Why Entrepreneurship?

For an entrepreneur, work is not always a negative term. It points to an enlightening experience—an opportunity to make meaning, shape culture and advance the common good. As an entrepreneur, my future work rests in my own hands. I can use my gifts to catalyze change in the community. This type of meaningful work is not just a job, not simply a career, but a true calling—a vocation.

I caught the entrepreneurship bug early on—I even found evidence of it dating back to when I was seven years old. Fed up with the options of lackluster birthday party places I drew up a pamphlet of “Party Palace,” boasting a pirate ship playground, fashion show runway, and disco dance hall, all under one roof. All of the party descriptions included ages they were best suited for and what the cake would look like. Reasons why my business was better than the Chuckie Cheeses of the world were included as well.

Maybe I was born this way, but it is probable I owe my entrepreneurial fervor to my father and the example he set for us to follow our dreams. He followed his own dream fifteen years ago when he started one of the first independent financial planning firms. To this day he still loves his job and excitedly shares his upcoming projects and plans for improvement. I aspire to have the ability to hire my own employees, choose my own clients, and set my own hours, just as he did. Flexibility and job satisfaction of this kind are very rare, but beat an uninspiring or monotonous job hands down.

The risks and obstacles associated with entrepreneurship thrill me more than discourage me. I openly welcome challenge, and my personality and strengths are well suited for overcoming the challenges associated with running one’s own business. Even as a busy college student, I can’t seem to get enough of the business world—reading Forbes, Fortune and FastCompany, newspapers and blogs whenever I have the chance. I get excited and inspired over this news, hearing what companies are doing right, wrong, new, different. It is stimulating and supplemental to my own entrepreneurial ideas and further confirms that this is the right career path for me.

A life of meaningful work is a life well spent. Entrepreneurs bring about significant good in the community. They also face society claiming the opposite is true. While the great majority of business owners are not embezzling funds and ripping off customers, they do face other problems. “Workaholism” is a serious problem and entrepreneurs are especially vulnerable. To combat this, I can create a routine that sets aside time for family, friends, silence, reflection, and service. This organization lends to a wholesome lifestyle that will hopefully keep me healthy and only enhance my work.

Just the other day, I was introduced to someone new who asked what I was majoring in at UST. After responding “entrepreneurship,” the skeptical stranger replied, “So you are majoring in ‘I don’t want to work for anyone else’? Explain this to me…” I confidently responded, “I want to work for the good of everyone else.” Not everyone understands it, but I feel I am called to be an entrepreneur—a highly principled business professional who sees opportunity in problems and refuses to sit back and watch the world turn.