Is Entrepreneurship Really The Safest Path?

Driving to work this morning, I was listening to a call-in show about “the future of jobs.”
 
Two back-to-back callers grabbed my attention.
 
The first owned a book store. “What do you do, and whattaya make?” (Say it in a DJ voice)
 
She said, “I own a book store, and I do everything! I do my books, I do ordering, inventory…I’m the only staff person. I work fifteen-hour days. I make about $22 per hour.”
 
DJ: “How much per year?”
 
Store owner: “About 50k, give or take.”
 
The next caller was a librarian.
 
DJ: “What do you do, and whattaya make?” (same DJ voice – there’s a reason these guys make 30k per year.)
 
Librarian: “I’m a librarian. I make seventy-one-thousand-dollars-per-year. I work about 35 hours per week.”
 
DJ: “Wow! A librarian makes that much money?”
 
Librarian (scoffing): “Well, it takes a Masters’ Degree to do my job…”
 
DJ: “That’s a lot of late fees. How many books do you swipe in a day?”
 
Librarian (mildly offended): “Oh, I don’t do that. We have staff for that.”
 
To a business owner at the end of a long week, a librarian’s job sounds pretty sweet.
 
$71,000 per year. 35 hours per week. Staff to handle the book-swiping and late fees.
And probably job security (at least for the next five years.) You and I both know libraries are wooly mammoths headed for the cliff, but many small businesses are even closer. So let’s set that aside.
 
The book store owner has traded security for opportunity. Willingly so.
Most people wouldn’t make that trade. You would. So would I.
 
Because with opportunity comes AGILITY.
 
Let’s say, by 2020, everyone reads e-books. What happens to the librarian?
 
The store owner has options: she can sell something else, like e-readers. She can become an Amazon affiliate, and write blog posts about her favorite books, and earn a small commission that way. She can set up a coffee shop, buy some couches, and let people read there. Or she can sell candles.
 
Library jobs are fragile. The entrepreneur is antifragile.
 
The skills you learn from your first business can be translated to other businesses.
 
In TwoBrain, may gym owners are now building much larger businesses using the SAME practices they learned in the Incubator. In fact, I built TwoBrain into a worldwide brand, with clients on every continent and a team of elite mentors, using the same things we teach. We mentor entrepreneurs, even if we do it through the lens of the gym owner.
 
It might not feel like it now, my friend, but YOU are building job security that the librarian will never have. These early lessons, hard though they may be, will serve you forever–learn all you can from them. Or learn from mine. You are making yourself–and your family–more secure for the long-term.

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One more thing!

Did you know gym owners can earn $100,000 a year with no more than 150 clients? We wrote a guide showing you exactly how.