Never start a business until you hear this..(3 THINGS THAT MAY CHANGE YOUR MIND)

Summary

• Quitting my consulting job was the hardest decision I've ever made, even though I was deeply depressed and questioned my existence.
• Despite academic and early career success, I was motivated to quit because I couldn't stand the emptiness and dissatisfaction with my life.
• Leaving requires tremendous self-awareness, understanding your pain threshold, and recognizing how much you're willing to risk for potential happiness.
• Deciding to sell my condo and move to California for a fresh start in the fitness industry was a jump into the unknown, driven by an eradication of the fear of failure.
• The skills and lessons learned in my previous job, such as learning how to learn, were invaluable, though I did not enjoy the job itself.
• Being an entrepreneur isn't for everyone; those needing external motivation likely won't thrive in the loneliness and challenges it brings.
• I encourage you to assess whether your dissatisfaction stems from your current company, the work itself, or financial aspects — alternatives exist besides entrepreneurship.
• Expect a potential 3-5 year drop in income after leaving your job to pursue entrepreneurship. I personally reinvested my savings into mentorship and learning, which was a risky but necessary move.
• The median income for small business owners is $49,000, and the average is $73,000 — set realistic expectations based on these figures.
• Before quitting, consider improving your current situation, learn new skills on someone else's dime, and potentially start a side hustle to mitigate risk.
• Live frugally and reinvest in personal growth to enhance your long-term earning potential and business growth prospects.
• When deciding to start your own business, consider your unique circumstances, test your business model as a side hustle, and ensure you have a solid foundation before taking the leap.
• Acknowledge the general overconfidence in financial success expectations among younger individuals and maintain realistic aspirations.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting with understanding your level of dissatisfaction with your current job. If you're not happy, think about whether it's because of the company, the type of work, or the pay. Maybe you can switch companies or ask how to provide more value in your current role to learn new skills and earn more.

If entrepreneurship intrigues you, first test your business idea as a side hustle. This reduces the risk and lets you learn important skills while still earning a salary. And remember, it's okay not to rush. Taking this step-by-step approach can help you figure out whether running your own business is truly for you.

Before quitting, also consider living frugally. This way, if and when income drops during your initial years in entrepreneurship, the impact won't hurt as much. Use that time to invest in personal growth, like mentorship and learning, just like I did with my savings. It's risky but often necessary.

When deciding to take the leap into your own business, look at the median income for small business owners ($49,000) and set realistic financial expectations. Keep in mind that success takes time, and most businesses don't earn huge amounts right away.

Finally, consider your personal situation before going all in. Make sure you've built a solid foundation with your side hustle, and you're ready for the long-term commitment. Have a clear understanding of the risks, and be prepared for a potential initial decrease in income. Remember, entrepreneurship is not just about making money; it's about making a life that you're happy with.

Quotes by Alex Hormozi

"If you need motivational quotes or motivational words, then entrepreneurship isn't for you"

– Alex Hormozi

"You'd be surprised what you can accomplish when you have no choice"

– Alex Hormozi

"Entrepreneurship is the ultimate value investment in yourself"

– Alex Hormozi

"It's amazing to get paid to learn how to do something"

– Alex Hormozi

"Live cheap and keep your expectations cheap so that if your income does drop, you're still not losing money"

