Eight Demons Every Young Entrepreneur Must Face…
The past week has been a rollercoaster, which adequately sums up my first year out of college. It has been incredibly tough, I mean I’ve felt like the rug was pulled under me and I’m left to think to myself: what went wrong?
On the heels of launching my startup, my car broke down leaving me with, not only no transportation, but also an alarming feeling that things in my life weren’t going the way I’d planned.
For the past few days I wasn’t able to go into work. I searched through hundreds of cars, checked my back account numerous times, and succumbed to fits of stressful outbursts. Now, I’m a pretty chill guy but, there comes a time where the will and limits are broken. This was mine.
As the nob on my stress-meter continued to increase, I began my wrestling match with the demons that have lurked in the shadows, ever so close, since I decided to become entrepreneur.
But, then I began to think to myself, as a millennial entrepreneur, I surely couldn’t be the only one who might struggle with this, so I created my list.
A lot of times this list gets switched and mixed up but as I write this now, this is currently the order in which they flow to me:
8) Life
Just this week life dealt me a major blow. It stripped away my pride, resolve, and confidence. When my car broke down the young/childish version of myself was instantly stripped away and in the ensuing days adulthood set in. Looking for a car, buying a car, paying insurance, looking for an insurance dealer, getting warrantees, finding a mechanic, and the list goes on and on.
Things rarely go as planned but this was the first time I didn’t have a fall back. The first time I didn’t have a quick fix. The first time I actually lost confidence in what I was doing.
Life always presents challenges and it is how you deal with them that make you the person that you should be. As an entrepreneur, and millennial at that, nothing is guaranteed. Today’s successes could be tomorrow’s failures and you have to be able to adapt seamlessly. Or, at the very least, jaggedly, as I so often do.
Life, itself, can be both the demon and the angel but in the end being alive to go through either is a true blessing that can’t be understated.
7) Success Stories
Now this one might have raised a few eyebrows and I included it because it has the power to inspire as well as demotivate. I love reading, particularly stories of successful entrepreneurs and their failures. I have been inspired at so many times by so many stories but at the same time I have had to realize that their success, however quick, however massive don’t define mine.
Falling into the self-sabotaging trap of comparison is a cruel ironic plot twist where the character of a story (you, me, us) want to succeed so badly that, when we draw inspiration from others, we subconsciously compare ourselves to their “greatness.” This causes an effect where our personal mountain to success becomes larger than it really needs to be.
I want to be clear in saying that the success stories are not the demon but what can often result, the subconscious comparison (the next progression after the awe factor), can have a negative impact on our trajectory.
Your story is your own and we often like to think that success is a destination but in actuality success is the journey. It is a continual process of adapting, growing, and living.
6) Peers
“I graduated with an engineering degree from N.C. State.”
For those who hear me say those words, naturally their first thought, is ok this guy is competent. This becomes important in that the competence that I gained due to those hellish years means that I should be making a good a bit of money right now. My peers, the ones I graduated with, are currently going on amazing vacations, buying whatever they want, financially stable, etc. I am extremely happy for them because they deserved it.
I am the one who chose this entrepreneurial path but every-so-often it does become difficult to come to terms with the decision you’ve made. I mean they never have to worry about how much is in their bank account because the pay is amazing. They can do, in many respects, whatever they please.
I do what I do because I am the type of person who believes that I was meant to do more than just go to work for an amazing company and make good products. I was created to make a real impactful difference and until I hear otherwise entrepreneurship is the best way for me to do that.
Again, your success is your own and regardless of what life your peers, friends, or colleagues may be living, it doesn’t mean they are totally successful.
5) Bank Account
In college, I really didn’t have to worry about money too much (isn’t that ironic) because I had a good/chill job, some awesome internships, didn’t have to pay bills AND I didn’t have a startup until the tail-end. So, I remember going out and buying random things, splurging on food and entertainment and living the life of a “baller.”
