Employee Mindset: The Harm of Pay Day

As an entrepreneur, we all want towards our full potential and take a chance on ourselves… and payday becomes harmful. There are many reasons why being an employee hurts you. How can you avoid that while maintaining stability?

I am a creative.

I am entrepreneurial.

I am a big-vision-ideas sort of person.

It’s not mixed well for me in my professional life.

It works a little better now, as my career is in marketing.

But I still find it hard to maintain focus on one topic, hence the personal blog and prolific writing over the last couple of weeks.

You might be the same.

Have you ever done something at work and your manager has said… ‘What a minute, take a step back, what are you doing?’

I’ve had many of them.

I first started in the Probation Service, I organised an ‘Apprentice Meet-Up’ and sent it out as a finalised idea before seeking approval from my manager.

The day went ahead, but only after several meetings and my manager making it clear to me that anything like this happened again, they wouldn’t be happy.

They wanted to be consulted next time, it was understandable.

But for me, it was my worst nightmare.

Being boxed in?

Having to seek approval before executing on an idea?

Not moving onto something else and having a normalised routine in my work?

Boring.

But if you are to succeed, you must build on your skills and experience.

And to do so, you need to put in the work at the bottom-level to know what the daily grind is like.

That is what I have learned so far.

But that is not to say that, if you have an inner desire to succeed and an entrepreneurial spirit, as I have, then you may not be stunted by work.

You may well be.

You may be best served to open your own business.

But you must find that balance.

I have opened two businesses that have failed.

Both times I was unemployed while I was trying to run the business, and dependent on it.

I have a written already on the virtues of having a job when you first start your business, and it’s not that a job is bad, it’s the mentality of being an employee.

You can have a job, and not be an employee.

You can see your job as a means to get by. It doesn’t have to become who you are, what you identify as.

I don’t want to give blanket advice to you in this blog.

I do not have enough context to your situation to advise you.

What I want to point out is some of the disasters of being in an employee mindset, and how you can evade them.

Reducing your complacency

Rejecting other’s perceptions

Your manager and ‘higher-ups’ at work do not define your potential.

They may recognise little bits of it, but they never notice it fully.

And you don’t either.

But other people’s perceptions can start to define you over time.When a manager says “You are great at this” you start to think that’s what you should be doing. When the truth is, you might be compelled to do something completely different.

I wanted to do marketing in a previous company so much, but they had me down as a salesman and rejected exposing me to the marketing, saying that I had a natural inclination for the sales aspect of the company.

I did become the best performer in the team, but they didn’t keep me long enough to unlock my true potential, because they didn’t recognise another skill I had… writing copy and a love for marketing. Sticking to your true intention

You go into a career all bubbly-eyed about what the future may hold.

You envision yourself changing the world with your craft.

Starry-eyed and wobbling from side to side from your dose of the dream drug; the opportunity of a lifetime.

And then you get into the role and it’s “You need to take your time, here: go and read these policies and procedures.”

Your dream is over in an instant.

When you are living out your destiny as a business owner, or have a creative endeavour that is independent of your career, you are in control… and that feels amazing.

Your sense of worth comes from sticking to the script and going forward with your true intentions, rather than high-fiving colleagues at 4.45pm because you’re clocking out of work and heading for the coach.

Utilise your time outside of work

I spoke about starting your business when you are employed.

It’s a blessing.

And as we slip into the complacency of a job role, we start to become enticed into time-wasting activities on an evening that we count as ‘leisure.’

Is it so leisurely to sit and watch TV, or spend an hour browsing YouTube?

I am 26 years old, I have no time to be sat around doing nothing.

I suspect you don’t either.

Use that time to your advantage and become great at your craft.

Nurture your passion for art, culture, writing, whatever it is you are interested in doing.

It might be harder than sitting and watching reruns of Friends, but once you get started it creates a sense of engagement in your own life that you can only imagine as you sit and stare at the TV for four hours after work to ‘wind down.’

Never blame your job

Your job is secondary to your craft.

And it is secondary to your life.

This is not do-or-die.

It is in many cases, but that’s why it’s great to have options.

You should always respect your job, and be grateful for the opportunities they give you to utilise your skills.

But you should never over-identify with your job, or even worse: blame it for your shortcomings.

If you want to make something in this life, you do it yourself.

And your job helps keep you financially stable while you get off the ground.

The employee blames their job for not achieving their dreams… “If I wasn’t spending all this time at work… I’d do this.”

Yeah sure… I bet you would.

If you didn’t have a job, you would be sat in bed depressed and have nothing to identify with.

We’ve all been there.

Don’t do anything to ‘escape the grind’

The grind is a grind is a grind.

Ever heard that? Me neither, but it sounds right.

I am fed up of this ‘escaping the rat race’

I want to beat the rat race.

I don’t want to work four hour days.

I want to work fourteen-hour days.

On something important to me.

Don’t do anything to ‘escape the grind’ and ‘make quick cash.’

It never works. Cash dissipates. Cashflow is king. Cash is trash…

You need to be engaged over the long-term with your craft and aim to become prolific.

Always consider other opportunities

The fact is, nobody has you shackled to your desk.

You may have shackled yourself to that desk, by identifying too heavily with your job role.

But nobody has a shotgun aimed at your face as you sit uploading files onto your CMS to prove to your managers you have done something productive today.

You should always consider other opportunities.

There is some virtue in sticking with one company over the long-term. And if you have found the right opportunity, then I suggest you stick by someone who is going to treat you right and allow you to grow with the business.

But if you haven’t found that yet?

Keep your eyes and ears to the ground. There are thousands of lost opportunities for you out there, all because you have become so attached to your role, to your colleagues and to your company that you have forgotten that you are an individual.

And that is what you are, at the end of the day.

An individual.

If you are working for someone right now, what would you do if that company filed for bankruptcy and you had no job to go back to next week?

Would that bring your life to a standstill, or would you still have other things in the pipeline that keeps you engaged in your craft?