How to Know If Youre Meant to Be An Entrepreneur

okay by show hands how many people in

here

are entrepreneurs keep your hands up if

you know the definition of what it means

to be an entrepreneur

okay so some hands went down so how are

you an entrepreneur

if you don’t know what it means to be an

entrepreneur

at that point you have to ask yourself

are you really an entrepreneur

or are you just trying and inspiring to

be something

that you weren’t meant to be right now

in today’s society entrepreneurship

is glorified right everybody on social

media

is an entrepreneur or they think they

are right so

they ask themselves what i call

perception questions right

the perception of what it means to be an

entrepreneur they’ll ask themselves

you know do i want to work for someone

else in my whole life or do i want to

work for myself

yes i want to work for myself they’ll

ask themselves that they

want to make their own schedule right

we’re all going to say yes to that we

want to make our own schedule

they’re going to ask themselves that

they want to live a life that they don’t

need a break from

right we’re all going to say yes to that

but i like to ask

what i call reality questions and these

are the realities that also come with

entrepreneurship like

do you want to work 24 hours a day or do

you want to work eight hours a day

are you willing to take every last dime

in your bank account

and risk losing it you have to also

say yes to those questions as well

because that’s the reality

of being an entrepreneur we can’t just

take the perception of something

and not take the reality so people hate

when i say this but i think

entrepreneurship

is something that cannot be taught they

hate when i say that but i really stand

by that

there’s skills that can be taught right

you can go to a zillion summits

conferences workshops you can find great

amazing entrepreneurs to mentor you

all day long right you can do all that

you might even come from a wealthy

background and have the finances to back

this vision and monetize off of it

but can you be taught to get up

and go chase those rewards that come

behind the risk that you’re taking

can you be taught to get up and work

when no one

is over you and monitoring you and

holding you accountable because you have

to hold yourself accountable

i don’t think so i think that’s

something you either have

or you don’t and something that you’re

born with

but entrepreneurship it’s over saturated

just like rapping right everybody wants

to be a rapper

in la everybody is an actor and model

they all drive uber and

work at restaurants everyone there is an

actor and model right that’s

oversaturated

and now entrepreneurship is and i didn’t

realize

how oversaturated entrepreneurship was

until earlier this year

i want to go speak at a middle school

this was prior to the pandemic

and the principal reached out to me and

he said i want you to speak to these

kids because

they equate entertainment with success

and he wanted me to talk to them about

entrepreneurship

and i’m like okay i’ll do it so i go

there and i talk to the kids

and a few kids come up to me after i

talk to them about business they come to

me after

and there’s one kid specifically he’s 12

year old boy

and he was like hey kiki can you teach

me how to start a business

and i’m like yeah of course like i could

teach you how to start a business i’m so

excited because i’m like okay at 12

years old this little kid

is already thinking about being

entrepreneur i wanted to talk to him

about the harsh realities of

entrepreneurship right not just the

glamorous stuff so i’m telling him you

know it’s stressful sometimes

sometimes it’s borderline depressing you

never know

you know if things are going to work out

but you have to keep going for it but as

i’m talking to him

i’m looking at his face and he looks

terrified and i’m just like

okay i hope i didn’t just scare this

little boy into not being an

entrepreneur because that’s the exact

opposite of what i wanted to do but so

then i go into rewards right

but i don’t talk about materialistic

rewards i go into the rewards of

being able to provide opportunity of

creating a business that has legacy and

creating generational wealth you know

explain it as well as i can to a 12 year

old you know being able to make your own

schedule having

you know freedom and he’s excited again

but then he goes you know i’m really

interested

but how do i know if i’m meant to be an

entrepreneur and what if it doesn’t work

out

and that question

was so important to me and that’s why he

stood up but before i say

how i answered it i wanted to stop right

there because i think we’ve all had

those moments right especially as a kid

where we think that we’re gonna just

grow up and do something and then we try

and we’re like

that’s not for me or maybe our parents

pushed us into doing something

and we just thought we were gonna do it

just to make our parents happy and then

we realized um that’s not for me

for me that was ice skating right when i

was eight i used to love

watching ice skating and i thought i was

gonna be the black michelle kwan right

it just looks so

beautiful and fun and graceful and easy

right

so i begged my mom to take me to the ice

rink and

i put on the cutest outfit asked her to

put me my hair and one of those ice

skating buns

and i went out there so i’m getting

ready to get on

get out on the rink right and to go on

ice and then i just get

so confused how in two seconds

i’m gonna be graceful and my face is

literally on the ice right so then i’m

literally like

trying to get off the ice literally

