The lonely life of an Entrepreneur: Part One | The Calling

Deciding to become an entrepreneur is not really a decision you make; it’s a calling. How do you know if you are one? Well, this is how it starts:

You’ve found a gap or a problem in the market that you know or think you can solve, but you have a hard time explaining it to most people around you. The thought lingers in your mind for days, months, and in some cases years trying to find the right way of implementing it. That’s the initial struggle of becoming an entrepreneur.

To be honest, deciding to take that step is like jumping into the abyss, you know what you want to see, but there is no way of predicting what you will find. Bouncing off ideas to your friends gives you a sense of comfort that you are not totally crazy, yet you feel that they still don’t get the full picture. That’s normal, they all have their own skills, degrees, and specialities, and in most cases all of that combined knowledge has nothing to do with what you are talking about. Frustration gets to you because of their opinions; you feel alienated in your head, but you can’t stop thinking about it. It’s an overwhelming feeling that not everyone is equipped to handle; that’s why a lot of people bottle it up somewhere in their mind, forever. If you decide to take that step, you know that there is no going back, and that’s why you hear people saying, “I thought of this idea before that startup came out,” but I never got to implementing it.

If you decide to take that step, you know that there is no going back, and that’s why you hear people saying, “I thought of this idea before that startup came out,” but I never got to implementing it.

People call it fear of failure, but it’s not only that. It’s fear of change. The difference between an entrepreneur and an employee is huge and, to be honest, not everyone is cut out for that sort of life. It boils down to four things: discipline, risk appetite, confidence, and adaptability.

So you’ve had a steady job for most of your working life. You’re earning a decent income that’s keeping you afloat and have all your basic needs. If you are excelling in your job, you might have a good amount of disposable cash in your pocket that you spend on luxuries, trips, or spoiling your significant other. You wake up every morning and go to your job, and you might go there with a smile on your face if you are one of the lucky few who love what they do. If you don’t, I’m sorry I reminded you.

But if you check most of the boxes above, and you just decided to become entrepreneur, then keeping that same discipline and increasing your working hours is what you are in for. It’s not as easy clocking in and out, as you have in your current job. The minute you clock-in is the minute you decided to become a full time entrepreneur, the minute you clock-out however, is the moment that you sell your business or retire from that life. I write, ‘retire that life’, because being an entrepreneur requires self-discipline more than anything, and it’s lifestyle is full of long nights at the office while your friends are out, and fighting the urge of hitting that snooze button, although you know that you have no boss now and that you only report to yourself.

To be continued…