The Employment Myth
Most people I know are either unemployed, employed, self-employed or business-owners. However, rather than just being 4 distinct stages or levels in the journey of life, it seems to define people a lot more. And so, there seems to be a lot of stereotypes around. I’ve heard a lot of statements like — “I’m the employee type…” or “I was born to be an entrepreneur…” and similar.
The truth is that this mindset prevents people from the fully living out their potential. And the truth is that, your employment level is not necessarily a function of personality type or business acumen or desire to make money or luck, its a function of how much resources that you are able to manage. These different stages are basically a pointer to the fact that life is a journey of different phases and these phases demand various levels of leadership and management ability.

An unemployed person simply needs to harness (or develop) skill and/or showcase experience (with a skill) in order to propose a decent level of value (to a potential employer). In plain English, it means for me to employ you, you need to show you can be of value to my business or company. Similarly, an under-employed person needs to add to their skills set an propose a better value
An employed person has proposed a certain level of value to an employer and has demonstrated that they can be successfully managed (by that employer).
A self-employed person has been able to monetize their skill-set and is providing value to customers. More importantly, they can successfully manage themselves.
A business owner is able to envision, birth and executes an idea; harnessing multiple skills and extracting multiple values as needed. They can manage people and resources (money, time & challenges) with grace.
So you can see, its all about management — first of skill, then self and then people and resources! Can I boldly say people are not born with business acumen — they develop and nurture it. I believe its just the same way people are not born/gifted with marriage or parenting acumen — they develop and nurture it, with all respect, patience, and tenacity.
Seeds & Skills, Time & Chance
I strongly believe everyone possesses everything they need to live a successful & fulfilling life — a FULL Life! Let me quote from my favorite book…
I returned and saw under the sun that — The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all.
There are 4 issues worthy of note:
- Identifying the seeds you have been given in life to grow the trees that will feed you and supply additional seeds for the next level. Your seeds include time, relationships, gifts & talents. Spending time helping someone is a seed that will return a harvest to you; the same with fruitful relationships. A gift (singing, athletics, etc) is a seed. A degree is a seed. A seed is anything useful
- Skills need harnessing. You must develop & increase the seeds that you have. A quote from my favorite book — “For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him” Everybody has something; including those that think they don’t! There is ALWAYS something beneficial, noble and of good report that you have in your hands that you can present to exchange for what you do not have in life.
- Understanding time. One of the most common mistakes people make is using other peoples clocks to determine the timing of your own life. There are different times and seasons for everyone. There is the need for time and patience to fully see the fruits from the investment of your seeds.
- Finally, you need to be ready because the opportunities are all around but you won't see them unless you are ready. However, opportunities are only opportunities when you are ready enough to identify them — otherwise, they don't look like opportunities. During challenging times, some people see business ideas, others just see trouble. The few that see business ideas only do so because they have developed their insight and foresight and have the ready skill to take advantage of the situation.
The more we are able to master the laws of seeds, time and harvest, the easier we will be able to advance through the different levels of employment.
And so in progression, it's about first identifying your personal skills, then management of other peoples’ visions, ideas & resources (using your skills), then management of (the use of) your personal time, skills & resources for the benefit of others, then the management of people (their skills & resources) and then management of visions and ideas (that require people, their skills, time & resources).
Like being a spouse or a parent, life is about learning how to manage skills, time, resources & people better and better each day so let's get to it!

