The call was on my voicemail. “Ron, it’s me, Richard … I’m playing hooky today. I’m right now headed home to watch the USA/France soccer match.”

(It was 10:00 a.m. on a Wednesday. Richard is a life-long friend of mine who has a sales territory somewhere in Pennsylvania.)

He went on, “I’m just gonna sit back, open a beer, and kiss off the day.”

I thought to myself, “Can there be anything I would be less interested in doing on a beautiful summer Wednesday than sitting in front of a television watching soccer?”

I reminded myself of the fact that Richard has spent his whole life ‘working for the man’. Thus he has no idea of what he’s saying --- he has no idea as to what else might be out there.

And I can only imagine him thinking that, and at least on this particular day, he was, “beating the man.” In essence, he was getting a paycheck without the attendant work. In fact, I know this is true because Richard and I have had this conversation. It usually goes something like this, “Hell, they get their money’s worth out of me --- I owe it to myself to square things up every now and then.”

The fact of the matter is that the Great Creator made all kinds of people. I never try to force entrepreneurism on anyone --- but I will sure as heck let them know, and at least for me, it’s the only way to live. Free. Unencumbered. In charge of one’s own destiny.

Shortly after hearing this voicemail, I pulled into a small coffee shop where I usually pick up my sandwich for lunch. The shop is owned by an African-American friend of mine by the name of Andre. When Andre took over this empty space in a Heidelberg strip mall, everyone predicted his immediate demise. I heard things like, “How’s a black guy gonna succeed in this part of town?”

And, things like, “What does he know about serving food? He’s 60 years old and has never had this kind of business before.”

Two years after opening his doors, Andre’s shop became, and today remains, the top traffic generator in that mall.

Why is this? Because Andre understands the concept of differentiation and Andre busts his tail to make sure that every customer that comes into his store has a strong desire to come back again.

I told Andre about my voicemail from Richard. As he shook his head, he said, “Well, at least your friend doesn’t have to go home each night and think about all the stuff that didn’t get done that day.”

I smiled as I acknowledged what he was saying. To an entrepreneur, there is always “one more thing” to be done. It’s a dangerous concept --- at some point entrepreneurs learn that they must be very careful to balance their work and family lives.

This is because of something that Andre was referring to --- the fact that entrepreneurs don’t really “work.” The truth of the matter is that I haven’t “worked” even one single day that I’ve owned my own business. (I do work when I sell one of my companies and have to “put on the handcuffs” for a year or so. Now that’s work.)

But entrepreneurs really just have fun at what they’re doing. At times it may look like they’re suffering, but the truth of the matter is they love every minute of it.

Employees like Richard live for weekends, holidays, and two weeks of vacation. Entrepreneurs dread weekends, holidays, and sometimes even vacations.

They dread the first two categories because nothing is getting done. They dread the last because they know they’re going to drive their families crazy while trying to appear as if they are relaxing.

My friend Richard is what I would call, “5:00 conscious.” To him, 5:00 is a daily objective. Get there and your day is yours… yours to do the things you really like.

To an entrepreneur, 5:00 is also an objective, but a different kind of objective --- because entrepreneurs know that sometime after 5:00 is when they can get their own work done --- it is at 5:00 that they become free from solving the crises and problems of their employees and customers.

(They also know that post 5:00 p.m. --- and pre 8:00 a.m. --- is the best time to reach other entrepreneurs and/or corporate managers.)

An entrepreneur’s mind never “shuts off.” How many times have I sat at family affairs, trying like hell to stop thinking about my business? My wife will look at me and know that I’m in some other place. She has learned that I will likely stay in that place until that particular problem is resolved.

And speaking of “thinking”, it is a fact that entrepreneurs think constantly about cash. How many companies have I run where, and upon entering each morning, I went right to my Controller’s office asking, “How’s our cash?”

Most employees think that cash just “shows up.” Except in small companies and entrepreneurial enterprises, most employees simply have no concept of the relationship between customers and cash.

Which leads me to a rather harsh examination of the employee-versus-entrepreneur mindset. To an entrepreneur, a customer is a god. Someone to be catered to at all times. For the entrepreneur knows, and without satisfied customers, the cash stops flowing.

But to many employees (again, I’m ruling out smaller companies with entrepreneurial mindsets), a customer is someone who more or less “interrupts their day.” How many employees have I heard over the years complaining about customers and how “stupid” or “dumb” they are simply because they are asking for service? It’s clear to me that the employee would rather the customer simply go away so that they can live out their own day.

(Note: I know I’m going to get angry notes about that previous, and rather harsh, condemnation. I will qualify what I just said by telling you that in a well-run entrepreneurial environment, all employees fully recognize the connection between cash and customers. The disconnect, it seems, is in larger enterprises or in enterprises that are clearly not at all entrepreneurial.)

Finally, there is a place even beyond employees that I’ll dare to go to. That place? I call it “Unionville.” It is at Unionville where things really get ridiculous.

I’ll never forget the day I picked up and carried a cathode ray tube through McCormick Place while at a trade show in Chicago. I’d not traveled thirty feet when a guy blew a whistle in my ear. He was a union steward, and he threatened to “shut this damn place down” because I had violated a union rule. He told me that any “carrying” would be done only by the appropriate union worker.

I had a similar experience the first year I worked in a steel mill. “You’re working too hard,” I was told by my union brethren. “Keep it up and you could get hurt.” (That’s a direct quote.)

I should also point out that, by working just five years in that steel mill, all employees become entitled to 13 weeks paid vacation. Even at the callow age of 18, I knew that this didn’t add up. “Somebody, somewhere has to be paying for this free time,” I thought to myself, “How can any company afford this?”

(Hey, I was an econ major!)

What really worries me is the present growth in our public sector. I’m sure that most of the readers of this article already know that the fastest-growing MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) in the United States is that piece of turf known as Washington, D.C. and its surroundings.

The federal government, and up through the end of 2010, was adding 10,000 new jobs each month. Most of them in this same MSA. This, while the private sector was, and at best, not hiring.

One of my favorite aphorisms is that, and in business, you’re either making something or you’re selling something and if you’re doing neither of those things, you’re overhead.

Somebody wake me up the next time the federal government actually “makes something or sells something.”

But I’m drifting. The topic is entrepreneurs versus non-entrepreneurs, and if you are an entrepreneur, you are reading this right now with a big smile on your face. (You’re also a little angry at me for revealing some of our “inside secrets.”)

And if you’re not an entrepreneur, that’s okay too because we welcome you to join us. Entrepreneurs need and want great people to help them. After all, entrepreneurs are greatly flawed (ever hear of A.D.D.?). We’re infected with it.

Details? Lord please help us find people who can watch over the details.

Rules? We don’t like them, we don’t follow them. And that’s not good.

And once you’re in that entrepreneurial environment, you too will start looking forward to Mondays, and you too will stop trying to find ways to watch soccer games on Wednesday afternoons.