It's Never the Right Time

By Ronald Cornwell

There are a myriad business books out there that will tell you how to manage a team, how to increase sales and how to become an automatic millionaire. But few of these books address the realities of business ownership and the emotional and psychological barriers that lay between you and financial stability. Few books will bring up the topic of failure or the toll that striking out on your own can take on your relationships with your family and friends. And few books will tell you that real success often takes years to achieve and that hard work is absolutely crucial to becoming a successful business owner.

The reason other books avoid the above topics is that no one wants to rain on the parade; no one wants to make business ownership seem hard or talk about how, even with phenomenal planning, most businesses will fail.

When the average person thinks about business ownership, they usually have in mind a scenario in which they set their own hours and control their own destinies. And that scenario can come true if you’re willing to make sacrifices. Everything has a price, and most things are possible. The question is: Do you really want this and are you willing to pay for it?

This book will detail the realities of being an entrepreneur.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ronald Cornwell
• Release date: Apr 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476081434

Book preview

IT’S NEVER THE RIGHT TIME

An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Behaviors to Avoid at All Costs When Seeking Self-Employment

Ronald J. Cornwell

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2008 Ronald J. Cornwell

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PUBLISHED BY: Ronald J. Cornwell at Smashwords

ISBN: 9781479081434

Introduction

As the author of this book, I find myself compelled to share with you the reasons why I wrote it and why I am qualified to express the thoughts on these pages.

There are a myriad business books out there that will tell you how to manage a team, how to increase sales and how to become an automatic millionaire. But few of these books address the realities of business ownership and the emotional and psychological barriers that lay between you and financial stability. Few books will bring up the topic of failure or the toll that striking out on your own can take on your relationships with your family and friends. And few books will tell you that real success often takes years to achieve and that hard work is absolutely crucial to becoming a successful business owner.

The reason other books avoid the above topics is that no one wants to rain on the parade; no one wants to make business ownership seem hard or talk about how, even with phenomenal planning, most businesses will fail.

When the average person thinks about business ownership, they usually have in mind a scenario in which they set their own hours and control their own destinies. And that scenario can come true if you’re willing to make sacrifices. Everything has a price, and most things are possible. The question is: Do you really want this and are you willing to pay for it?

I started working at twelve years old, which was forty-eight years ago. In that time I have observed and experienced nearly every business situation, including many that defied all logic. I have also had to overcome personal challenges in order to become a business owner myself and I believe that my time in the corporate world has taught me a thing or two about what it really takes to set a goal and chase it down.

Being a business owner is not easy. It takes planning, fortitude and help from others in order to have a successful venture. I know because I’ve owned several businesses and I’ve been out there in the battle, trying to make it all work. Because of that, I know that many of you reading this book don’t actually want to run a business—you just think you do. That’s right: Part of my reason for being here is to tell many of you to stop where you are and keep the good job you have.

One of my jobs as a consultant is to tell people when going forward isn’t a good idea. Running a business can be incredibly rewarding, but only if you are really committed to the process. You must be sure that running a business is what you want and you must examine the situation with an objective eye in order to make sure that your decision to start a business is what you really want, not what you think you want. That is why I dedicate much of this book to explaining the process of self-examination.

I have learned about businesses, and the people who run them successfully, through hands-on experience. I have pulled myself up through the corporate world with self-belief and will, sometimes at the expense of friendships and advancement. I was never a good student in high school and I barely graduated, but through work and experience I made my way into positions supervising more than 300 people, while running businesses on the side.

I have been fortunate in my forty-eight years of working with, and for, every type of person you can think of, to find that no two people are alike and that everyone has their own motivation and agenda to follow. I have seen the way people dream, the way they think and the way they act, which is often contrary to the way they think and dream. I know there are many of you out there thinking, or dreaming, of business ownership because you have a lousy job or lousy boss. And because you are desperate for change, you are susceptible to making mistakes and believing hype.

I hope that this book will give you a realistic interpretation of the process I feel you should go through prior to starting a business. I hope that the self-examination I espouse will lead you to clearer decisions, either for or against starting a business, or chasing any other dream.

My life has always been full of surprises, some pleasant and some not so pleasant. I consider myself a loner because I don’t really like to be a part of other people’s agendas. I want to be the pace setter in my own life and I have managed, after many years, to figure out how to do that. Throughout my business life I have strived to attain things that others have said were impossible to attain. Scoffing at other people’s self-limiting beliefs, I have refused to believe in that kind of thought process.

I have always been the type of person who had to find out for myself if the fire was hot. Yes, I may have burnt myself many times, but at least I received the satisfaction of doing things my way and not falling into the trap of someone else’s perception of what I could become. I hope that the painful lessons I learned through success and failure will stand as an example to you of what can and cannot be done.

One of the reasons I am so skeptical of business books—and why you should be, too—is that I don’t believe in conventional wisdom. I believe that conventional wisdom sets parameters around people when there should be none. The idea that business ownership is an enterprise suited only to the best-educated and well-funded just doesn’t fly with me. I know from personal experience that even a less-than-stellar student can accomplish something with will and determination and a bit of understanding of how the system works.

Living your life working for someone else and dreaming of independence is the easy way out, and it is a path made by losers, for losers. But I also understand why many people choose to follow that path. At times in my life, I have had to metaphorically live on my knees and work for people I had no respect for and who had no moral compass. Some of these people could only feel happy at the expense of other people’s feelings and livelihoods. They would intimidate because they could, they would bully because they could and they would destroy other people’s lives because they could.

I know that many of you are in similar situations and that what you really seek is guidance. But I am here to tell you that the best path I have found is one of self-guidance.

I have rebuked negative people all my life and I am ashamed that for my own survival I have had to pretend to support their ideas, their thoughts and their actions. And I am glad that I found my own voice and gathered enough courage to make my own way. I know that you can do the same.

You may ask if there were consequences when I made this switch in paradigms. I am here to tell you absolutely yes. Everything I had in my life was put at risk when I decided to reject the thinking of others and to build something for myself, following my own conscience—everything except my soul, my sense of accomplishment and my feelings about myself. It was worth the price I had to pay to be free.

It took me almost five decades to come to that conclusion. My hope is that my experience and the observations I will express to you in this book will save you all the valuable time I lost and spare you some of the trials and tribulations I endured. I hope to bring you to the place I call happiness and comfort and self-worth.

I want there to be no misunderstanding, though, as we move forward. I have seen evil and I have seen good. I know that on my journey I have at times been both. I have at times been very proud of what I’ve done and in contrast I have been equally ashamed of what I’ve done in the name of survival in my business life. I know that the road is not easy and one of the reasons I wrote this book is because I’m tired of seeing all the lies people spout about business ownership.

Getting yourself ready to own a business, and the personal growth that will continue in the years after you do, is a difficult and sometimes arduous process. I have read so much crap about what it takes to become a millionaire and what it takes to start a business that I decided I needed to provide a voice of reason. The rewards that business ownership can provide are too precious to have smeared by fools promising an easy go of it.

As I have grown older and more confident, I have decided that I would rather die on my feet than have to live on my knees. So I did what came naturally to me: I became a rebel, a maverick, a man of truth. And I feel so very good about myself for having done so. I have risen and fallen on my own and I have worked in many fields for many people, including myself. I hope that what I have learned will provide a bit of light, and a bit of truth, to you during your own journey.

God speed…enjoy.

*****

Chapter 1: If

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

But make allowance for their doubting too,

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master,

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: Hold on!

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much,