From time to time I am reminded of something. I am a square peg in a mostly round hole world.
This is not a news flash to me. I have known this since I can remember. I never thought the same way as most people. I do not act or have the same mannerisms as most. My sense of humor can be downright despised. I even dress and look different than most.
None of it is done on purpose or as some grand plan to seperate myself from the crowd. I just do not think like most other people do.
While this mental state will of course cause problems in my life it is also the reason why I am an entrepreneur and a successful one at that. I don’t think like everyone else. I look at everything through different eyes than most. I see potential where most see nothing and I see nothing where most find interest.
People find it strange that I can probably count the number of fiction books I have read in my whole life on my fingers and toes and yet I read constantly. I have always found it a huge waste of my time to dive into the “fantasy land” of a fiction book. Why would I read about Elves or spaceships when I could be reading about something that actually exists? Why sit around fantasizing about a life when I could be making one? When I was a child I read the World Book Encyclopedias for fun. While others read comic books i was reading about the average rainfall in Brazil. As an adult I read business and history books. I also read bio’s from time to time. I read 20-30 books a year at least. I read a fiction book about 3-4 years ago. If i am going to read I want to get something out of it beyond and escape. I like my life, why would I want to escape it?
I hear people all the time say “I would do anything for a body like that”. I caught myself saying it 6-7 months ago. Right after I said it I said “Except work out and eat a proper diet apparently.”. So instead of being a person that says that I changed my diet and started working out 5-6 days a week. I hate damn near all of it but I have a long term goal and right now I look pretty damn good without a shirt on. Most people just make excuses as to why they can not look that way. I decided to challenge myself to do it. I thought about posting pictures, as I take one at least every month, to show that it is not impossible even at 44 years of age.
I do not see work the same way others do. I see work as a chance to further what I am doing every day, not as a burden I need to time in for and clock out at 5 about and then forget all about it. I like getting work done. I like creating. I like starting a business from nothing more than a silly idea in a notebook and turning it into something that can generate an income for not only myself but the people I employ. I like seeing the results of my work happen in front of me and that is rewarding.
I do not vacation well. I find it an over-used feeling and an emotion trap. People whine about how badly they need a vacation when they work 40 hours a week at a job they literally check out of for the other 128 hours in a week. Maybe if you did not spend 100 of those hours dreading what you did for a living and hating every moment leading up to it you wouldn’t need 4 weeks of vacation a year. I love what I do. Even when I worked for someone else I took pride in what I did and being the best at it. I did not always look forward to my job, but it certainly was not something I needed so much time away from.
I could go on and on but I guess what I am saying here is that it takes a certain mentality to be an entrepreneur and it goes well beyond just business sense. That will come with experience. It takes much more. It takes sacrifice. It takes devotion. Mostly it takes being the bent fork in a drawer full of perfectly normal silverware.