– Alex Hormozi

Full Transcript

me quitting my job was the single hardest decision that i've ever made in my entire life so rewind a handful of years ago i was sitting on my balcony i was 22 years old and i was staring out over this condo that i had purchased because the job that i had you know paid me well and i was looking over the city of baltimore and i thought to myself is this it and this was a rock top and rock bottom moment for me specifically because at that time i had graduated in three years from vanderbilt mad come laude i was president of all these things while i was at school i got a good consulting job and i had saved almost 50 000 at that point and i had this condo that was increasing in value and i saved pretty much everything minus my mortgage and i was as i was looking out there all i could think to myself was how i hated my life and how i hated my job and i just didn't i felt so empty inside and i was so depressed that i really every day i would consider as i was driving like what if i went into the other lane and just like things would end and so that was like my actual reality and so that's called passive ideation which is like i'm not saying that i would want to you know kill myself but if i died and didn't wake up tomorrow i wouldn't be upset and that was kind of the existence that i lived for two years of my life and it was very hard time for me and so i don't know where you're at in your entrepreneurial journey but i kind of wanted to answer one of the questions that i get most frequently which is you know when should i quit and start my own business and so i think a lot of it depends on you specifically in self-awareness and i'm going to talk about skill set in a second but i want to talk about the mindset first me quitting my job was the single hardest decision that i've ever made in my entire life and i mean that genuinely it was the hardest decision that i've made it took me six months to do it and i listened to arnold's rules of success speech every morning when i wake up about you know it's okay to fail and i had to keep saying this stuff because i was so outwardly driven i was so status driven that i didn't want to take the risk of being seen as a failure and so it only was when i was literally confronted with my own you know the fact that i was really not even willing to be alive anymore is when that was kind of my jogging to awaken this moment where i was like you know what if i don't even want to be alive anymore then what's worse than that and so that was what ultimately shot me on the trajectory to you know quit that job sell the condo put everything that i had in my car and i drove across the country in 36 hours to california which is where i thought the land of fitness opportunity would be now mind you i was a management consultant we did space cyber intelligence for the military at a subcontractor or a booze allen if you're familiar with that consulting firm and that's what i did for two years and it sounds really you know cool and sexy but it was not at all for me and i really did not enjoy it but i learned some valuable lessons like how to learn while i was there and so i think that what most people you know it really depends on who you are and understanding your skill set and honestly and how much pain you're in and so there's also different ways to satisfy that pain i think true to my core if i had been in a different company or i was working on different projects at that time in my life i probably would have never quit it was so hard for me and i didn't have a wife i didn't have kids i had zero dependence and i lived on nothing and it was still one of the hardest decisions of my life because i'm very risk-averse so believe it or not most entrepreneurs you know a lot of people talk about how they you know they didn't do well in school and you know teachers never understood them they always knew they had to go out on their own i never had any of that i worked really hard in school i did really well in school teachers liked me for the most part and you know i got a good job afterwards and so i did not have the traditional entrepreneur journey and it was only because i was so sad deeply depressed in that time of my life and felt so empty that i actually made the jump and so i think the first thing is like one are you are you incredibly sad are you incredibly dissatisfied with your life so much so that you'd be willing to uproot and change number one number two entrepreneurship is not easy and so if you need i think elon musk said this on a clubhouse meeting and i just think it's so true people are like what words of motivation would you give for a new entrepreneur if you need motivational quotes or motivational words then entrepreneurship isn't for you and i tend to agree with him like if you need that motivation like it is one of the loneliest paths period you know at least in co-workers you have other people who are around you you can but when you start on your own you're starting at zero with no one and basically no one's rooting for you like for me when i left like no one really supported me my parents thought i was stupid and that this was a stupid idea i was throwing my education away and i was risking everything just go start a gym right which is really not even that good of a return on investment you know what i mean but i was so committed to the fact that i was so miserable that i was like at least i can just live my life doing something that i enjoy i don't even care if i make money and that was literally the mindset that i was able to to quit with and so i again i don't know where you're at but the first piece of this is understanding short and long-term payoffs i did not make a significant amount of money for years after i quit my job right so i'd say for the first four years i i essentially broke even and made less money than i did as a consultant all right so like think about that for a second right now there's a lot of mistakes i made too and you're going to make them as well because none of us is perfect there's so many skills that you have to like you have to acquire so many skills to run a business right and so you may have a single job right now and you're you're doing one specific function of one specific sub department of a business but in order to be an entrepreneur you have to understand all of it right in order to be a successful entrepreneur so you have to understand how to generate demand you have to generate understand how to generate leads you have to understand how to work leads you have to understand how to sell you have to understand how to fulfill and deliver and how to manage people how to communicate how to relay expectations how like how to recruit how to hire how to interview like there's so many things that you have to learn and i don't want that to be overwhelming i just want to confront you with reality because honestly if i knew how hard it was going to be when i started my first business i don't know if i would have done it i just i forced myself into a hole and i always like to say this is you'd be surprised what you can accomplish when you have no choice as as dark and morbid as i'm gonna as what i'm gonna say is and don't get triggered by this but like the fact that an entire race in our country was enslaved for hundreds of years and was still able to do that every day shows the strength of the human spirit and what is possible when you have no choice and so i think that to juxtapose what i said about how hard it is if you can put yourself in a position where you have no choice you will be successful right if you want to succeed as bad as you can breathe you will be successful and so i think that was the situation where i was in where i was i knew that the alternative to what i was doing was death for me and so it was just anything is better than this and honestly the next you know year of my life even after that was still incredibly hard but it was different but it was still incredibly hard and so just to give you a couple of stats on this that i think i think everyone should have data to make decisions um it's proper expectations