The path of entrepreneurship is a bold dream to chase throughout life because it comes with a unique set of challenges that push a person to their very limits. It requires a lot of bravery, determination, and hard work. Even if a person is fully ready to tackle these challenges head-on, they are entering a playing field that is not tilted in their favor.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one out of five new businesses fail within the first year, and about half of them fail within the first five years. Furthermore, Guidant Financial discovered that 42% of businesses fail simply because there is no adequate market for their intended product or service, while for 29% of businesses, the main problem is the lack of necessary capital or cash flow needed for sustaining the business.

Still, even though the odds do not favor the brave and bold, more and more people are deciding to embark on this exciting journey that offers riches and rewards beyond imagination—money, power, worldwide recognition, freedom, and flexibility.

As a time-tested and successful real estate professional with a focus on construction and development, Dennis Jenkins, Jr. is well-aware of what the entrepreneurial journey entails. As he explains, the dream of becoming an entrepreneur is more of an innate desire that forces aspiring entrepreneurs to choose this path, rather than a path chosen on a whim. Having amassed a real estate portfolio valued at $10 million, his expertise is nothing to write off.

As Dennis Jenkins, Jr. points out, a lot of people get into the game for the wrong reasons. That extrinsic motivation won’t be enough in the long run, as many entrepreneurs often spend years or even decades before earning the complete financial freedom and success they want. Even with his current success, he has still faced his own troubles along the way, and those troubles weren’t limited to the beginning of his journey. He recently expanded into the commercial cleaning industry with a company called Executive Commercial Cleaning (ECC). Though real estate and commercial cleaning are related industries, each one has its unique problems and challenges. He would argue, however, that that is what makes entrepreneurship interesting and what keeps him going.

“Entrepreneurship is not for people with faint hearts, and new entrepreneurs often make the mistake of setting their sights on money and fame, or what I like to call material reasons,” says Dennis Jenkins, Jr. “But entrepreneurship needs something more than just a material end goal because the journey to the top is hard and exhausting. You need to aim for something bigger than yourself and use that to fuel your success,” he explains.

“Entrepreneurial work never stops, as there is always the next challenge to tackle. I’m always looking for something new—a new challenge. So, I think that there’s never an end goal for a true entrepreneur,” says Dennis Jenkins, Jr. “A few years ago, I never would have imagined I would have started something like this. But just seeing where it’s taken me is a reward by itself. This just proves that as an entrepreneur, you should never limit your options, but keep them always open.”

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