What's Your WHY in Your Business

As I said in a previous blog post, starting your own business can be challenging. You may have some sleepless and eat-less nights.  Unlike a traditional job where you go to work for eight hours a day/40 hours a week (sometimes more), your own business may find you burning the midnight oil----even on the weekends. And while you get a steady paycheck from your regular job (which you will NEVER own), as a business owner you may not see a steady anything for awhile.  

As someone who has flirted with being an entrepreneur, I understand that starting a business takes passion, perseverance and purpose.  It's what I like to call it my "why."  If you don't have a WHY, you can't be very serious about your business.  Your WHY will keep you focused on your goals.  Your WHY will make you keep moving towards your goals when you want to give up.  Your WHY will fuel the passion you have to succeed.

Everyone's WHY is different.  Sure I want to achieve financial success---as does everyone else, but my WHY goes deeper than that.  My WHY is my family.  I don't want my daughter or grandson to have the financial burden of taking care of my expenses when I can no longer take care of them myself or when I die. When my mother passed away in 2012, she left over $100K in debt in the state of Ohio that I had absolutely no clue about.  As her only heir, I became responsible.  I will not go into details about how this story played out in the end but the lesson I learned is that I was the product of parents who did not understand generational wealth.  

GENERATIONAL WEALTH:  an aspect of financial planning that is geared towards passing down stable, significant financial resources to future generations.

As I said earlier, my WHY may not be the same as yours, but perhaps these are some others reasons that motivate you: 

You want meaning and purpose for your life:  Your commitment to your business will strengthen your sense of purpose.

You can learn new skills:  You don't need an MBA to start a new business.  Many times you pick up the skills as you go along.  

You can give money to causes you care about:  There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a "do-gooder" in our world.  And there are so many needs in our society.  The Gates Foundation, created by Bill and Melinda Gates, have donated nearly $32 billion to charitable causes.

You want to travel more:  Owning your own business can give you the freedom to travel more to places you've only dreamed about.  And what's better than traveling to some exotic place and using it as a tax write off.  When my husband and I traveled to St. Lucia for our honeymoon, I donated some of my books to the hotel where we were staying, did a little speaking, and used part of the trip as a tax write off.

You can be your own boss:  When you start your own business, you ARE the boss.  It's that simple.  The answering to no one but yourself will always be attractive and you can work with a hand-picked team who will, hopefully, all be on the exact same page leading towards success.

Here's to your WHY!