Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

First post here, hopefully I’m in the right place.

I have worked in Finance for 5 yrs (fixed income trader) and it never seemed to fit me right, so I have decided at the end of March to resign and to start my own thing. I’m just having trouble figuring out what my true passion is. I feel like this industry has beaten me down and taken a lot of my self esteem where I’m not even sure what I enjoy anymore. I have always had a big entrepreneur spirit, when I was 13 I started my own lawn care business, that then grew to house painting and landscaping. I had 4 employee’s by the time I was 16yrs and ran it until I was 19, then walked away. Mainly because I was told to go to college, then graduated and landed this job 3 weeks later, so I never really had a chance to decide what I want to do. I’m very creative, but not artistic, I was featured in the Journal for a ‘company’ I started selling online primetime dinner reservations, but it was more of a joke to me then anything, but I felt the excitement on creating something from scratch and seeing it blossom. I’m not really sure what my strengths are, besides a creative mind and an entrepreneur spirit. I took Rick Smith’s online assessment of strengths and it reinforced my creative side. It also suggested looking into industries such as R&D, and Brand Management.

I had never thought of either of these as something I would be interested in until now, but do not know very much about either industry. Something about Brand Management strikes me though as something I could be good at. I’m just unclear as to whether companies actually need this, maybe its just my ignorance though. I feel that when someone opens a store, restaurant or comes up with a new product they should be able to brand it easily.

I think that starting this type of company now would be good for me, low start up costs, I can pretty much do most of it, but when it comes to actual design I figure I can outsource that or find a design student looking for an internship to help me out. I think I can work on this at night to get it started and the website up and running, then I just need to find customers, which I feel in this economy will be tough.

Does anyone have any book suggestions to read about finding your passion or getting back your self esteem?

Fire in the Belly by Yanky Fachler. It's just what you are looking for. Get it on Amazon.

Hello, welcome back to the world of entrepreneurship one book you might want to try is Self-Empowerment: Getting What You Want from Life from Sam R Lloyd.

Good Luck

Al Delgado

www.businessideascoach.com

Take a real personal assesment - be honest - then have faith.  Working for yourself is liberating for some - stressful for others.  You must have high self esteem about what you are doing or you will always be second guessing yourself.  Pick something you KNOW.  Look at it this way, I would never have been able to get the job you had because I am too uneducated for the corporate world and I am way rough around the edges.  I also made my first million from nothing by 30.  My grandma always told me growing up that I wansnt conceited but convinced.  Take value in that you could get a job that I couldnt becuase of your education and I'm sure personal demeanor.  I never made it above 30k a year in the corporate world, but I know my strengths and weaknesses and surround myself with people that can make up my shortcomings allowing me to improve my situation dramatically in life.  I think you should read my startup help page.  It discusses those things in more detail than what I can write on a blog.

Best of Luck to you