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