right so the average so this is according to small business administration the median excuse me the median income of a small business owner 49 000 a year so i don't know what you're making right now but this is what the middle of the small business ownership makes now you might be making more than that there are people who are number 30 at google we make way more than this right and they're and so you have to understand kind of where you sit on the hierarchy and there are some people who would be so much better served there are so many of my ex-employees who ended up going out on their own and i don't think many of them make more than they did when they were with us and they probably have more stress and that's okay that was their choice and there are trade-offs you make for freedom right there are trade-offs right risk and reward there are both of those things in the aspect of this decision now that's supposed to say average sorry now if you're curious what's the average small business owner make according to the sba 73 000 a year now averages are skewed because there's top end people that move that average up so that should say average sorry but median's 49 that means that the most likely most repeated outcome is 49 000 a year which is pretty much the median household income of the united states kind of interesting and then the average is 73 000. so it depends on where you're at and how dissatisfied you are and so the first thing is are you dissatisfied because you don't like the company you work for are you dissatisfied because you don't like the work you do now both of those have solutions that are outside of starting your own business right you can just go and find a different position and learn on someone else's dollar which is i think is so wildly under underappreciated like go to a company that you like and learn and get paid to learn that's amazing right like because you're not going to learn anything at school that's going to be useful for business right so if you want to be an entrepreneur you're going to have to learn these things in the real world and so going and getting paid to learn is one of the best things you can possibly imagine you just have to understand that what you're getting paid for is not going to be your income for life it's literally you getting paid to learn how to do something which is amazing i did not have that i literally went from making money to starting to learn everything from scratch and i and it was very difficult for me now the the piece here about short short term versus long term if you make this decision expect a three four maybe five year decrease in income right you're not going to make as much money for the first few years right and then maybe if you are successful and you reinvest in yourself and you grow and you acquire skills and beliefs and attitudes and character traits then you will be able to have the long-term payoff but entrepreneurship is the ultimate value investment in yourself and so again there are lots of people who don't have the risk tolerance for that and that is okay the vast majority of people should not be entrepreneurs the second thing in terms of the choices right in the beginning it's do i need to switch companies that's if i don't like what i'm doing uh sorry if i don't like the company i'm working for number two is do i need to switch what i'm doing and get paid to learn which is a second alternative to quitting your position number three is if i if i like what i'm doing and i like the company am i just not getting paid enough well then talk to them and see how you can provide more value do not ask i would like to get paid more say how can i provide more value if you ask that question any any smart business owner be able to tell you exactly how to provide more value so that you can make more in a low risk environment and then the fourth way you can do this if you're considering quitting is start investing all of your extra time in acquiring the other skills and start actually doing it spend some money on marketing do some outreach do those types of things to generate demand for your business now in the beginning it's going to be a side hustle but over time it can grow and then at a certain point it will grow in excess of what you are currently making and then you can make the jump i did not do that what i did was candidly very stupid i got lucky i got very lucky i got extraordinarily lucky that i had people who were able to speak into my life at an early time point i was able to learn from experts very very quickly which candidly i invested in that i paid all of my savings that i'd saved up the 50 000 was gone within the first three months of me starting entrepreneurship gone because i paid for mentorship i paid for coaching programs and i bought and i and i reinvested in a gym which i shouldn't have done um i shouldn't have opened it the way i did because i didn't know any better right and so the biggest issue your biggest risk when you start on your own is that you don't know what you're doing right and so the idea is if you can decrease your downside risk by learning more skills getting paid to learn them asking your business how you can provide more value which will allow you to learn more skills and get paid more as you do it right if you do all of those things and after doing all those steps you still are not satisfied then be willing to make the risk and make the short-term trade-off that you're going to make less for a period of time and so this is why i'm so such a big believer in in in living cheap right live cheap and keep your expectations at cheap so that if your your income does drop you're still not losing money and then long term you can keep reinvesting in yourself so that you as the valuable asset can become more valuable and then increase in your earning potential and by extension because of the skills you learn grow your business so to answer the question um when do you when you couldn't start a business it depends on who you are and where you're at in your life there are lots of other steps you can do before that like switch a company switch the job ask if you can do things that are making you more valuable start the side hustle first then start making sure that it works if you like it before betting everything on it and then finally if none of those things uh work for you then at that point i would say okay if you have reasonable means that you've that you've saved up you have a vehicle that you know is tested you know other people who are doing that specific thing and you can do it then i would say by all means but i think that i made a lot of stupid decisions and candidly i think i got really lucky and so um that is that is the the long way to answer to this question which is when when do you when do you quit start your own business it depends on you i can't give you a perfect answer because i don't know who you are but those are the frameworks that i'd be thinking of and these are the expectations that i would set in understanding the average 18 year old a senior in high school when surveyed believes that they will be a millionaire by age 25. how ridiculously unreasonable is that that they believe this is the average right believes that they're going to be in the top 1 within 7 years of graduating high school let's be real here do we think that that is a reasonable expectation no so if you believe that the stats are against you doesn't mean i'm saying i don't believe in you i believe in you 100 i'm your biggest fan but understand that these are the actual expectations of what this means all right i remember when i quit my job and i found out what the top gym owners were making and i remember literally my first thought was that's it and so you have to understand that there's there's the hullabaloo of revenue which i made in another video about measuring value lots of people talk big numbers not a lot of people make big numbers most people are broke and the reason i have this channel is to make sure that you are not one of them and so uh hope you enjoyed this click subscribe if you did and i'll see in the next video