Considerations on how to earn a living, kind of.

Since the end of this year (which is possibly the shittiest I remember, on a general level. Personally, I had some worse) I decided to write a few lines about how to earn a living. I hope someone younger than me might get some help out of these.

It’s one of those “I wish I knew” moments that so often get me in this Covid-19 infected(pun intended) times.  Because although it’s unglamorous, what I am going to say, someone should well bloody say it.

These thoughts are from a personal standpoint and absolutely non-scientific. They are the result of my own life experiences, of the punches in the face and of the conclusions I reached on my own skin. If these can help someone avoid some of my mistakes, all the better.

So let’s start with the basics: the simplest way to earn a living is by being an employee. The salary receiving kind of employees.

The fact that is the simplest does not mean that it is simple, per se. But simpler it is. You work, they pay you. That’s it. Making a lot of money via salaried work is close to impossible. Competition is high, companies tend to have flatter and flatter hierarchies, automation and off-shoring are always behind the corner.

Because the thing is, to be an entrepreneur it takes stuff that cannot be learned on textbooks. You need to know what you are doing, sure. But studying and getting an education is not enough. Actually it is often the opposite: education can get in the way of being an entrepreneur, or a freelance, or any creative professional. Why? Because you need certain psychological traits to succeed as an entrepreneur. You need to be a bit of a narcissist, and a bit arrogant. Because if you look at it rationally, starting a business venture is a bet against the destiny, and the odds are all against you. The vast majority of companies are dead before getting to the 3rd year of life. To start a venture you need then to believe, and hence being irrational. As I discovered myself the hard way, companies are much more likely to fail than to thrive. The ability to analyse numbers and spot issues has helped me to close my business venture without going broke. And that is a success by itself. However maybe, someone else might had doubled down instead of closing, and maybe could have succeeded. So why didn’t I do it? It is a matter of cognitive bias; I am risk adverse. My background is in finance and risk management. That’s my limit and my bias.

An entrepreneur must always see possibilities, rather than threats. A company to survive needs both kind of people, the one that sees opportunities and the one that manages risks. But the second will always and inevitably be subordinated to the first. And that’s ok.  A company to survive in the long run must have those who mange risks. But without the crazy folks who see opportunities everywhere, there cannot be a company.

Hence my point that teaching entrepreneurship without understanding the psychological side of it, as many universities pretend to do nowadays, is essentially hogwash. But I am digressing.

The thing is, the natural occurrence of the two type of people, risk adverse vs risk taker, is intrinsically biased towards the risk adverse. It’s an evolutionary fact.

My message is to the people who are younger than me, and are entering or have recently entered the workforce. Someone needs to tell you. Work is the logical choice. And it’s, ok, all the pseudo-positive-follow-your-bliss kind of BS we are fed day in, day out. And that’s ok. It is ok to be an employee, if you are a responsible person.

And it is vital to have a long term view, as losing your job is really easy(as I have discovered myself the hard way). And it is necessary to invest in continuous learning, whether you are an entrepreneur or an employee. Whoever stops is toast. And always when you are not stopping, sometimes you are toast. Try to understand who you are, first and foremost. Not who would you like to be.

Who you are really. If you are risk adverse it is fine, just take your chances without going against your inner self.  Understanding who you are is the most difficult thing. It requires to be brutally honest with yourself, but is the only way forward. And more important even, measure yourself against yourself only, not with the people around you. If you are not an entrepreneur, or a natural born math genius, that’s ok. The important thing is to know it, and act accordingly. Without useless envy and without wasting time and resources.

Happy 2021, bestiacce da soma. This bloody pandemic shall pass, too. And try to learn something new this year, whatever it is. And try to talk more about what you know, than anything else. You will avoid looking foolish, and it will make you feel better. Because you will have the conscience that what you say might be useful to someone else, and not being destructive.