I love being an entrepreneur.
That being said, it’s not for everyone.
Many people out there seem to have the wrong conception when it comes to running your own business.
Sure, it sounds like heaven. Being your own boss, deciding your own hours, making the rules and so on.
But make no mistake about it, being an entrepreneur isn’t easy.
There are times when you’ll want to quit and in fact many people do. That’s why 50% fail in the first year and a whopping 95% of new businesses fail within 5 years.
Being an entrepreneur means the weight of the world is on your shoulders.
If your business fails, regardless of the reason why, it’s the entrepreneur’s responsibility and they will bear the brunt of the collapse.
While my life is pretty much stress-free these days, it wasn’t always the case.
There was a time when I couldn’t pay my health insurance because I barely had enough money to pay for my rent and food.
Forget eating out. I survived on tacos, yakiniku (meat cooked on a hot plate) and shabu shabu (essentially a hot pot) for about a year.
I was scared.
I had quit my job too soon and though I had money in the bank I started burning through it at an accelerated rate.
No more alcohol, no more rock climbing. Just computer games at home or board games at a friend’s house.
It was a wake-up call for me.
Somehow I survived.
I have to thank my father for “loaning” me some money to help me get through that dark patch.
And yet, here I am.
Years have passed and I’m a stronger, more capable person today, in every sense of the word.
I fell in love and eventually got married to a wonderful woman. We were blessed with a boy 4 years ago.
There were also two failed partnerships and a pyramid scheme along the way.
I lost friends.
And as most of you already know, I survived the tsunami that ripped through South East Asia back in 2004.
Today most of my time is devoted to my businesses.
I’m either writing a blog, creating a vlog, working on future ideas, developing marketing plans, offering advice to clients or studying my butt off.
How did I spend my Monday (my day off)? I started out by taking my son to daycare, then it was on to the chores.
After an hour of cleaning, laundry and vacuuming, it was yoga time.
I popped out for lunch during which I finished “The Midas Touch” by Robert Kiyosaki & Donald Trump (quite a good read I might add). After getting back home, I proceeded to script a video I’m creating for a new website I’m in the process of developing.
To keep me from getting too bogged down, I watched three episodes of a show I like while doing so.
Then I listened to an hour of interviews on the financial markets and then went through another 40 pages in another book.
6pm I was off to pick up my son.
Now it’s 1am and I’m working on this post which wasn’t one of the twenty other posts that I started last week.
And how much am I actually making from this site…very little, so far.
But that’s the life of an entrepreneur, they stay with it because they have the vision.
Mine is starting to take shape nicely.
Would I recommend people take my path? Not at all, there are faster, better ways to do what I’ve done…but I’m here so I just have to keep at it.
I’m not a quitter…and that is the quintessential element every entrepreneur must have.
To keep at things no matter how bleak they may look.
Malcolm Gladwell in his best selling book, Tipping Point, talks about how companies go from being small to big seemingly overnight, but the fact is that they had been working a plan for years before it paid off.
There is a point of saturation when people begin to take notice of a company, a brand or a website.
That’s what I’m doing, saturating the market, in the belief that if I have a good service to offer that it’s worth doing everything else.
I believe I can make a difference in people’s lives.
And that’s why I keep at it. Because helping people is a good thing.
Being an entrepreneur isn’t for everyone, but I love it and that’s why I keep at it.
If you’ve got the itch, I recommend you start slow.
Me, I jumped in head first in the deep end…and almost drowned.
Keep your day job and build up your business on the side till you reach a point when it makes sense to move completely over.
The best thing about being an entrepreneur is that it gives you options to live your life the way you deem fit.
It’s still a lot of hard work but in the end, if you do what you love, it’s well worth it.
Adrian Shepherd