I Am Not an Entrepreneur

I am frustrated. By all definitions, I am an entrepreneur. I work for myself, I have no boss, and I make enough money to earn a living — in other words, it’s not a hobby. I’ve been in business for myself for several years, so this isn’t a fly by night operation. I use Quickbooks, pay my taxes, and issue 1099s to the contractors I employ.

But I don’t work 80 hours a week. I don’t stay glued to social media in search of the next big thing. I despise the terms “hack” and “hacker” unless they’re being used to refer to the latest episode of Mr. Robot.

I watch too much TV. I have beaten various video games, and I’m on level 1000+ in Candy Crush with no thought of quitting anytime soon.

I speak at conferences and I write for publications because I enjoy it. It has the side effect of making it easier for me to obtain clients and — to my husband’s chagrin — inspiring people to actually listen to what I have to say. He still can’t believe people pay to hear me talk.

I spend hours and hours every day poring over spreadsheets and data valuations and inspecting lines of code. I’m not out having fancy lunches or attending charity auctions. I despise the phone and do anything I can do avoid talking on it.

This is what frustrates me. I feel successful. I love what I do and I do it well. I earn a living. But I am not a startup looking for funding. I’ve turned to Medium and written this first post in the hopes that I can find other anti-entrepreneurs, because I’m tired of reading posts about how I should drink kale smoothies and run at 4am every morning. I’m sick of all the mastermind groups that focus only on discovering the best way to sell your company and make millions. I can’t stand the looks I get at local meetup groups when I say I don’t want to hire people; I don’t want to have an office; I don’t want to be acquired. And if I hear one more “motivational” keynote speaker tell me I should just do what I love as my job… If you know know a way to get paid for playing Candy Crush and Pac-Man, please let me know and sign me up.

When did being happy and fulfilled become not good enough? When did we all decide that everyone should be a multi-millionaire; that people who sleep only 3 hours a night are the most productive?

So I submit to you, let us make a new group of Entrepreneurs: the Anti-Entrepreneurs. The people who work hard and love what we do. The people who are content to just be — who don’t need money and fame to validate us. We who are passionate about many things, who want to continually grow and try new endeavors, but who don’t want to feel like we are always searching for a blank check.