I am myself a self employed entrepreneur. I know why. Interesting piece.
WSJ story begins below:

Almost half a century ago, I started a newspaper.

You should’ve seen it. We had 30 desks packed into one newsroom the size of an airport coffee shop. We shouted over each other, got into fights, rushed the work and printed the thing before it was ready—but we put an issue out, and people loved it.

We never did another one. Right after we published, everything fell apart: We all took a vacation, and by the time we got back the momentum was gone.

Starting third grade will do that to you.



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By all rights, the story should continue with me becoming an entrepreneur. I should have gone on to start a lemonade stand or sell Grit magazine, and then invent a better mousetrap in my dorm room and watch the billions stack up.

But it didn’t happen that way. When it came time to choose a career, I didn’t start a business of my own—instead I got a job at this newspaper, and have worked here for three decades as an editor. Even as other friends founded their own companies, and some became impressive successes, I’ve followed other bosses and gotten my checks from a payroll department.

Now I’m starting to wonder why.

Don’t misunderstand: I love my job, and I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to do it for so long. And there is nothing wrong with sticking with a good thing. My father and mother stayed with their employers for decades, doing demanding work so the family could have everything it needed.

But lately I’ve been thinking about why I never did launch a business of my own—and if I should have. Was it fear? Was it common sense? And most of all: Was it a mistake? Would I have been happier had I built something from nothing and answered just to myself?

Those are questions a lot of people ask at some point in their careers. For some people, it may be when they start to worry about security at a company that may be loyal to its workers, but only up to a point. For some, it may be when they plateau—as almost all of us inevitably do—and they think that the ceiling would be more breakable if they were on their own. Or for others, it could be when they look at their comfortable life and compare it to the crazy success of some entrepreneurial friend and think: That could have been me.

None of us knows what might have been had we taken a different path. But it has been useful for me to think about those questions. They offer insights into who I am and why I made the choices I have. They make me face even more difficult questions about what I want to do with the time I have left in my working life. And they hopefully will help me guide my own son, who is about to graduate from high school, as he confronts some of the same questions I wish I had the insight to ask myself some three decades ago.

If it ain’t broke…
Looking back, there seem to be three reasons I never went into business for myself—premises that I never examined at the time, and certainly never challenged.

First off was my family experience: None of my close relatives were entrepreneurs, so I didn’t have any role models near at hand. Maybe because of that, it just didn’t click with me as I grew up that working for yourself was a real choice. Research has shown that if your parents are entrepreneurs, you, too, are more likely to become one.

My parents seemed to look at work as the same kind of commitment as marriage, or children. In part, it was just the world they knew: They came from a generation where it was a lot more common to stick with one company for the long haul, and where employers often rewarded that loyalty with guaranteed pensions or at least a figurative gold watch.



It went beyond that, though. Mom and Dad also worked best on regular schedules where they could punch out at the end of the day and be done with it. And they never said so, but I think they quietly enjoyed being the go-to people in the office—a modest acknowledgment of their abilities. My Dad’s co-workers taped a sign to the wall outside his office: IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION, ASK MR. TOTH. When my Mom died, the school where she had worked dedicated a bench to her memory.

That is what staying with one employer meant in their day (and to many people still does): not just a financially rewarding relationship that lasted decades, but an emotional one, too. You got to shine, and people who knew the business saw how good you were. You also left an institutional legacy behind you when you were gone.

Aside from that, another important childhood lesson made me wary of entrepreneurship: Watch out for risk.

My family never hit tough financial times—and I’m very grateful for that—in part because my parents stuck with those stable jobs for so long. They might have grumbled about the bills, but they always got paid. Mom and Dad wouldn’t gamble by starting a business any more than they would take the college fund down to Atlantic City.

As I got older, and had to make tough choices for myself, I not only looked to my parents’ example but discovered I had a very low risk tolerance to begin with. I needed to be sure where the rent and the meals were coming from—not just tomorrow’s groceries but next month’s and next year’s.

Starting in college, I saw friends plow into freelancing or manage side hustles while working tenuous jobs. Given all my predispositions, it looked to me like they were taking on a lot of immediate risk for a distant upside that might never arrive. So, when I got a job in the Journal newsroom back in 1991, answering phones and tearing news alerts off printers, I was grateful for the safety and tried to make the most of the opportunity. I’m still doing that now.

The concerns about risk got stronger as I got older. Soon enough, I didn’t just have to worry about my own food and rent, I had to support a family.

Missing the drive
Of course, a lot of people manage to make both work: They hold down solid and steady jobs while running companies in the off-hours. One friend founded a publishing house—which became a huge success—while working at the biggest company in his industry. Another runs a small press while working as a professor.

