For this Thursday’s Entrepreneur Q&A I’m going to tackle two popular questions that many prospective Entrepreneurs ask. They are “Why become an Entrepreneur?”, and more specifically, “Why is being an Entrepreneur more satisfying than a regular job?”

What could be more appealing than working 12-hour days without making the first dime? Entrepreneurship is hard work. It means working long hours with little monetary reward (at least for most people starting out). So why would anyone want to become an entrepreneur? I can’t tell you what will fulfill your own goals, passions, and skills the best. All I can do is share the reasons I believe being an Entrepreneur is more satisfying than a regular job. In this article, I’ll share my own reasons for becoming an entrepreneur, and recommend a few great books for those considering entrepreneurship.

Reason #1: Independence

I’ve never liked working for other people. Don’t get me wrong, I try to be a good employee when I’m in a 9 to 5, I just know it’s not my long-term goal. In my opinion, most entrepreneurs value their independence. As a business owner, you still have to answer to customers, vendors, and possibly lenders. So in that sense you’ll never be without bosses. If the thought of working for someone else your whole life makes you cringe, you may want to consider entrepreneurship.

Reason #2: Creating passive income and time freedom

Probably one of the biggest reasons that people become entrepreneurs is to create a business that generates income, even if they are not present. The ultimate goal for me is to have enough time and income freedom to work from anywhere, while pursuing other endeavors like travel, volunteer work, and fun with family and friends.

Passive income from a brick-and-mortar small business

Many entrepreneurs start some type of small business and end up owning a job. What I mean is that they work IN the business, instead of ON the business. The real goal is to design a business that can run without you there. Small business guru, Michael Gerber, calls this the “franchise prototype”. Your goal is to design a business that can operate independently of you. To do this, you pretend as though you are going to be franchising (or selling the business model) to others so they can duplicate your results. What you end up with is a business that anyone can run. If building a company with employees is not your thing, you can also build passive income with an internet business.

Making money on the internet

The internet provides great ways for anyone to build income from home. There are young teen entrepreneurs, stay-at-home moms, college students, and retirees building internet businesses everyday. Here are just a few ways you can build passive income on the internet.

• Make money blogging – You come up with a topic that people want to hear about. You write quality content and engage your readers. They subscribe to your news feed or sign up for email updates and begin to trust you. You find complimentary products to recommend to your readers. They sign up through your affiliate link and you make a commission.
• Information products – If you engage and motivate your readers, they will eventually want more of your expertise. This is a great time to write or record your own ebook or online course.
• Membership sites – if you have a lot of high-quality content you can build a membership site where you charge each member a fixed monthly fee.

For the most part, the type of freedom and passive income I have described is not available to those who work a typical day job.

Reason #3: Helping others by adding value to their lives

A more altruistic goal of entrepreneurs is to add value to other people’s lives. Every product or service you see is the result of someone’s idea that was acted upon. My dad was a very intelligent man. He had a very mechanical and engineering-oriented mind. He would often come up with inventions, which he’d take the time to lay out in detail. He always believed it would be too difficult to get them going. I would often hear him say how a certain invention he came up with years ago was now being mass-produced.

Although my dad never saw one of his creations hit the market, he always told me I could achieve anything. I hope to make him proud by putting my ideas and skills to work creating valuable content and helping others.

If you have great ideas, make them happen! Entrepreneurs see a need, formulate ideas to create value for their customers, and are willing to take the risk to make their ideas a reality.

Reason #4: Challenging yourself in a powerful way

To become a successful entrepreneur, you have to adopt many positive habits, while defeating the negative ones. I once read where a successful entrepreneur said, “Dedicate yourself to becoming a millionaire, because of who you become in the process”. It takes an immense amount of willpower, discipline, and hard work to build a successful business. Not to mention the skills you must develop like organizing, researching, and marketing. This is the ultimate self-improvement challenge to me. It gives me the motivation I need to change certain negative habit patterns, while developing new positive ones.

Further reading for prospective Entrepreneurs

Here are a few great books I highly recommend for developing the entrepreneurial mindset.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki tells an inspiring story of lessons he learned from his own father (Poor Dad) and his best friends father (Rich Dad). His own father urged him to get good grades, go to college, specialize in a field, and get a good job. Rich Dad explained to him how to build a business, work for experience - not money, and how the rich avoid the taxes that plague the middle class.

The E-Myth Revisited - Earlier in this post I mentioned the author of this book, Michael Gerber. Although the title leads you to believe he is discussing something on the web, it actually stands for “The Entrepreneurial Myth”. The book walks you thought the steps it takes to build your business using the “franchise prototype”. It teaches you about the different roles an entrepreneur plays in a business. More importantly, it teaches how to work ON your business and not IN your business.

4-Hour Work Week - Tim Ferriss’s fabulous book aimed at switching your mindset using his coined phrase “Lifestyle Design”. This book is all about showing you real life ways that you can stream line a business, outsource the work, and organize your life. His main goal is to inspire you to achieve time freedom, because your time is more valuable than money. Tim leads an exciting life. One that’s definitely not for everyone. But one thing is for sure, he will inspire you to change you way of thinking about work forever.

Potential Entrepreneurs: Have you decided to become an entrepreneur? Or do you feel like having a 9 to 5 job is better?

Current Entrepreneurs: What are the reasons that you decided to become an entrepreneur?

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