Its very easy to lose sight of reality when all the media does is fill your head with success stories and glorifying success without showing sight of the many failures ahead. Its the media after all and their goal is not to create awareness and speak the truth but rather entertain. While there is more learning from failures than in success, it simply isn’t as pretty and entertaining so you rarely see it. All that attention to success has one negative annotation to it, it makes entrepreneurship seem very one sided.
With the shifting economy and the illusions that there are no jobs, it only makes sense that more and more people seem very interested in the idea of being entrepreneurs, especially after seeing all of its glamour on TV. Since so many people seem to think they understand entrepreneurs and seem to believe everything they see on TV, it is perhaps time to discuss what really goes on in the head of an entrepreneur.
Your mind never really sleeps: No matter how good your company is doing or how weak it is, your mind still doesn’t seem to comprehend how to let go. As a result, no matter that you are day dreaming, sleeping or working, you are still thinking about the future. It’s really bad because its almost like losing part of your mind everyday, and having to constantly be reminded to live in the moment.
You lose track of time: Days tend to go faster and regardless of how much you want to try to systemize your life into a normal 9-5 routine, its almost impossible. While most think this is good as you are rewarded with how to manage your schedule, it is also much more difficult to balance a healthy work/life balance.
Laser focus means missing the journey: If you could look backwards rather than forward, perhaps you would realize how much happens around you that you miss out on. There is very little that you notice when all you can see is seeing your project come to life, and create the change you believe it can. Its not a sacrifice, its an obligation that you cannot ignore or put aside.
You lose sight of the reward: Its a good thing to not expect anything in return, especially when changing the world. Most entrepreneurs realize early on that there is quite a long road ahead before seeing any type of reward for your work, and in some cases, there may never be a monetary reward. This is not a big deal up front, but in the long term, most find it very draining that the relationship between you and your venture seems to be more give than take. This is the core reason most give up in the first 3 years.
While entrepreneurship is the key to fulfillment, its also the key to knowing yourself and pushing the envelope of what you are made of. That said, the media always glamorizing success instead of focusing on the reality of the struggle may make entrepreneurship seem easy, when in reality, it is anything but.
If it was, many more people would certainly be doing it and succeeding at it, but yet it seems like all you hear about are the same stories over and over.
That’s because very few see it through to the end. If it seems like I am discouraging you from being there, I am simply setting an accurate portrayal of what you may encounter like I did, so that you don’t feel blind sided or remain stuck in the first circle of Third Circle Theory.
