Leaving a job for business takes a leap of faith

Employment, for many people with an entrepreneurial passion, creates a comfort zone that makes it difficult to break out of and pursue one’s dreams. PHOTO | FILE 

By MURORI KIUNGA

In early 1950s the world was facing unique challenges. With the wounds and scars of the two world wars still healing, peace seemed far away.

Many people were already getting disillusioned with the UN, which to many nations had been a beacon of hope in a war-ravaged world. Apparently, it had become a toothless dog. The Cold War had virtually paralysed the Security Council.

At the time most colonised countries were viciously fighting for Independence, regional conflicts were rising and there was potential risk that could easily escalate to a nuclear East-West confrontation.

Dag Hammarskjold, sitting at the helm of the UN, had a hard time, with major stakeholders questioning the relevance of the body and others demanding his resignation.

But Hammarskjold uttered one statement in 1954 that remains relevant todate. “The United Nations was not created to bring us to heaven, but to save us from hell,” he said.

I recalled this statement last week in a social meeting that culminated in a debate on why most people stick to employment even though they passionately desire to own business.

Apparently one of the hardest decisions for most people is to leave employment to start a business.

The psychology theory of hedonism holds that all human behaviour is fundamentally motivated by the pursuit of pleasure or the avoidance of pain.

Most people hate pain more than they love pleasure. They, therefore, tend to do more to avoid pain than they do to achieve pleasure.

Thus most people will spend their life under the captivity of unrewarding jobs while holding passionately to the desire to start their own enterprises and be free.

Like Hammarskjold, they know that employment will not take them to heaven (read financial stability and freedom) but it will save them from hell (read poverty).

Thus employment creates a kind of confort zone that is not good enough to stay but also not bad enough to leave.

Using the analogy of marriages, we find that a lot of people are stuck in unions they would rather not be in. But what prevents them from taking action is the fact that their situation, though not good enough to enjoy, is not bad enough to make them call it quits.

Experience has shown that it is not easy to leave employment when conditions are not bad enough to leave. In other words, although there is no much pleasure being there, the pain is not enough to spark action.

If you are one of those people who for years have been planning and aspiring to leave employment and start a business but have not gathered the courage to do so, you need to say enough is enough. You need to get increasingly uncomfortable with your situation to get out.

Your desire to gain must exceed the fear to lose. Sometimes you just need to make a radical decision. The ideal moment may not come.

Most successful entrepreneurs will tell you that clarity and courage often comes from engaging the journey rather than waiting. They ventured into business when they were not fully prepared, had to change direction a couple of times, but finally made it.

Mr Kiunga is the author of The Art of Entrepreneurship: Strategies to Succeed in a Competitive Market.