What do most Americans want from their work?  A Gallup Poll provides some answers, and there are a few surprises in the mix!  Below are the top five responses:

1. Benefits (including health insurance).
2. Interesting work.
3. Job security.
4. Opportunities to learn and grow.
5. Having a week or more of paid vacation.

Let’s analyze the responses and see what we can learn.  First, do you notice that “money” is not among the top five things people want from their work?  While more than 50% of the people surveyed DID indicate they wanted a high income, there were things people wanted from their work more than money.

You could divide the top five responses into just two categories.  Here goes:

1. Benefits (insurance, etc., as well as paid time off).
2. Quality of Life (interests, security, and personal growth).

Now ask yourself, what kinds of jobs offer both of these things to “everyday, real people?”  What kind of people have jobs that consistently deliver both benefits and quality of life?  One thing stands out.  It is the word “entrepreneur.”

Most people think being an entrepreneur is a highly risky lifestyle.  In reality, that is not so.

• A true entrepreneur is always moving from opportunity to opportunity.
• Entrepreneurs live in an opportunity-laden world.  
• A person surrounded by opportunity is not nearly as “at-risk” as one who has no opportunity and is entirely dependent upon the company or industry where s/he is employed.  

The “entrepreneurial worker” has the most interesting work, the greatest long-term security, and the most opportunity for personal growth and development.  The entrepreneurial worker also has the greatest control over the benefits that will be associated with the job or work s/he is performing.

• You cannot be a workforce or career development professional today and not be aware of the many lay-offs, down-sizings, rapid responses, plant closings, and job losses that are all around us.  
• Let’s point out that most of the people impacted by this trend are people who had the “job security” of being someone else’s employee.  
• Though entrepreneurs are not the ones in shock being interviewed on the news, most of us still believe it is riskier being an entrepreneur than it is being an auto worker or someone working with one of America’s big corporations today.
• And how could you miss all the talk recently about recession, “bail outs,” loans to the big three auto makers, lost jobs in the economy, and other related issues.  
• There is more — much more — of this coming!

To a person on a career track with a company that supplies products and services to an American automobile manufacturer, these are very troublesome times.  To an entrepreneur, however, these are the best of times.  That’s because entrepreneurs make their living helping others solve their problems.  The more problems that exist in the marketplace, the more opportunities there are for the entrepreneurial worker.   

Let’s wrap this up with a special thought.  Are you a career development facilitator or workforce development professional?  Does your job put you in a position where you help others with their career planning and career development?  If so, the time has never been better to encourage others to explore entrepreneurial activities in their careers.

• America is in need of an entrepreneurial workforce over the next 20 years or so.  
• Entrepreneurs will enjoy the greatest job security and personal growth, as well as interesting work with the promise of good benefits.
• That’s because entrepreneurs make their living helping others solve problems.  
• And we are just now beginning to see the problems associated with an outdated infrastructure in an emerging global economy.

Learn more about what it really takes to be an entrepreneur (CLUE: It has MUCH more to do with vision and creativity than business plans.)  What we are about to say is potentially controversial … but if you think about it, it actually makes sense.

• If you want to learn about entrepreneurial activity, you have to avoid the colleges and universities.  That’s not where entrepreneurs hang out.
• You also have to stay away from “canned programs” that teach how to write business plans and marketing plans as the foundation for entrepreneurial activities.  That’s not what real entrepreneurs do.
• Entrepreneurs are like “guerilla” fighters.  They are creative thinkers who see opportunity all around them and regularly seize on new opportunities. 
• They are highly adaptive people with lots of vision and enthusiasm.

… go find an entrepreneur in your community.  Follow him or her around.  Ask them what they do.  And then teach that to others.  The more entrepreneurial your workforce becomes, the more new success stories you will see emerge!