full time. So just remember, everything is a trade-off. Thanks so much for listening. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net. Believe it or not, if you email me with questions, I actually reply personally. I reply to all my emails personally. This is something I still do after 10 years because I like to stay connected to our listeners, our community.

11:01You are the people that I resonate with. You're my kind of person. You're someone who's going after it. And you're the person I'm building this whole thing for, the podcast and the community and the website and the course and everything. So I feel like the least I can do is reply to emails. It may take me a while because I'm doing this myself, but I will reply. Before we wrap up, a quick one. If you love the show and you wanna see it grow, you wanna continue to get amazing episodes and you want these episodes to get better and better, you can help. All you gotta do is subscribe. Follow this podcast on whatever app you're on, Spotify, Apple Podcasts.

11:37By doing that, you help the show grow. You send the signal to the algorithm but hey, this show is amazing. And the bigger the show gets, the better the show gets. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks so much for doing that and subscribing. I really appreciate it. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Some things in life are an acquired taste, meaning you might not love something in the beginning, but once you start doing it for a while, you get acquainted with it, you get better at it, you start to feel like, hey, this is all right. Actually, enjoy this. And sometimes that takes a while.

12:07It takes maybe a few years. At least that was my experience with entrepreneurship. and then before you know it, you can't imagine your life without your business, without being an entrepreneur. It's pretty crazy. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

12:41Thank you.