Hey everyone, it Alexander Seery, Founder of Shifts to Success,…Helping Police officers break out, make the change and live their lives…
Today I am going to be giving you 10 reasons on why you should become an entrepreneur and before I begin I want to say that, I am not anti ‘Having’ a job or Anti ‘Police’, but I am pro ‘options’, and am pro ‘You’ if you are thinking of starting your own business one day my hope is that by sharing these benefits it will reassure you, that you are in fact making the right decision.
When I was working as a Detention officer based in custody I knew that someday that I would resign from that role and run my own business, I just didn’t realise how fast that would happen, which I am extremely grateful for. You see I knew a few benefits of being an entrepreneur and running my own business which was mainly things like having more money and time, but when I actually made the transition into the business full time I discovered a whole new load of other benefits that I want to share with you in this video.
So without further ado,
Although I am not highlighting these benefits in any particular order, I must say that one of my favourite benefits, freedom. As an entrepreneur you have complete freedom to live where you want, earn as much as you want, work with who you want and allocate your time where you want, whether that’s doing certain work, activities or just generally spending more time with your family and loved ones. I don’t have to worry about clocking on and off shift, booking in annual leave, for a holiday away or even getting called in on my rest days for a training day like I did when I was working in the police force. If you are an entrepreneur your agenda is yours, no one dictates your life, you choose your own working hours as well as your own destiny. To me personally, entrepreneurship is freedom.
2. Age doesn’t matter!
I worked out the math and for me to reach a salary of £145,000 as a chief constable. I would have to be in an age range somewhere between 40 to 50, not to mention all of the stresses that I would have to go through to reach such a rank. However, at the age of 26, I achieved an income of £110,000pa within 2 and half years of starting a business. You see, you could be 21, 40, 50 or 80, age doesn’t matter in the world of entrepreneurship. Mark Zuckerberg the co-founder of Facebook became the youngest billionaire in history at the age of 23 and in contrast to that Colonel Harland Sanders the founder of KFC built up his billion dollar company at age 88. Often we tell ourselves we cant achieve business success because of our age, but I am here to tell you, you can be successful regardless of your age. Age is seriously just a number when you are an entrepreneur.
3. Profits over wages!
Whatever rank you reach in the police force, unfortunately, there will be a cap on the amount of money you earn and to make matters worse you have to trade your time to earn your wage. There are 168 hours in a week, you will spend 40 plus hours working away in the job, you will spend an average 56 hours sleeping to recover from your tiresome shifts a week which will only leave you 72 hours in the week, to do what you truly want to do. To me, that sounds pretty shit, but unfortunately, that’s the tradeoff you make by being an employee within the system. Your most precious resource is being spent, time, for your labour within a job. However, as a business owner, you can create and leverage systems within your business to ensure you are not trading your time for money and to even make money whilst you sleep.
4. No Politics
In the police force, there is a lot of politics going off. From new policies, software or changes in processes and the reason for this is one word, politics. Even down to which government is in power can shape your destiny as a police officer. Also in achieving a certain rank, you have to follow a process that the organisation sets out for you. I remember once when I was working in custody we had a complete change in process, that just didn’t work in my eyes as well as my colleagues’ eyes.
I won’t go into it here, but long story short this process made everything much more difficult for myself and my colleagues, especially as the number of staff we had available was so low in custody. This, of course, is my opinion and how I saw it, but as an entrepreneur, you make your own policies and processes that you can change whenever you feel like it and regardless of which government is in power because you adapt and overcome them.
5. No sacking or suspensions
When I was working in custody there always seemed to be a worrying anxious feeling hanging in the air from a complaint, from our good intentions as officers. Even other police officers are worried about complaints from the public or the organisation knowing that one day, their decisions may come back to haunt them and cost them their jobs or pensions. I would watch my colleagues get served notice by our professional standards department, which of course is policy, as they were under investigation due to a complaint. Every time there were always good intentions behind whatever my colleagues were being accused of, but non the less this is a very stressful time for them. As entrepreneur no one can sack or suspend you, you may get complaints from your customers from time to time, but that is nowhere near as bad as what would happen if you were in the police force and in fact having a complaint as an entrepreneur is an opportunity to improve your business.
6. You are never bored
I’m sure one of the reasons you joined the police force was to tackle something new and exciting each day. However after 2-3 years of being in the force you start to see a common theme with the people you encounter, whether that’s drug arrests, traffic offences, domestics or the typical BOP (Breach of Peach) by a student who ends up getting way too drunk and then starts telling you, he hasn’t done anything whilst also telling you how to do your job and he knows the law better than you. This is what I encountered in custody regularly.
