How I decided to become my own boss
I knew I wanted to be my own boss when I started to feel miserable 6 months into working in my dream job. I had just received my bachelor's degree in Global Political Science and earned an internship at the Canadian Embassy in Spain. Wow!! My professional life surely was starting on a good note and if I played my cards right, I may even become an ambassador myself after two decades or so. How exciting and fulfilling! The only problem was; I realized I had no patience for bureaucratic procedures. When I had an idea, I felt like I needed to execute it right away. I simply had to try it out. See how far it could go, or how dramatically it would fail.
The feeling of freedom of thought and execution was what attracted me most to entrepreneurship.
When my internship was over, at age 24, I thanked everyone for the opportunity, made zero efforts to look for stable government jobs, and decided I'd take some time to explore other working environments, for example in the private sector.
Fast forward two years: I was working in the private sector and had become pretty good at something called "marketing and sales". I had found a place in the corporate world that rewarded creativity, boldness and quick execution. This seemed to be a little closer to my dream job. Nonetheless, I still felt like there was a glass ceiling over my head. I had acquired a little more freedom since my embassy days, but truth be told, I only felt like I was in a slightly "bigger cage" than the one offered at the public sector. I also had no motivation to compete with peers and reach higher paying jobs. Climbing the corporate ladder was not for me. And yet, I knew I had high professional ambitions.
And so it became clear:
I wanted to be 100% in charge of my ability to create value in this world and 100% responsible for earning my money.
The only solution was to become my own boss.
My drive for entrepreneurship was based on being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want. Of course this did not mean sleeping in, spending all day at the beach, and partying all night. This meant working a lot more than 40 hours a week. It meant making much less money for several years. It also meant carrying all the financial and reputational risks on my own two shoulders. And guess what: this is precisely where I found motivation and meaning in life.
Entrepreneurs share this crazy personality trait where we can see a list of pros and cons on which the "cons" side is packed with scary facts and the "pros" side only has one word: freedom. This is enough for us to say "oh yeah, that sounds exactly like what I want!".
Next week I'll write about what steps I took after deciding I wanted to be my own boss to actually make it happen.
To all readers who resonate with this story, read out loud: I GOT THIS
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