Work produces more than a product or service; it builds purpose and generates engagement – work is honorable.
However, some work leaves the worker wanting more, desiring more, yearning to do or be more.
Perhaps you remember the 1980s hit, “Workin’ 9 to 5,” by Dolly Parton. Her description of work was “a way to make a living.”
She was right – in part.
Some people need to do more than live – they need to thrive. If you fall in this category of business minded people, entrepreneurship is for you.
What do you dream of doing if work was not necessary? What personal dreams do you have? Will your current employment help you realize those dreams?
Start Your Business Around Your 9-to-5 Job
Many have asked about starting a business while working. Certainly, leaving a job may feel good at first, but without steady income, Dolly Parton’s song will be more a prayer to you than a sweet tune.
You can, however, do both.
You can have the cake with the icing, but make sure you can handle both.
How do you accomplish this? There’s a question you need to answer first: “What is it you are trying to achieve with your life?”
Sound philosophical? It is.
You are more than skin and bones. You are a person with a distinct mind and many gifts.
Think about what you want to contribute to your community, city, state, country, even the world.
While you ponder that question, think of these as well…
- What do you dream of doing if work was not necessary?
- What personal dreams do you have?
- Will your current employment help you realize those dreams?
Assuming you cannot just walk off of your job, what is your daily schedule? Do you have time during the day or night that is unencumbered?
If entrepreneurship is your goal, you will need to make changes that will foster your growth and preparation.
So, let’s do a little math.
Let’s say you work roughly 10 hours daily, which encompasses commuting. When you arrive home, you’ve got a child or two needing attention and a spouse looking to discuss the day. That may be another 3 hours.
If your devoted time for work begins around 7 a.m. and concludes near 5 p.m. and your family needs another 3 hours on top of that, you may be looking at entrepreneurial preparation beginning around 8:30 p.m..
Now, with that understood, how much brain power do you have left – an hour or two possibly – before you collapse from the day’s activities.
So, with 2 hours a day, Monday through Friday, and maybe double that on the weekends, you have approximately 18 hours per week to prepare.
That’s plenty of time to get ready to establish your own business.
Preparation Is Key
The great fear of entrepreneurship of any kind is lack of preparation.
Many avoid becoming business owners because they fear not being able to get ready to be successful. While the fear is not ungrounded, it is misplaced. If owning a business is a yearning for you, the time to prepare is present as well.
You need only dig in a bit further to discover the time and space to grow and go.
Below are three keys to getting prepared and obtaining success.
- Decide What You Want to Do With The Time You Find
Having determined you have time to prepare, you must determine what you will do with it. Finding time with nothing to fill it is like gathering water to drink without a glass. Consider the following:
- What are your personal goals?
- Why entrepreneurship?
- What do you care most about in life?
These questions are vision focused. One must have a clear idea of what and who one is pertaining to entrepreneurship.
Personal vision is a leading factor in business selection and investment.
Because I work in the assisted living industry, the personal vision framework I use for many of the entrepreneurs I talk with goes something like this:
- Who will be served by your assisted living home? Why?
- What needs to happen in order for the doors to open and accept residents?
- What kind of leader are you? Will you in fact lead? Will you advise?
- Will you be an investor only?
- Do you have a spouse? Will he or she be involved?
- In what way will your spouse be involved? Daily? Weekly? Very little?
- What kind of knowledge do you need to acquire to be effective?
- Can you perform a market analysis?
- What about real estate analysis?
- Demographic study?
There are more questions to pose but these are sufficient to begin your journey.
If you’ve never done an exercise like this it might feel overwhelming to answer such a long list of questions… especially if you’re not entirely sure of the answers. Do not fret.
No matter your industry, you can find men and women who are savvy and experienced in the business you want to build… I know this is true in my industry where networking is a huge part of getting started.
- Start Looking for Time/Activity Trade-Offs
To invest, own or operate an assisted living home you need time to prepare.