swimming at this point it’s embarrassing

to my

my mom and everyone around me because i

literally could not get up like it was

just so bad people can fall and get up

i was literally embarrassing everyone so

i knew in that moment

like this was not for me and there’s

nothing wrong with falling there’s

nothing wrong with

thinking you’re going to do something

and then not working out if you’re

passionate about it right

i wasn’t passionate about ice skating i

just thought it looked cute so

when i realized it wasn’t that cute i

just was like no right

and that was just a girl no moment and i

had more right

i thought i was going to be a singer and

my parents were like

girl no like your voice please stop so

that was also something that i could

have done but i wasn’t passionate about

putting in the work to be a professional

singer i just thought it was cool and

wanted to make a music video right

because i’m eight and i don’t realize

what goes into that

so we all have those moments where we

think we’re going to do something and

then we don’t end up doing it right

so how did i know i was meant to be an

entrepreneur

well all entrepreneurs have traits we

have

commonalities even at an early age we

are doing things that we don’t realize

entrepreneurs naturally do right every

entrepreneur i know

as a kid they sold something right

whether it was

candy whether it was a lemonade from a

lemonade stand whether they were making

money doing yard work

nowadays these kids like they’re crazy

they like sell brow

boost and edge control and real estate

damn they’re like they literally do

everything but you know back then that

was what we did

we sold things and we had this

satisfaction in making our own money

even though the country said we can’t

make money so we’re 16 we’re

making money at five six seven eight

doing things hustling and we loved it we

love the feeling

of making our own money right

entrepreneurs other traits is that we’re

never satisfied

we can have this goal our entire lives

right

and then we reach it and then we’re like

okay what’s the next thing

we’re never satisfied everyone around is

like that’s so amazing that you did that

and we’re like you know like it’s cool

it’s whatever like we don’t care anymore

we’re looking for the next thing the

next thing the next thing

and we’re really hard on ourselves

because we’re never satisfied

at all dustin-born entrepreneurs

they also hate being told what to do if

you ask an entrepreneur why they want to

be an entrepreneur

9 out of 10 times the first thing

they’re going to say is they don’t want

to work for anybody

they don’t want anyone telling them what

to do we love

being in control the idea and the

thought of someone planning our work

schedule

our time telling us what time you have

to wake up being in control of our

income it disgusts us like it’s the most

disgusting thing in the world we would

rather work 24 hours a day for ourselves

and work eight hours

for somebody else we hate it right and

that’s the same thing too

in corporate when i worked in corporate

i hated it

but i didn’t know why because at the

time i did not know that i was meant to

be an entrepreneur

so i worked at the biggest tv stations

all of them anyone you can name i worked

there i worked at the biggest

corporations

and i would go from job to job to job

trying to find happiness

and i thought it was because of the job

i could find happiness in a job and it

wasn’t

so i saw myself changing right because

at the start of every job i was super

excited

you know the first few months i was like

this is going to be the job this is

going to be amazing

and then a few months in i saw myself

transforming from this

bubbly black girl to this angry black

woman right and i’m like

okay this is not for me because of my

energy while people were

turning up on sunday going to brunch on

sundays i literally

isolated myself i felt depressed just

the thought of going back into work

on monday made me depressed like i hated

it

on wednesdays every wednesdays by

wednesday i was ready to put in my two

week notice like i hated it right

fridays don’t ask me to do anything on

fridays fridays is just to make an

appearance i’m just here to make an

appearance because

you took too much from me monday to

thursday you’re not getting anything

from me on friday i’m just here

i’m just here i’m not into it you know

what i’m saying i’m just

here so i hated it i hated it so much

and i don’t know who’s ever worked in

corporate but

there’s always this one person in the

workplace

that you cannot stand and it’s like the

more you can’t understand them

the more they’re in your face right the

more they make a presence in your life

every day and it’s like i don’t know if

they know you can’t stand them but it’s

just it just happens right

then we have the ccr’s in the workplace

where you could say literally is

something you can email them like have a

great weekend

and they will literally loop in 50 other

people in different offices in different

cities that you don’t know

for no reason just to say i’m looping in

people right i hated it

i hate it i hate the people that say

borderline disrespectful things

because they feel like they are

protected by this thing called hr

right so i hate it so you can see i’m

transforming now i’m like okay you guys

are making me so angry

so at that point i called up on the only

person i could

jesus and

i went to this church any church i

wasn’t even that religious i just needed

something to make me feel better

so i went to a nearest church near my

job and

it’s funny how you know sometimes you go

