Become an entrepreneur, they said.
It’ll give you freedom, they said.
What they didn’t tell you is how stinking HARD it would be to do this.
There are many observations I’ve made over the years. I’ve often thought, “hmm, I don’t recall reading about this a single time in any of the business books.”
Here are my top 3 things they don’t tell you about being an entrepreneur.
And quite frankly, these are the reasons people quit and give up. It’s a big reason less than 1% of all businesses make it past the million-dollar mark.
RISK
First, there’s emotional and mental risk. You’re putting your reputation, your dreams, and your skills on the line.
People have a huge fear of failure. They don’t want their egos smashed if it all comes crashing down in an epic fail.
Not only that, but when you’re in business you’re working with other human beings, and human beings are fickle.
Your star employee will leave you for a competitor, people quit without warning and do not care how it affects everyone else, someone says something behind your back, and you’re afraid of not being liked by your team.
That’s the kind of emotional risk they don’t tell you about.
There’s the obvious financial risk. Not just putting your own money into the business, but also what you’re liable for.
There’s a huge amount of responsibility and risk when you have payroll. The paperwork and government regulations are intimidating and it seems like there are a hundred ways you can do it wrong.
In addition, there’s no “security”. You’re in charge of your financial future (and really, employees don’t have security either).
Entrepreneurs take on ALL the risk of putting their necks on the line and making jobs possible for the community. That’s what provides stability in local economies.
Even with all this risk, there’s an obvious upside — both financially and personally.
A business is one of the best ways to make insane profit gains (if done correctly).
Few things can create potential generational wealth like a business.
And today it’s never been more possible and easy to do so!
LEARNING CURVE
I’ve often said to my husband about our latest company: “I’m really glad I didn’t know what was involved.”
I was speaking about the massive learning curve in an industry we had no clue about.
We’d never manufactured a product before. There’s just so much to it, and we didn’t realize this until we had to figure it out.
From supply chains to shipping and receiving, to warehouse layouts to efficiency and production planning, to state taxes and more. It’s a whole WORLD of “wow that’s a lot!” and “we need to learn this.”
Here’s the deal: building a business is like driving a car at night. You only can see as far as the headlights shine and that’s all you get to see.
And when you drive further, you get the next 30 feet and the next 30 feet, and so on. You don’t have to know everything RIGHT NOW.
If you want to become successful and you’ve been the type of person who has to know all the details before making a move, then you need to change your mindset.
You don’t get to know everything ahead of time. No one successful has it all mapped out or even knows what step 3,4,5 are.
They are just experts at taking steps 1 and 2. They figure out what step 3 is when they get there.
Unsuccessful people need to know every detail before making a move. The successful only need to know the next step.
WHO YOU NEED TO BECOME
The reason successful entrepreneurs say there’s a lot of loneliness at the top is that you have to become a different kind of person as you grow into more success. There are a lot less people around when you become that person.
There are things they don’t tell you about this. Just examine your network for a second.
You know people living at the poverty line and you probably know a few successful people.
They are different.
I don’t mean in a class sense but in personal habits and mindset and emotional intelligence (EQ).
If you took a group of your neighbors and a group of ultra-successful business owners and put them in a room together, there will be a stark contrast in types of conversation, thought processes, habits, and actions.
If you want to be successful in business, here’s who you need to become:
⚜️ Someone who can sacrifice in the short term for a long-term vision. Most people can’t say no or “not now” to themselves. They are self-indulgent. They reward themselves for every tiny thing they do and then wonder why they’re going in circles.
⚜️ Someone who sees possibility rather than why something won’t work. There’s a CLEAR wealth distinction between people who say “that won’t work for me because…” vs. “Oh that’s in an interesting idea”. Don’t shut down ideas so fast.
⚜️ Someone who doesn’t quit easily. Most people give up the second they don’t like a task or it feels hard. Most people think “I guess I’m not cut out for this” the second they don’t get the result they want. That is someone who never learned the word “tenacity”. That’s someone who received a gold star every time they changed their socks. Do you know what else is hard? Not having money in the bank, giving up on your dream, and living with regret for the rest of your life.
⚜️ Someone willing to learn anything and upskill themselves. When you’re a business owner you become a jack of all trades. Including doing things you don’t prefer and don’t enjoy. Too bad. Do you want success? You’ll have to learn stuff about bookkeeping and finance. You’ll need copywriting skills. You need to learn Shopify and ads. This is how it is until you can hire specialists, but not until you have the profits to do so. This one thing eliminates MOST people from the entrepreneurial game.
⚜️ Someone who doesn’t hesitate to invest in themselves. ALL successful people have mentors, coaches, or advisors. Olympic athletes are the best in the world, and yet they have coaches. That’s because they need more specialized attention, support, and strategy to take them to the finish line. I’ve lost count of how much I’ve invested in myself after half a million dollars. And I’ll gladly invest more because shortcuts are worth millions to me. I don’t like pain and I’m lazy (or smart!). Give me the faster, easier way to success, all day long.
⚜️ Someone who takes action quickly: act, learn, adjust, and try again. Most people TAKE TOO DANG LONG to do anything! They wait until they have every little detail to take one action, and they’ve already failed out of the gate. Successful people make informed decisions quickly and then learn and adjust as fast as possible. People who say they are just a perfectionist are lying to themselves. In reality, they are massive procrastinators.
⚜️ Someone who understands that failure is not the end, it’s the beginning. Failure is not really in your mind. However, learning is. You look at every “fail” as “Cool! I now have more information”.
⚜️ Someone who’s ok with uncertainty. Here’s what they never tell you: You’ll never have all the answers and you’ll never have 100% certainty about anything. Even when you think you know things about your industry or business, there’s always a curveball. There are no guarantees. You need to be ok with that.
⚜️ Someone willing to delve deep into personal development. The ultra-successful have developed their people skills: leadership, communication, and emotional intelligence. Take the room of people struggling for success and ultra-successful people and you’ll see a stark contrast in mannerisms, questions, attention, emotional intelligence, and social cues (don’t mistake this for saying that poor people are dumb or ‘less than’, or anything like that – just speaking in terms of personal development. Some of my closest friends don’t have much money).
⚜️ Someone willing to exercise personal discipline. Let’s face it, who wants to sign up for working long hours, cut budgets, control spending habits, dig into finance spreadsheets, and learn to advertise, while everyone else is at the beach? FEW PEOPLE are willing! Someone who can’t be disciplined to do what needs to be done will not experience success.
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After this blog, you might think I’m trying to dissuade you from becoming an entrepreneur or going to the next level.
Yes and no.
I think people have a fantasy in their minds of what business is. If you hated this article, that might be a sign.
If you found yourself challenged, that’s a positive thing.
I’m all about being real. People who know me and have been my students for years know me to be someone who is NO BS and gives it to you straight without the fluff (because who has time for fluff?).
If you got to the end of this and you’re thinking “wow, I have a lot to improve” — GOOD! That tells me you might be actually cut out for this.
Which point challenged you the most? Comment below on this blog — it helps me gauge if my content is helpful to you or not.