Earlier, we determined what time you had available, and you have also begun to understand your vision for life, now you need to allocate and reallocate time. To do this, begin by taking note of what is more important to you.
To really get an assisted living home up and running, you will need to make sacrifices. These sacrifices include:
- Finances
- Increase time
- Brain power
- Additional resources
So, what will be the trade-off? Certainly, you understand the initial time you found was sufficient for establishing your personal vision, but more time will be needed for preparation and execution.
Trade-offs might include:
- Ending work earlier, if this is an option.
- An extra cup of coffee could give you more evening hours.
- One day of the weekend might be needed.
- Possibly both weekend days?
- Enlisting the help of others: spouse, adult children, trusted friends.
- Professionals: CPA, Attorneys, Tax Specialists
Do not shoulder the burden alone.
Share your personal vision with your family. Surely, your vision includes them. Involve others in your family. Their involvement will mean time spent with you in building something for everyone. If everyone makes a sacrifice, everyone is invested.
When everyone is invested you are able to move forward together.
But like any decision in life there will be trade-offs. Trade-offs are often viewed by those not bold enough to undertake them as an unnecessary risk, even selfish.
This is untrue.
It is a trade-off to catapult the family from one station to another. Working a “9 to 5” is not as secure as people would like to think.
Owning a business, while tedious at times, offers far more financial security.
Making the hard choices to invest, own, and operate an assisted living home will certainly be worth it. The time reallocated and the trade-offs made will benefit not just your family, but the family of every resident who finds care, safety, and solace in your assisted living home.
Anything of consequence will require the sacrifice of time.
Money cannot solve all issues nor meet all requirements. Time, a resource so precious, common to all, yet rare will be required and maximizing it is essential to the success of any enterprise.
Nothing could be truer than investing and/or owning an assisted living home.
- Use the Time to Create Your Business
Now that you have your personal goals established, time allocated, trade-offs agreed upon, you will need to get to work.
Your family will appreciate witnessing you work and make good on the sacrifice. Furthermore, nothing beats progress.
Your family will see the progress you are making toward the investment or ownership of an assisted living home. Coupled with their involvement, even sacrifice, the pride and satisfaction that comes from the days of building a business will never be forgotten.
With all of the extra time, what exactly should you do?
- Establish entities for protection and proper taxation. You will certainly need the help of good attorneys for establishing businesses and estates.
- A good CPA. Budget planning, allocation, tax preparation, bookkeeping, banking and much more must be handled appropriately.
- A financial planner is key for personal investment of proceeds. Decide on one prior to needing one.
- Proper training. This is perhaps the most essential in terms of business execution. Obtaining proper training that encompasses everything necessary for functioning is hard to find in many industries.
Transitioning Into the Creator Economy
Being a business owner today requires much of what it did in the late 1900s (crazy to write that, isn’t it?).
Even with the advent of the internet, it still takes an idea, personal motivation, a values system, training, etc… the internet hasn’t changed this aspect of transitioning into a new business as your full time income.
What the internet has done is it has created a much faster pathway to achieve everything… including monetizing the business.
And while that’s true of the early days of the internet, the early 2020s has given rise to what’s becoming known as the creator economy. The creator economy is defined by men and women who have an expertise in a specific area and dedicate their time to creating content around their expertise in order to market their products and services.
What’s fun to see is just how ahead of his time my dad, Gene Guarino, was when he started putting together what we now sell at the RALAcademy as the Residential Assisted Living Home Study Course. When my grandmother, dad’s mom, needed an assisted living home nothing dad found was good enough. So my dad paired his knowledge of real estate with his experience in business and built an assisted living home so my grandmother could live there.
When he saw just how simple (not necessarily easy, though) it could be plus the demand that was growing, he jumped into the ‘creator economy’ and today thousands of people have gone through his creations and the world is better for it.
Learn How to Transition Away From A Traditional Job
Working 9 to 5 may be your present reality but does not have to be your future.
Continue to work, continue to build and organize, and continue to learn.
However, no better success will be realized than combining your efforts with the experts.
