Is entrepreneurialism always about making money? Most surveys prove that money is not a person’s primary motivation when choosing a career. What is your motivation for becoming an entrepreneur?

Idealism and motivation have been my foundation. Education and encouragement have been my support. The dream of financial freedom and security has been my goal.

Choosing the entrepreneurial journey is one of the riskiest paths to travel. The harsh truth that one realizes while traveling the path is that many people will fail along the way. It would be a lie on my part to state that I have never been apart of a failed idea. Understanding that failure is an inevitable certainty of being an entrepreneur is the first step toward obtaining success. Remember, you must learn to crawl before you can walk.

Overcoming failure is the defining characteristic that separates the successful from the unsuccessful. Many people take failure as finality. It has been my experience that many new entrepreneurs must change careers, because the impact of a failure bears too heavily on their souls. These are the people that journey off the path because of small bumps in the road. That is all failures are, “small bumps.” Once one realizes that one can simply “walk around” the bumps, success becomes the new inevitability.

The best advice I can offer to new entrepreneurs is to surround yourself with people you trust. Most of us do not have an abundance of capital to pursue our entrepreneurial ventures. In order to compensate for this hindrance, pooling resources from trusted “business family” members can help close this gap. In addition to added financial resources, business family members can contribute ideas, motivation, and support to the collective. The main reason that I advocate starting your entrepreneurial journey in a group is because, put simply, it makes things easier. It is better to work smarter instead of harder.

My last bit of advice for now is to remember what is important to you. The goal of financial freedom does not have to mean that big houses and fancy cars are now affordable. Financial freedom can mean more time with your family, improving our community, and/or the time to educate others about the entrepreneurial journey, among other things. It is a hard, bumpy road to travel, but if one is willing, determined, and imaginative enough, success can be found in the most obvious of places.