After teaching an graduate-level Entrepreneurship course, I sat down in the local Barnes & Noble to decompress and think about what was taught. The course was developed by a third party at some point and has never been given much thought or review by the university. Adding, changing or deleting content was out of the question and takes forever to change if suggested. The course was taught as-is and at time certain points were introduced to help many future entrepreneurs start their business on the right footing.
The course was filed with many once popular thoughts and notions that have long seen their popularity and been dismissed over the years. In modern times, these thoughts are not bad advice for anyone wanting to start a business.
A few of the entrepreneurial bad advice tips are:
“Follow your passion or your hobby” – No, you need to start a business that can make you money. If bird watching is your passion, that is great. But, bird watching is not going to make you money. Every entrepreneur needs a hobby to decompress away from their business. Creating a business based on your hobby or passion eliminated the relaxation as one will always be thinking about how to improve the birdwatching business.
“Work hard and you will make money will come” – Not hardly. Working hard will only make you tired, irritable, and hasten an early demise. Work smarter. Delegate things to your trusted partners and know they will do the very best. This goes back to the time honored mantra of “Do the things you do best and outsource the rest.”
“Keep you friends close, but your enemies closer” – There is some truth to this saying but not much. Your friends are your lifeblood and will provide you with years of happiness and loyalty. But enemies, eliminate them from your life and be done with them. You will spend too much time mentally keeping track of what they are doing or what they are doing to you. One does not need to spend any amount of time worrying about what the might do. The elimination of enemies will make you a much happier person.
“Money can’t buy happiness” – But is sure helps. It is true that money can’t buy happiness outright but knowing that you and your family are safe, your needs fulfilled, and you are safe is the happiness that money can provide. No one can say with certainty how much money one needs, it is a personal matter. But having a business that can provide that level of security is something all entrepreneurs strive for when starting a business.
Doing away with the outdated and bad business tips and saying is something that everyone, especially academia, should do on a daily basis. Holding on to these sayings is a barbinger of poor results and ultimate failure in the business world.
Dr. Lawson is an executive coach and a Professor of Economics and Strategy. He writes on business issues, education, and developing today’s modern executives. He can be found on Twitter @dplwsn and #TMIBS.
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