Let’s face it. Entrepreneurs can be a pretty arrogant bunch at the best of times. In a lot of cases, this arrogance is what makes them successful – this constant self belief that they can be and are the best is what ultimately elevates themselves to the top of their fields.

But I’ve noticed that a lot of entrepreneurs (myself included) are quite quick to turn up their noses at “real” jobs where they work in a structured environment and enjoy some job security. Of course we as entrepreneurs don’t need any real security – after all we know better than other people how to run businesses and we hate to have structure in our working days AND we can move much faster and more efficiently than big businesses… and so our answers go.

Yesterday I got a bit of an eye opener attending the opening of an incubator type offering for 2 entrepreneur financial services companies. Get this all you aspirant entrepreneurs – at 26 a guy with a good (but not original) business got sponsored office and IT infrastructure in the heart of Sandton plus start up capital for 2 years. Wow! Do the maths and you will work out just how much moola that equals.

We can all sit back and bemoan the fact that opportunities like this come through once in a blue moon and only a handful of entrepreneurs would be lucky enough to get them. But I started chatting to the guy and it turns out that he’s been studying his arse off to get the financial services equivalent of a rocket science degree AND he’s been grafting in a couple of the Big 4 banks for the last few years. A big part of the reason he got picked for this particular incubator programme was because he had built a reputation for himself as an entrepreneur in a formalized work environment – when he went solo the opportunity landed up in his lap.

I think sometimes young entrepreneurs are so besotted with chasing the $$$ that they forget to see what else a particular job or contract offers them. I see it with a lot of young guys who are so keen to hop jobs simply for a few hundred Rand more, that they don’t necessarily see what opportunities (networking or business) are staring them in the face. Relationships can build a business – it is one of the things that small business owners often don’t acquire before they plunge off into the abyss – and make some very COSTLY mistakes.

If I picked up a lesson from this, it is that a good entrepreneur does not see a “job” simply as a “job”. Instead I think they should see it as an opportunity to capitalize on learning a new skill that will better position them to take on the world!