10 Reasons to be a Business Owner 5 PM to 9 AM

You can go to school 9 am to 5pm. Or work in a job. However, after 5pm, you own your own time. You should run your own business. Why?

1. A job is akin to taking care of someone else’s baby. You are a baby-sitter to someone else’s child. Sure, you do a good job because you have honesty and integrity. You give them 110%. Absolutely yes. But owning your own business is taking care of your own kid. Is there a difference? You tell me. Either you have a child of your own or you are someone’s child. Either way, you know what I am saying.

2. Taxes favor the business owner. Your business expenses — your legitimate business expenses — are a tax deduction. I used to have a phone before I had my business. I do now, that I use in my business. Earlier it was not a tax deduction. Now it is. The way Robert Kiyosaki puts it is this: in a job you make money, you pay taxes and then you spend. In a business you make money, you spend and (on a lower amount) you pay taxes. Of course, I am not a tax consultant. I am not giving tax advice, clearly. This is a point worth considering.

3. The concept of pension has practically vanished. Gone are the days when you had one job all your life and that company would pay you pension until the day you die. Now you have to do that yourself.

4. If you work a job, you leave nothing in terms of cashflow for your kids. Maybe you don’t want to. I understand that. You could leave a cashflow for the charitable organizations you believe in. But you cannot, if all you do is a job. When you are running a business, you can pass it on to the next generation. Again, I am not giving tax advice, but I believe you get taxed more if you pass on cash or real estate than if you passed on a business that generates cashflow to your heirs.

5. Instead of wasting your evening and weekends watching House of Cards on Netflix, you are doing something more productive.

6. You are creating something. You are going out on the limb and taking risk. There is joy in creation.

7. You are constantly getting out of the comfort zone. All growth happens outside the comfort zone. And there is happiness in growing.

8. You develop better people skills. You learn to develop better relationships. You become a problem solver. You become a reader. You are a mentee. You are more disciplined. Time suddenly becomes extremely valuable. Your heart grows warmer. As you are adding more value to this world. You are no-longer a bench warmer. You are a bench maker.

9. You give more. When you make more, you give more. There is happiness in giving.

10. You realize you are super lucky. Arrogance disappears with the realization that we did not do much. We are lucky to be living today. With the technology progress that has happened, we live better than royalty did a thousand years ago. We are warm when it is cold outside. We are cool when it is hot outside. We can turn on the faucet and get warm water. We can touch a button and speak to someone on the other side of the world. We live in a world that was pure science fiction, a thousand or two thousand years ago. So we become grateful. Gratitude, again, makes us happy.