Traditionally, the self-help industry’s standard advice has been to do your own thing. Books like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” go into great detail as to why it is preferred to work for yourself. The personal development blogosphere has been echoing the same advice. And in fact, I wholeheartedly agree that there is no better way to achieve success and financial independence than to be your own boss.

However, I don’t think that people should be blindly accepting what authority dictates. Starting a business might have worked for the author, but it may not be the prescription for you. I think the smarter thing would be to consider the benefits and drawbacks of both, and then decide for yourself.

In his excellent book “Hackers and Painters”, Paul Graham discusses the concept of working for someone else as being unnatural. Throughout human history, people were always working for themselves (when they had freedom to do so.) It was only with the advent of industrial age that the notion of being an employee has been widely implemented. So, Paul makes an argument that being an employee is unnatural and everybody should start a business.

I disagree. At least at one point in human history, there was an example of a very healthy employer/employee relationship that worked well for both parties – namely, the master/apprentice relationship.

In medieval/renaissance times, there were artisans – masters of their craft. For example, a town usually had a blacksmith, whose job was to make and repair horseshoes, ploughs, swords and everything else made of metal. If business was flourishing, blacksmith could not handle the load by himself, and some other man in the village might send his son to serve as blacksmith’s apprentice. Blacksmith provided his food and lodging, and taught him the craft. In exchange, the apprentice helped him in the forge. Eventually, after the apprentice matured and learned enough to go off on his own, he would open a blacksmith business if he were so inclined. (This, of course, is a perfect scenario. As we all know, in real life things don’t always work out as they’re supposed to)

A lot of personal development books and blogs describe the modern employee/employer relationship as master and slave. In my opinion, this is not always the outcome. If you start to think of yourself as your employer’s apprentice, you’ll see many benefits for yourself. Your employer pays your salary (provides food and lodgings) and lets you learn the trade and build a network of contacts. In return, you do work they require of you.

If you have high ambitions (and I imagine most of my readers do), working for others is probably not something you want to do all your life (I know I don’t.) But if you look at it as apprenticeship, and use it to gain real-world skills, it’s going to be time well spent.

In the same book, Paul Graham talks about the intangible skill to “get it done” – something that distinguishes kids from adults. It’s the ability to complete the work, no matter how boring and tedious, because that’s what you have to do. This is the reason employers are reluctant to hire college grads – most of them don’t have it. In college, if you don’t want to do something, then you don’t. However, that luxury does not exist in the real word.

Where else are you going to get that ability, if not working at a real job? If you open a startup right after college, are you going to have the strength of character required to complete mundane and boring tasks? Your chances are much greater if you get real world experience at a job, and only then branch out on your own.

Of course, starting your business part time while working a full-time job is not easy. But then again, what is? Succeeding in business world requires tremendous effort and dedication. If you can not pull of starting your business part time, then the future does not look bright.

I’m in that boat right now – working a full-time job, trying to start a business and work on this blog in my spare time. The proponents of “don’t get a job” movement will be quick to point out that if I didn’t spend best part of the day working for “the man”, my business would already be up and running. The reality of the matter is that if I didn’t work for my company, I would not be where I am today. I wouldn’t have the necessary skills, maturity and perseverance that are necessary to get anything done.

I’m not suggesting that every fledgling entrepreneur puts his or her dream on hold and brushes off the resume. I am, however, stressing that you should consider your options and think for yourself before following somebody else’s advice. Maybe you have matured enough and learned all necessary skills by the age of 14. Or maybe you don’t know anything about starting a business other than “it would be cool to …”

Whatever you do, decide what’s best for you. And then, hopefully, we’ll see an increase in number of successful businesses and happy people all over the world