The Four (4) different types of Entrepreneurs and Career Professionals
There are different types of entrepreneurs/ career professionals and hopefully at the end of this thread you will see clearly whether the person you are copying/ modeling for your future is the right example for you:
1. The “lifestyle” entrepreneur/ pro:
This is the politically correct name. Basically refers to people who say they have businesses/ Jobs (or appear to do) and have very Instagram ready lifestyles. The only problem is: the said Jobs/ businesses do NOT fund their high flying lifestyles but they make the rest of us think that it does.
I am sure if you think hard enough, you might be able to name one or two. I once heard a story about a woman who started traveling to Dubai to buy expensive clothes to sell in Nigeria because she saw this other woman doing it and changing cars every year. So she thought it was a good business. It was after she sunk her life savings into it and a consecutive 3rd year of loss that proper investigation revealed that the only reasons the first madam was balling were: One, the first madam’s husband was a senator. So people bought from her not because they needed clothes but because they wanted access to the husband or maintain political connections to the family. Two, the senator husband gives his wife a monthly allowance far more than the entire business turnover. This was how madam was able to fund her dubai trips and change car every year but the other madam thought it was business. They will now invite madam to panel to share her story and she will go “you must have passion..yen yen yen”. Just lol abeg. They are also people who work in the same place as you and it is clear their lifestyle is not funded from the same Job you people are doing. I am not shading anybody sha. Just saying be careful who your role models are.
In 2016, I worked somewhere and the coy had a policy of giving each staff N5,000 on their birthdays to celebrate. Most people would augment with their own money. This particular year, everyone celebrated normally: cake and drinks, the senior execs got small chops but then there was this babe. There were several cakes, Jollof rice + fried rice +’salad, several drinks, small chops and takeaway on top. A colleague in the office called me aside and asked; “Femi, are you sure we are all working in the same office with this girl?” Me: “Looool! We are not oh, apparently. Infact, it is her office, we are just sharing it with her”.
2. Privilege:
The most common reaction to this set (no matter how humble they are) is to hate them. For example: DJ Cuppy who is Odetola’s daughter. Davido too had to deal with plenty of this when he started and in some way, still deals with it. It is so hard for people to believe that they actually earned they win as opposed to being “given” to them because of the wealth, status, connections et al of their parents/ family. Yes, privilege accelerates and multiplies success. I believe most people have a degree of privilege depending on how you see it. Point is; these entrepreneurs will travel faster and cross several milestones before you.
Dont be tensioned. Learn what you can instead.
3. The “Gram” Types:
In the workplace, they are are eye-service people, the ass-kissers and so on. In entrepreneurship, they are the ‘gram’ types. They never do anything or get anything done. If they manage to go for one meeting with Bingo the dog and Abdul the monkey, they post 20 pics on Instagram with 57 motivational quotes. Hashtag #SteadyGrind #GodWin #AllMyHaters and yen yen yen. Ask them 3 months later, how far that project? They will start giving you story for the gods. Smh. Look out for these people. They have their uses….when you need people to fill up a pic or look good for a situation but hey, if they are your role models, I do wish you all the best tbh.
4. The Doers:
The problem with this set is that they are sometimes arrogant (sometimes because they actually have results and money in the bank to back it up), sometimes they are evasive i.e:; it is very hard to track them down or even know they exist (for example, when did you know that the owner of slot also co-owns TECNO, Infinix et al? Wait, you didn't?) Do you know what Ibukun Awosika’s husband even looks like? See my point? It is usually hard to get help from this set too (unless they are really humble). Some of them share their stories every now and then though and for me, this is the best set of people to learn from via their podcasts, books, panel sessions et al.
Remain blessed.