Well, the initial start of an entrepreneurs life is one that is not synonymous with the “Class A” or “baller” types. It is a real grind; bring-lunch-from-home-type grind. Frugality is a man’s best friend in those early days because most know that making and pocketing money in your first few years is almost impossible.
You are investing so much time, money, and effort in your startup that sometimes you forget to listen to the small voice of your bank account, crying out because of the hemorrhaging. I have personally funded my own startup and not accepted or even asked for money from others. It has been tough and with the recent car event my budget has been pretty tight.
But its ok, as Dave Ramsey would say, “Live like no one else now, so later you can live like no one else.”
4) Failure
Now, that hardest part it isn’t so much as battling failure, itself, but battling feeling like a failure — whether that be from a mistake in your decision making or hearing “no” one too many times.
While most of us know that is not true, telling the small portion of your brain that isn’t cooperating is quite difficult. It’s just so hard to feel like you are succeeding when the drive in you won’t allow you savor your small wins. Focusing on the loses, the no’s and all the negativity on the entrepreneurial road is taxing and if, not dealt with, can cause for a real dark tunnel of despair.
It’s also important to know (or remember) that failure is good. There tends to be this negative stigma with failure that suggests that if you are failing then you don’t know what you are doing. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. In this businesses if you aren’t failing, you aren’t pushing your limits or taking the necessary risks to improve.
It’s OK to fail as long as you are failing forward. While too many failures may cause you to start to feel like one, just know that your identity isn’t tied to your failings.
3) Uncertainty
This demon can be the most debilitating. It can make you backtrack, jump the gun, or even bury your feet in the sand. It causes you to do and think things that you shouldn’t, when you shouldn’t.
“Am I good enough?”
“Should I be doing this?”
“What makes me qualified to do this?”
Questions like these feed into the insatiable monster of uncertainty which can very quickly morph into fear, who then calls the elder brother, panic.
And, when panic joins the party the mind shuts down. It’s tough though. In a world where so much is unknown, uncertainty will only be natural.
To be uncertain isn’t bad, but to allow it to control your life, most certain is.
2) Doubt
I’ve teetered on the brink of real doubt. Doubt of whether or not I should have even become an entrepreneur. Or how easy life would be if I had just taken a good engineering job only to be paid enormously well and not have to worry about anything else.
I find myself in that same cloud of thinking now. Like, “what in the world have I done with my life?” These kinds of questions surface every so often and each time they get a little stronger, as if the dial on the heat meter is being raised by some external force.
Once the haze from the doubt-cloud moves from over you, it’s easy to see why you do what you do but when under it, it’s a different story.
There is a quote I like that simply says:
Doubt kills
So, I’ll leave it at that.
1) Yourself
Sometimes your biggest critique and biggest enemy is yourself. I often times get frozen in time by my indecision, by the two versions of myself battling for supremacy. I’m confident today, I’m not the next day. I’m brilliant on Monday and an idiot on Tuesday. These constant struggles that only I, internally, face rear their heads all too often. Wanting to succeed and leave a mark so great on this world is a burden that many of us millennials share. But that desire can be something that develops into a coliseum-type match where the version of our self today must wage war on the version of who we need to be in order to achieve our dreams.
It is difficult to continually be on top of your game as a young entrepreneur because there is so much unknown — and as you continue to grow and develop you notice things about yourself. These things are often areas of weakness because there is so much that you don’t know and in order to get to the next stage of your dream you, as a person, must mature.
To be uncertain of yourself is one of the greatest uphill climbs one can have. What makes it increasingly difficult is that, no one can believe in you for you. If you don’t then it doesn’t matter the level of success you may achieve.
All in all while these challenges, demons if you will, try to make the entrepreneurial journey unpleasant, they actually help to make the overall experience all worth it.
I wouldn’t change anything I’ve been through because it is through these challenges that maturity, magic, and movement occurs. What helps make the good times worth it, are the bad experiences you overcame to get there.
So, to the young entrepreneurs out there, I salute you and wish you well in all of your endeavors!
