It’s hard to imagine a First World Philippines without entrepreneurs. The scarcity of new local business brands is one of the reasons why our country lags behind our neighbors despite having a high literacy rate and intelligent citizens. That’s because most Filipinos prefer employment rather than spend time developing skills in creating business systems and growing it.
Having more job seekers than available jobs create many problems. People either become unemployed, underpaid, work in a different field, or trade his time and skills abroad far from their families for better pay. With thousands of new graduates, how many will seek job & how many will create it?
I recall a graduating student being asked how many nursing students like him that he knows will graduate that year, his answer, about 30,000. He was again asked how many new hospitals he knows where built this year? He said he knows none.
While many people hope that the government will find a way to solve this problem, waiting for this to happen will just be a dream as the government cannot do it by itself. It needs people who are creative, brave enough to take risk, and can make things happen. We may have an abundant pool of talented people in our country today but they usually lack the interest, motivation or courage to become entrepreneurs.
For our economy to grow, we need people to create jobs. Any economy would collapse if everyone’s looking and no one’s creating it.
It can be noted that it is the young, brave, nationalistic youths of Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore who created the dynamic businesses that have propelled their countries to the top.
But how can shifting from one’s profession to becoming an entrepreneur help? To illustrate, if you are a doctor, you can serve a number of people in a day. But if you are a doctor/entrepreneur who owns a hospital, you can serve many times more. Same with a technician/entrepreneur who owns an equipment supply company, a technical service, a consultancy, a technology or a manufacturing company. This is the same in the case of a nurse, teacher, engineer, mechanic, or a carpenter.
There’s no doubt that MFI have produced a new breed of technicians and I’m proud to be one of its products. If you think you’re someone who can easily learn from mistakes, have the knowledge, experience, courage, persistence, and a big dream, maybe it’s time to make the shift to becoming an entrepreneur who create your own business system according to your field of expertise.
Of course, many will choose to play it safe rather than take the risk. That’s true because entrepreneurship is not for everyone. But as one great man puts it: “There’s no passion to be found in playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one we are capable of living”. – Nelson Mandela
About the author:
Having worked in a large company for a number of years, I decided to become an entrepreneur after boredom strikes me in doing the same routine every day. I was searching for the kind of growth which I Iater realize I can’t achieve while staying in the four corners of a cubicle. That motivates me do the biggest decision of my life and accept the challenges of being on my own.
After quitting my job, I tried several business ventures, but just like most newcomer with no real-life experience, it was not all a joy ride as it took me some costly failures before I finally passed my learning curve.
But along the way, I’ve made many discoveries that helped me attain my life’s goals that I enjoy today. Although there were available books, seminars and teachers that may serve as a guide, yet my most important learnings may have never occurred to me had I not made the decision to do the actual thing.
There’s truth to the saying:” To learn to swim, you have to jump in the waters”.
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