Start a Business in 2017!

The Top 10 Reasons to Start a Business in 2017

Starting a business has never been easier. There are literally thousands of ways a person can step out into the unknown and launch a business of their very own. Yet there are few that do take that risk for disproportionate reward. I'm here to tell you, 2017 could be your year! Here are the Top 10 reasons you should start a business in 2017.

1. Freedom & Independence-
From the dawn of creation, man has had a spirit of freedom and independence deeply engrained into their souls. While working for someone else can at times, and for a few, be exceptionally fulfilling, for most work feels more like indentured servitude. In your business, you call the shots, you determine the outcomes.

2. Do Something You Truly Love-
In life, we tend to do things out of necessity. A job equals a paycheck, and so we endure countless hardships and challenges to win a measly to modest reward. Business ownership puts you in control and allows you to do a business you enjoy, or dare I say it- love, even if what you enjoy about it is simply the freedom and independence referenced in the first reason to start your own business!

3. Stop Wondering “What-If”-
The longer we are alive, the more we become aware of our own mortality. If you want to know what regret looks like, visit a nursing home and have a conversation with anyone there. The things the elderly regret the most are not the things they did, but the things they didn’t do and will take to their grave, “What if?”

4. Real Security-
There are just too many stories to count of top performers in business being cut because they make too much, just as there are stories of people who are somewhere in between the top and the bottom being let go from a company due to layoffs. The reality is that employment is not security! Employment is simply the illusion of security. Real security is available only to those who step out of the rat race and write their own story.

5. Income, Equity, & Wealth Creation-
The golden triangle, my favorite reason to start a business! In my world, it is big enough for everyone to win, and win big. Income is the most basic opportunity, but even more exciting is the equity you create in an asset of your own. With some blood, sweat, and tears, that equity can become wealth allowing not just you, or your next generation to be worry free when it comes to money, but even beyond that. …And I’ll let you in on a secret. If you are trying to accomplish this working from someone else, you are either planning on being lucky, or planning on working until you can’t.

6. Mentor, Inspire, Give: Do Something That Matters-
Success begets success, and it tends to attract the attention of people who wish to catch what you have; to get sprinkled with your “fairy dust” of success. These opportunities to mentor can become quite fulfilling as they give you a deeper meaning to life through inspiring others to take risks to do something that matters as well. Similar to the giving of your know how, is the giving your resources. To give is to receive, and is quite possibly the most fulfilling reason to own your own business.

7. Lifestyle Opportunities-
I’m not going to pretend that owning your own business will promise you cars, mansions, and caviar, but frankly many of you simply want a day off anyway! The reality of owning a business is that you decide on what is important to you. You choose the opportunity costs you are willing to accept. With that the choice to attend your kid’s baseball game, or to go on that trip to the Caribbean that couldn’t take (when you had to drop everything for that boss who had you come in for that emergency company meeting over the weekend…or else). The power to choose is often enough to justify any attempt to own a business of your own.

8. You Will Stretch Yourself-
When you start a business, it comes with the territory that you will become a consummate learner. From simple tasks like how to create a pitch deck, to more complex strategies like how to creatively finance the next phase of expansion in your business, you will experience personal growth like never before to accommodate your business’ need for forward progress. And if you choose not to, which of course is your choice, you may just end up stretching before you go to the gym on your own time!

9. Become Daring, Driven, & Motivated-
Challenging yourself to doing things you may have never dreamed can be exhilarating. Will there be stress? Yes! Will there be failure? More than likely. However, when you boldly tackle the problem of the day over and over again, confidence builds. Before you know it, minor issues are demoted to the non-issue pile. Moderate challenges are relegated to your employees whom you’ve empowered to handle them. The next time a big issue rears its head, you’ll walk through it with the courage to slay dragons.

10. Leave a Legacy-
What is your legacy today? Hard working, family oriented, kind hearted? All great characteristics that I’d love to be known for. But do you ever wonder if there is more? I believe we are all built for much more. To leave our finger prints on peoples’ lives. Business rarely happens in a bubble. By nature, it must have impact on people to have any degree of success. When it’s all counted, you may also be known as mentor, leader, philanthropist which often means the prior descriptors are a given.

So what are you waiting for? Commit today to live your dream instead of the dream for someone else. Business ownership is right around the corner, and requires just one push by you to get the ball rolling!