So, why not me? Well, there is a third reason I never became an entrepreneur, one that I’m a bit reluctant to admit to myself: I just never had the fire it takes. Passion is crucial for entrepreneurs, who need the focus and drive that it takes to venture out on their own. As it turns out, a class project in second grade doesn’t guarantee future enthusiasm.



It comes down to a gut feeling that I don’t need to be out on my own. Not everybody does, and that is not necessarily a bad thing—especially if you’re doing challenging, satisfying work already, which is certainly true for me. But it is natural to feel that you should have wanted more, and to doubt yourself if you didn’t.

I can’t know for sure the answers to all these questions. Without going back and posing them to the person I was, I won’t know if I didn’t want to do the hard work, or thought I couldn’t, or if I was clinging to fear and calling it caution.

But having a better understanding of the reasons I never took the leap makes me feel better about the path I took, and why I might have taken it. The process also makes me better appreciate all that I have, as well as giving me a clearer sense of the questions I need to ask myself as I look ahead and think about what I might do in the years to come.

I also hope it helps my son as he ponders those same questions, 30 years after I first faced them. At least he knows some of the things he should ask himself—something I didn’t have a clue about.

I’m also glad he has other entrepreneurs in his life, eager and confident ones, like the cousin who makes ungodly popular Instagram videos and is turning them into a design empire. Enough with the maybes: It is great that my son can learn about startups from a peer he connects with instead of someone who comes with Dad baggage.

And if he ends up starting a newspaper, I might just jump ship.

Mr. Toth is an editor for The Wall Street Journal. He can be reached at rob.toth@wsj.com.

link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/e...6f8cc?mod=hp_jr_pos1

Not many (young) people ride for the brand these days.

This is true particularly in the medical field with traveling nurses and physicians. Hospitals like them as they're cheaper and the individual gets a higher wage. Win-win.

Something is lost, though, and the author articulates that quite well.

It's both nature and nurture as to why people don't become entrepreuners.

Over the past several years I have studied and pondered on this subject myself. Bottom line, we give into FEAR and become COWARDS. It is that simple. Think about the last time you switched jobs, took a different position, had to give a presentation in front of a bunch of high profile people. The fear generated in your head was most likely 10X worse than anything that actually happened. I see this in my wife who has taken nearly a decade to finally jump ship from teaching. Two women at our church in similar circumstances are both paralyzed with fear.

Secondly, public education does NOT encourage entrepreneurs, educate you on how NOT to pay taxes, or any of the other necessary tools you REALLY need for life.

Nature and Nurture. Dad was a career military man, so a sort of company man. I worked for 2 Fortune 500 corporations, 20 years each. Made a good living, benefits, retirement plans, vacations. Some bullshit but that's everywhere. Left first company because they were headed in the wrong direction. HARD decision after 20yrs. Correct as it turned out, they ended up going bankrupt. Career had me working with independent merchants. Many opportunities to become one, but knew it wasn't for me. Now retired and while not super rich, the wolf is not at the door. Nothing wrong with selling your time career path, as long as it suits you and you're happy. If not, do not let fear and complacency keep you from making a change.

quote:

Originally posted by jcsabolt2:
Over the past several years I have studied and pondered on this subject myself. Bottom line, we give into FEAR and become COWARDS. It is that simple. Think about the last time you switched jobs, took a different position, had to give a presentation in front of a bunch of high profile people. The fear generated in your head was most likely 10X worse than anything that actually happened. I see this in my wife who has taken nearly a decade to finally jump ship from teaching. Two women at our church in similar circumstances are both paralyzed with fear.

Secondly, public education does NOT encourage entrepreneurs, educate you on how NOT to pay taxes, or any of the other necessary tools you REALLY need for life.

my wife is scared to death to leave the job she has had for almost 30 yrs, and hates, for a variety of reasons,



it also scared her pretty badly when I left the company I was working for last year to work for myself,
until I showed her how much we
(brother and I ) made working that company we owned on my 2 days off and a couple nights a week, and how much more we could potentially do if I was not working for someone else, and basically bored out of my mind, 40 hrs a week

8 months later she stopped worrying, about me,, but still frets over what she should do

I think it’s also much lower stress. My friends who are execs/even lawyers have a great deal more family time, etc.

It's not for everyone. I have been in leadership positions and wondering why I work so damn hard for others, and is it worth it. A lot of my time has been spent as a government contractor. I work my ass off doing the hard things they don't want to do. There is a benefit for the govt employees, they get to go to their kids soccer games at 4pm.

At age 55 I'm strongly considering starting my own company this year.

I agree - I think it’s much lower stress to just simply collect a check from payroll versus being the one who creates the payroll, and makes sure everyone has a job and gets the hours they need while taking care of your own family. You really have to believe in yourself, and typically it requires that others believe in you as well.

I was self-employed by necessity as I am not employable. It was also the only way for a tradesperson to make any real money.