to church and you say you know people

say they feel like the pastor is

speaking directly to them

so that was my situation my first time

there

and it wasn’t just sunday no the way i

hated my job i had to go on wednesdays

too so it was midweek

so i go and the pastor is talking about

happiness and he’s talking about

imagination versus reality

and in that moment it hit me

and i know about you guys but there’s

always signs in our life right

and we we ignore them we get another

sign and we ignore it we get another

sign and sometimes that comes in the

form of heartbreak sometimes that comes

in the form

of you know befriending someone that we

shouldn’t friend sometimes that comes in

the form

of making a bad business choice but when

you ignore it things continue to happen

to tell you to stop

so the pastor said when your imagination

does not

match your reality you often find

yourself depressed

because you feel like you are missing

out on the life that you were meant to

live

and that resonated with me so hard it

just

totally put everything in full circle

that’s why i wasn’t happy

because when you work in corporate and

they give you these positions you think

oh i can do all these big things right

and then you have people over you who

put you here but natural born

entrepreneurs we dream

big we want to do the impossible we

don’t want to do

what’s here we want to do the big things

right

so they gave you this position they make

you feel like you have all this power

and control

they give you a little raise and you

think you’re going to do amazing things

with that company

just to know stay here and that’s why i

hated it

so that was my sign and i did eventually

that job

but what did i do i just looked for

another job right i ignore the sign

and i’ve always had a job from the

moment even

in college i interned so much people

used to joke and say i’m minor to

internships

i was always working and always doing

something

but this time i couldn’t find a job i

was applying differently i was looking

for a job specifically

that would make me happy not just any

job and

the first time ever i wasn’t getting any

callbacks i wasn’t getting any my emails

returned i had nothing

so i took my time and invested in

something i liked to do and it was

journalism

i became a celebrity reporter i

interviewed any of the biggest stars you

can think of i interviewed them any of

the biggest red carpets i was there i

was i was on it i was working

but the only problem with that is the

income right the corporate income versus

this income was

completely drastically different so now

i’m making like you know maybe fifty

dollars here and there

maybe a hundred and fifty if i’m lucky

if i’m editing hosting

and writing an article i might get 150

and

mind you i’m living in l.a and i’m not

from

l.a so i eventually end up

homeless and i thought it was going to

be short term ended up being 16 months

i was homeless so i went from couch to

couch

i went from floor to floor i exhausted

every option and i had friends but in la

people tend to have like three or four

roommates because it’s so expensive

so i could only stay there for so long

because they do have roommates right

so then i went to hostels i would stay

in a hostel with 16 plus people

men and women and i would just

condense all my stuff i started off with

a lot of suitcases

and had to condense my stuff down to

one backpack by the time i was like 14

months in to my homelessness right

so all i had was my laptop and a couple

of shirts and a pair of pants

so then one night i had nowhere to go i

didn’t have money for a hostel

so i walk into a hotel bathroom lobby

and i’m scared i’m like i hope the

people at the front desk did not see me

walk into here and not walk out

i go into the stall and open my busted

laptop i had since freshman year of

college

and i connect to the hotel lobby wi-fi

and i go into survival instincts because

that’s what entrepreneurs have i didn’t

cry i didn’t do on it i was like

what can i do to make the money that i

deserve get the credit i deserve

and live the way i want to live in la

and that’s when i founded

my publicity company survival instance

that’s what entrepreneurs have so then i

did all that i came up with a great plan

and then i was like you know what i can

do this i’ve worked so hard for other

people’s companies

i’ve worked 80 plus hours a week for

other people’s companies and

slept under my desk because by the time

i get home i have to go right back to

work

i flew out to la to work for a company

60 days straight before i got one day

off because they needed me to launch i

didn’t even have anywhere to stay they

put me in a hotel for two weeks

and the rest i figured out on my own so

if i can do that for somebody else i

could do that for myself

that’s what i told myself but then i

started doing what a lot of

entrepreneurs do and a lot of people a

lot of aspiring entrepreneurs do

i started thinking you know what if this

doesn’t work out

i asked myself the same question that

the 12 year old boy asked me

what if it doesn’t work out and what

what if i was not meant

to be an entrepreneur i had to let that

go because

fear is the number one reason people do

not do

what they were meant to be so i let it

go

and i say you know what if i fail i

really have no other option right now

right i’m literally at the bottom

i literally hit rock bottom and below

that like i have no other option

so i’m gonna try it and it ended up

working out beautifully

so the number one way to know if you’re

meant to be an entrepreneur

is simply to try thank you