I am very excited to be participating in Women’s Money Week 2012. I hope to have a new post for you every day this week. (Ambitious of me, I know.) Today’s post is about Entrepreneurship and Making Money. Click here for more posts on this topic.

 

(Sorry this first post is late. With everything else going on in my life, I kind of forgot that this was Women’s Money Week. Posts for the rest of the week should go live at 5:30pm PST.)

 

Making Money: I am not an entrepreneur. I’m just not. I am a little too risk adverse for that. I don’t think that has anything to do with being female. I think that’s just me. I know some amazing women who are filled with the entrepreneurial spirit and embrace the risk. I think that’s fabulous, but it is not for me.

So I want to start with this. Starting your own business, being your own boss, it’s not for everyone. There is nothing wrong with that. I know the wisdom we hear a lot of now is that instead of going to college, young adults should instead become entrepreneurs. Or we hear that the only way to achieve happiness is to be your own boss. Or that they only way to be “rich”, or at least a stress free retirement, is to have your own business. I do not believe any of that.

I am not saying that it is a bad path, nor am I saying that no one should go that route. I am saying that it is not the right path for everyone. For some of us, getting a good education, working a job, one where we have a boss, but also benefits, for some of us, that is the right path.

I’ve written before that I do not believe in the dream job. I believe in the dream life and a job is just one part of that. But that doesn’t mean that I think you have to be miserable at your job. I don’t think you have to sacrifice happiness in your work on your path to making a decent amount of money.

 

What Works For You?: I work in healthcare. I care about the nature of the work my company does. I hope someday to move to a major global health organization, a non-profit whose work I fully believe in. But my skills, those are administrative. I could take my skills to any company and be successful. I chose to work in an industry I care about. That means that even on busy work days, I still have buy in to the overall mission.

I am ambitious. Don’t let me telling you that I don’t want to have my own company make you think I don’t want to be the boss. I started in my current company as an administrative specialist at the end of 2004. In mid-2008, I got my MBA. In July 2010 I started my current position as a manager. I intend to stay in this position around three to four years, depending on our overall life situation.

But right now, I make enough money to support our family on my income alone. When I leave this position, I don’t intend to go anywhere without taking a step up and getting a substantial raise.

I like making money. I like making decisions. I am comfortable with responsibility. I am just not comfortable with the risk involved in running my own company. I like that someone else is responsible for paying me, that I get benefits. That works for me.

 

Find Your Path: The true secret to making money, no matter how you make it, is to find what works for you. If you want to be an entrepreneur, do it. If you want to work for someone else and rise to the top, put your energy there. (Even Jack Welch worked for a company.) And if you want to have a day job for benefits that isn’t too taxing, and work on your passion on the side, then that is fine too.

There is no one right path to making money or being a success. In fact, there are as many right paths as there are people, because everyone’s journey is going to be slightly different. Embrace that difference, and make the path go where you want it.