“What type of business to start…A good starting point in deciding what type of business you should start, or if you should consider starting a business, begins with understanding who and what you are. In a society such as ours, few people understand themselves-a fact borne out by the number of counsellors and psychiatrists employed. Most people are running to satisfy expectations and demands placed on them from the outside. They never stop long enough to spend time with themselves to get to know that person inside. To get to know that person inside generally requires a degree of isolation and quiet. Our world is one of overstimulation, where most people hide from themselves, constantly in a state of overstimulation. Surrounded by people and noise even when alone, the television, stereo, or radio are on: something, anything, to drown out the quiet.
A period of reflection and meditation in solitude to acquire a degree of personal understanding is often required before making life-altering changes. Without a sense of self, the tendency exists to continually chase that “something out there.” “I want to go into business to get rich.” “I want to make a lot of money.” Such reasoning is dangerously superficial. Begin with the right reason for you; go into business if doing so will bring a sense of fulfilment to you.
Every person brings himself or herself into business. Personal strengths and personal weaknesses within the context of a level of skill and talent will tend to create for the entrepreneur a realm of opportunity and a realm of constraints. One’s personal strengths need to be strong enough on which to base a workable business concept, and personal weaknesses must not be such that they could cause the business to fail. For some people, the entrepreneurs always knew the type of business they wanted to start.”
Source: Urlacher, L.S. (1999). Small business entrepreneurship: An ethics and human relations perspective. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Simon & Schuster.
In the next post we’ll start to investigate some of your attitudes and behaviours to help you identify relevant business opportunities. By looking at your attitudes and behaviours, we can begin to compare them to those of an entrepreneurial mind-set. The entrepreneurial mind-set may be used and/or developed to contribute to your success in the business world.
Please note: You may notice that this particular reading is talking specifically about “coaching”. Due to the similar nature of professions, the information in this reading is applicable to counselling.
