I can not exactly pin point exactly when I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I am not sure I ever decided on this it may have simply been something that I instinctively always knew I was going to do. However, I don't always remember having entrepreneurial thoughts. When I was younger I do remember having lemonade stands with my friends, we walked dogs, washed cars, cut grass, ect. Just to make some extra money. I have always had hopes and dreams. Even though my family was relatively poor I just always felt that I would have and be able to enjoy all of the nicer things in life.
Early on I can remember listening to my Papa at his kitchen table talking about money and past financial decisions. Papa had made many hundreds of thousands of dollars in his life time that he squandered. His whole life Papa work a regular J.O.B. (Just Over Broke) but he basically just made horrible financial decisions. He had a brother that also worked a regular J.O.B. however, he made excellent financial decisions and investments. In his later years his brother enjoyed a comfortable life taking many vacations and traveling all over the US and other parts of the world. The conversations that Papa had at his kitchen table were usually directed towards my Nannie but were for his benefit. I often listened to him say things such as, "..In 1956 if we would have invested X amount of dollars here or put in there today after taxes we would have..."(the whole time he would be punching away feverishly on his calculator). Papa talked quite abit about how he wished he had invested in that or had money to invest in this now. At that time in the late 80's early 90's he wanted to invest in Wal-Mart. Which by the way would have turned out to be an excellent investment. My brother and I at 10 and 11 years old would pick up the newspaper and try to read and understand the Financial page. We would try to make sense of all of those numbers and symbols. Papa simply explained, "This is the buy price and this is the sell price and this is the symbol for the company". He would go on to say, "You want to buy the stock when it is low and sell it when it goes up". That sounded simple enough.
When I started college I was still curious about the financial world. I would browse through investment books for beginners and try to makes sense of all that stuff. The first book I ever read that motivated me was The Complete Idiot's Guide: To Getting Rich. I hated the title but this book spoke in plain English and was easy to understand. This book spoke mainly about investing with an emphasis on mutual funds. It explained the result of compound interest. Overall I just got really excited about what I learned in that book. I often picked up random books and browsed through them. However, another book that really impacted me. Was written by Robert Kiyasoki titled What the Rich Invest in That the Poor and Middle Class do not. I remember thinking I was getting a book full of investing advice. Robert Kiyasoki, believes the rich invest in their business. Not exactly the investment advice I had been looking for. This book was focused on starting a business and the lucrative advantages that business owners have over others. For example corporations are taxed at a rate of about 18%, that is lower than the lowest tax bracket for personal income tax. Businesses can write off many of their expenses on their taxes.
For example if your business earns $100,000 in a year and you have to spend $20,000 in advertising. Many non-business people would assume the businesses earns $100,000 they are taxed say hypothetically 30% they are left with $70,000 and will have to pay their advertising bill of $20,000 and will profit $50,000. However, this example is very simplified but a more accurate picture of what happens is this. The business makes $100,000 the advertising is a tax write off so they will take their advertising amount out of their gross of $100,000 ($100,000 gross - $20,000 advertising = $80,000 profit) Since the business only shows a profit of $80,000 that is all they will be taxed on, not the full $100,000. Instead of paying $30,000 in taxes they will only pay 30% of $80,000 which is $24,000. Basically just because an entity is a business and not a person paying income taxes they are able to save $6,000. That is an extra $6,000 in their pocket. Disclaimer: This is primarily for an easy example about the benefits of owning a business. This is some of what I learned in the above mentioned book. Tax codes are very complicated always consult a tax advisor as I am not one.
Something else that Robert Kiyasoki talked about in the book was the ultimate growth of a business; which he seems to feel is for the company to be able to go public successful. In other words trade on the stock market. Prior to reading this book I was under the impression that people earning $100,000/year were rich. Mr. Kiyasoki motivated me to increase my personal goals and to change my way of thinking. In his book he talks about earning your first million being the hardest and the other millions would come a little easier than the first. I began to think maybe my goal for when I started a business should be 100,000/month. However, at that time I was in nursing school and starting a business was going to be a little ways off.
I distinctively remember walking home from school one day (this was during the period that I didn't have a car) and I was thinking about what I wanted to accomplish in my life financially. I started this thought process because I wanted a car and I was thinking if I were out of school and working as a nurse I could get a car . Then I began to think of other things I wanted when I became a nurse. I wanted to have the home of my dreams bought and paid for by the time I was 40. I wanted a Dodge Viper bought and paid for in the garage by the time I was 30. I wanted to have the option to retire at 50 if I so choose. Then, I began to calculate what my nursing salary would be (about $35,000/year). I started calculating how much I could possibly save. It was then for the very first time I realized that I would most likely never hit my goals if I expected to do it from a nursing salary. Those goals would have been almost impossible to hit even with a nursing salary and good investments.
These thoughts sparked other thoughts. I began to realize that many people would say; one day I want this or one day I want that but they never really meant it. They never truly made the decision to turn those dreams into goals. I made a consicous decision that I was going to reach my goals. I was 20 years old at the time, and I knew I had to get serious. It was like an epiphany, I can remember exactly where I was at on my walk home when all of this began to hit me. I knew from that point on I would have to get serious about a business in order to reach my goals. I wasn't sure which business, I knew that I had several ideas that could become businesses. First of all I needed to finish nursing school. Then I would work at becoming a serious entrepreneur. Since that day my daily thoughts have almost always been saturated with the idea of entrepreneurship.
In the next several posts I am going to discuss several business ideas I have had in the past and several businesses I have attempted to start up thus far in my life.
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