While we often speak of the downfalls of Entrepreneurship and how difficult the journey can be, we often forget to mention that many of the difficulties we face are often created by ourselves years before we even entertain becoming entrepreneurs. One of those self created fears is indeed our inability to let go of our comfort zone, which we’ve discussed time and time again but have never really broken down the idea that our comfort zone is created by a silent enemy that we keep feeding without knowing.
The concept of society is created and operated by many systems. From education to banking, and without forgetting government, there are many of these systems in place to keep the majority of people functioning and moving forward, rather than keeping them at a standstill and allowing them to become unproductive along the way. In order to boost such productivity and allow people to aspire to be more than they are, even if they are lazy, a powerful tool was created called DEBT.
You see, debt is an Entrepreneur’s worst enemy and yet we continue to feed our urges without ever understanding the physiological downfall of our behavior. When we are young, we observe our parents early on dealing with debt, from their mortgage to their car note, we observe the idea of buying things that are much more money than we have in our pocket and understand that if we want, we too can have this things without paying for them. The idea of having a $30,000 item but only paying $400 a month seems like it would only be a good thing as it enables us to enjoy luxuries we otherwise could not afford.
On the surface, debt doesn’t look like a bad idea and we could argue that it could be leveraged for motivation and greatness. Unfortunately isn’t until we are well experienced and understand ourselves that those things come into play. At first, debt is created to help us remain slaves to the rat race that we strive so hard to escape. That’s right, the rat race is actually closely tied and re-enforced by debt. By having an obligation that is large, you are obligated to work rather than think and by tasting the luxuries that having more money gives you, you get used to a fake lifestyle that you fear losing and therefore create a comfort zone beyond your needs, one that constitute a convenience that should have never existed to begin with but will now only turn into a fear of losing it.
Most people’s excuse for not quitting their job is that they have a mortgage, a family, and obligations to pay which doesn’t allow them to take a risk or chance on themselves. While these are nothing more than excuses, they are fueled and supported by debt that shouldn’t have been there to begin with. In other words, you subconsciously are creating yourself a false reality and then making yourself believe that it is a vital part of your life, and you must be able to maintain or move forward from there. Since you are taking on debt in order to afford your lifestyle, you most likely are not at the level of lifestyle that your debt allows you to live to, and so in order to leverage yourself you must be able to differentiate your real life from the self created lie debt enabled you to put yourself into. If you look at it from this angle you will actually see that your real life’s comfort zone is actually not that far from the life you would have should you give up your job and take a chance on yourself.
The same can be said about other such systems like “school education” and “taxes”, these systems are once more created to allow workflow and productivity within the system but also created to discourage people from looking outside the box. For example, while there is nothing wrong with being formally educated, there was a negative stigma for years and even to this day against those who never graduated. Even if the value of the person or their skillset exceeded the requirements of a job, 9 out of 10 employers looked down at the person’s inability to complete a formal education. While there are elements of the educational system one must absorb quickly such as speaking and writing skills, there should still be no limitations as to their ability to move forward even if they have not actually attained a piece of paper. Skillset and ability should hold more weight than formalized education but unfortunately until the recent economic collapse, they didn’t anywhere and still to this day continue to not in the eyes of many. Taxes, on the other hand, are also driven to keep you in the system. While you pay taxes regardless that you work for others or yourself, you are also subject to self-employment tax on top of the tax others pay. Why should it be more difficult to go out there and try to create jobs, rather than work at one? It shouldn’t but it should be noted that your desire to look outside of this system or scope of control is usually frowned upon and indirectly discouraged.
While all of these systems are created by others and have value despite being driven to keep you in the second circle (rat race), they are also pre conditioning to keep you productive within a system rather than helping you seek out the creation of your very own system.
Next time you make an excuse as to why it may not be the right time to act on your dreams, ask yourself if it is your excuse or that of the circumstance you have put yourself in?