This starts to become a common theme and would indicate boredom by any means. As an entrepreneur, something new and exciting is always around the corner, because you are in control. You get to launch products, bring on team members, look at branding, make business deals, write books or it may even be that you work from anywhere in the world looking over a gorgeous view with a cocktail in hand. In the world of entrepreneurship, boredom doesn’t exist, because you get to do what YOU want to do.
7. You are paid your worth
If you a police officer watching this, just think of your latest pay slip for a moment. Whether it states £1500, £2200, £3000 or £5000, that is what the organisation and government THINK you are WORTH. How does that make you feel?? That your working life is worth whatever it currently says on your payslip. Now I don’t know about you, but that made me feel pretty shit!
As an entrepreneur you find your TRUE worth, even if you’re earning £4000 a month, you can increase that worth as there is not a cap on it, like there would be working in the police force. You can increase that £4000 per month income as an entrepreneur to £83,333.33 per month, which is a million pounds per year through your innovation, progress, effort and self-improvement.
Personally, I think police officers should be paid WAY more than what they are currently being paid. I have nothing but absolute respect for every police officer for doing what they do, especially with the income they earn.
8. Creativity
Being in the police force, you are very limited to how creative you can get. You may have amazing ideas and concepts to better help for police force but most of the time your ideas fall on deaf ears. One of the most amazing things I have come to realise in becoming an entrepreneur is that I am in fact a creative person. I didn’t think this at all when I was working in the force, because I couldn’t express my creativity, and in all fairness, I wasn’t really concerned about doing so. But now my mind is running wild with different planning ideas, marketing ideas, product concepts, and event ideas, and now I’m evening writing my own book! I was so fixed in my mindset when I was working in the job that I wasn’t aware of my capabilities.
9. Constant Personal Growth
Ask yourself, are you constantly growing as a police officer? Are you hitting new achievements, hitting new targets and goals or pushing the boundaries of whats capable of your life? If you are that is great, but I am going to assume not. Being an entrepreneur you are always in a state of personal development, you are constantly learning about business, your own character, your mindset, new strategies, new concepts, new ways of implementing tasks, new partnerships and new ways of reaching higher levels of your business and personal life. Because if you are not, then you won’t make it very far as a successful entrepreneur.
I first came across this quote in the book, ’Secrets of the Millionaire Mind’ by T Harv Eker and it is something that I completely agree with, he states “If you are not growing, you are dying.” and as soon as I adopted that kind of mindset I ensured that I am constantly growing to new heights and I could not be happier.
10. Legacy
I want you to fast forward right now in your imagination to your deathbed. You are 10 minutes away before you leave this world, surrounded by your family and closest friends. In those last 10 minutes of your life, what thoughts do you believe will be running through your mind? Will it be the feeling of achievement due to how many arrests you made? Will it be a feeling of a life fully lived due to all the hours you worked in the police force? Or will it be a feeling of achievement of being in the force for 30+ years of your life? I highly doubt it.
You will be thinking ‘I Wish’. You will be thinking ‘I wish’ there was more time to spend with my family and loved ones instead of working so much, you will be thinking ‘I wish’ I travelled the world more instead of working in a job I lost love for a long time ago, you will be thinking ‘I wish’ I took a chance, so that I could truly live my life to my full capabilities beyond the police force. You will be thinking, ‘I wish’ I was leaving a legacy for my family for many years to come.
Now, I am not trying to scare you in the slightest, but If you want more out life instead of working in the police force, why on earth would you risk staying in it, until its too late?
Because for me knowing that I could die with regret, scares the shit out of me and that’s why for me I won’t be saying ‘I wish’.
You see when I speak to the elderly, there always seems to be an indication of a life not fully lived, due to that statement that the majority of them say, which is ‘I wish’.
I don’t want to die with regret running through my heart. I will be thinking of all the special moments I spent with my family and loved ones, the difference in quality I made for their lives, the contribution I made to charities in helping other people from around the world and the impact I made in helping police officers become successful entrepreneurs so they can also remove the term ‘I wish’ from their lives. A legacy is something that will always live on if you decide to build one.
Well there you go, 10 reasons why you should become an entrepreneur and if you like the idea of becoming your own boss one day, then go and take the Police Officer Scorecard quiz.
I hope this has served you well if you liked this video give it thumbs up and don’t forget to hit subscribe!
Thanks for watching and see you next time!