There’s a misconception that starting a business is a sure way to make more money for less effort compared to working a job.
Supposedly, if you just quit your job and start a business, within a very short time, you’ll make millions and be able to play golf all day and travel in luxury for the rest of your life. You will never need work again, and your bank account will grow on its own through passive income.
The best part? You’ll build your dream business with even less effort than it takes to work your office job. It’s so easy! Everyone should start a business, and nobody should get a job!
I call this the “Myth of Easy Money”.
This series is mainly for people who were tricked into believing this myth. I’ve seen some very bad results from this belief. If I can prevent just one person from taking rash action because of this lie—saving them from months (or years) of difficulty—then this series will have done its job.
However, for those who don’t believe in this myth, I hope this series can still help you think more clearly about business-related decisions.
This series has 3 articles:
Part 1: Defining Business
Most people mistakenly think that "business" and "work" are two separate things. They think that if you own a business, life will be easy and you will not have to work the hours of a job. A quick look at the real world immediately reveals this superstition to be false -- after all, most business owners go to an office and work all day!
So what's a more accurate way to think about business? This article answers that question.
Part 2: Misconceptions About Business
This article will cover two big misconceptions I frequently hear about starting a business.
First, people think business owners ALWAYS make more money for less effort than employees.
And second, they think employees have an earnings ceiling, while entrepreneurs can scale their earnings infinitely.
This article shows that neither belief is true, revealing the erroneous mental accounting that perpetuates these myths.
Part 3: The True Benefits of Business
The first two articles shatter myths about why people think businesses are so great. This third article balances things out on a positive note, exploring the true benefits of business.
Most people think that the primary benefit of business is easy money-making. In this article, I argue the opposite: The true benefit of business is that it gives you the opportunity to exert maximal effort.
Because business is a vehicle to work harder than you ever have in your entire life, you get to maximize your productive capacity, deploy all your skills, and therefore, collect maximal value from your efforts in the form of business profits.
While easy money-making can happen in a business context, it's rare. It is much more productive to think of business as a means to exert maximal effort to generate maximal personal productivity, like a weight lifter maximizing gains by lifting as heavy as possible. Business, therefore, is a tool that allows you to do MORE work -- not less!