Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur – in the traditional sense, anyway – and that’s a good thing.

To be an entrepreneur, in the nontraditional sense

When you Google the word entrepreneur, here’s what you get back:

a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.

This is what I’m referring to as an entrepreneur in “the traditional sense”.

If everyone was an entrepreneur, who would sell you tickets at the theme park, or handle your paperwork during a legal hearing, or serve your breakfast at a restaurant?

There are loads of critically important positions that require someone who would just straight up rather report to someone who will tell them exactly what to do than try and figure out everything required to create and run their own business.

And that’s ok!

To be honest, I can relate.

I didn’t grow up wanting to be an entrepreneur

I didn’t grow up around entrepreneurs, nor did I ever say, “I want to be an entrepreneur when I grow up.”

It just wasn’t a concept I was familiar with, and so I thought everyone went to a job from 9 to 5, did whatever they were told to do, and then got a paycheck that supported their family and lifestyle.

And let’s be real: there’s definitely something to be said of being able to walk out of the office at 5pm and literally not think about anything having to do with that office until you walk back in the next morning at 9am.

Plus, weekends and holidays actually DO exist when you’re an employee!

But I’m getting a little carried away here, because I would NEVER trade the freedom of entrepreneurship for anything I just mentioned. As Michael O’Neal would say, I’m officially unemployable.

Today, I do consider myself an entrepreneur, but not in the traditional sense; rather, in the nontraditional sense.

You see, I’m not actually the one who created the business I help organize and operate – John did.

So does that mean I’m not cut out to be an entrepreneur; that I’m doomed to work a 9 to 5 for the rest of my life?

No, it just means I’m a different type of entrepreneur.

What do you call an nontraditional entrepreneur?

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out a phrase or a word to describe this nontraditional entrepreneur role that I’ve stepped into.

But I don’t know what that is.

What I do know is that I had an insanely critical mindset shift the day I decided to join John at Entrepreneurs On Fire – instead of pursuing my own business.

That mindset shift was me realizing, accepting, and over time embracing the fact that now is not the time for me to be the traditional entrepreneur. Because at first I was sort of ashamed of that.

I almost felt like I wasn’t good enough, strong enough, resilient enough, ______ enough. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t come up with a vision and have multiple big ideas that I was really, really passionate about pursuing?

And through asking myself a lot of questions and doing some deep thinking on the topic, I’ve realized there are so many other options out there. That it’s not so black and white: either you’re an employee at a 9 to 5 or a traditional entrepreneur.

It’s owning the fact that you can crush it as a supporter, an implementor, a voice.

And I don’t think less of myself because of it or want other people to think I’m standing behind a curtain by embracing it.

I LOVE being a nontranditional entrepreneur because it allows me to leverage all of my strengths and feel amazing about the work that I do.

I stepped into the role of being an nontraditional entrepreneur, and I challenge you to have the same conversations with yourself about where your strengths could be leveraged on a higher level, and where your weaknesses might be holding you back from creating the life you really want to live.