For those of you who do not know, I recently started a business in July 2011, quit my day job and took off for a 2 week vacation to Japan in January 2012 and am moving to San Francisco on Monday.
Yes, a lot of change is occurring in my life.
I’ve been self-employed now for the past 20 days (15 of which I’ve been on vacation) and upon my return it’s finally starting to hit me:
Being an Entrepreneur is REALLY Hard
Jason Hilton, founding member of WDFA down in San Francisco, gave me the best quote I’ve heard to date about starting your own business: You must be absolutely crazy.
So far, that advice has just about summed it up.
Every day I’ve worked harder than ever before to generate new opportunities.
Every day I wake up completely energized (hence writing blog posts at 7 am on a Friday) and excited to hit my to-do list.
Every time I experience success, I jump for joy.
Every time I experience failure, I curse the gods and slowly punch a one-way ticket to hell with the horrible curses I wish upon my competition (or something like that …)
And every day I think about quitting.
So What Keeps Me Going?
Well …
- The fact that I’ve successfully removed as many moving parts between myself, the work & the client, leaving good work as the only currency of success
- The fact that I can wake up at 6 am (like today) or 11 am and the only person who will yell at me is myself (which I do)
- The fact that my fear of failure drives me to work more efficiently, as my income is no longer billed on hours but instead of the amount of business I’m able to generate
- The fact that my professional mentality has changed — if I fail with MKG (my new company — knock on wood we don’t), I still can’t even fathom a universe where I went back to a ‘normal’ 9-to-5 work day
I Now Have the Emotional Capacity of a Pregnant Woman
In a single minute of each day I feel happy, sad, angry, confused, and terrified all at the same time. It’s these feelings that help remind me that I’m human, but these same feelings create a drive to succeed like nothing else I’ve experienced in my life.
So, want to join me as an entrepreneur?
See you at Starbucks tomorrow at 6 am to get started.