This article is basically saying you have to be insane to be an entrepreneur. There is a big element of truth to this. Why the hack would someone ever want to be an entrepreneur?! The way I look at is that insane people don’t know they are insane. To them insanity is their normal. They view insanity as sitting in traffic every morning to go to a place where they tell you what to do and what time to do it. Insanity to them is being paid just enough to get you into debt so you can be more dependent on what they pay you.
The truth is there is nothing romantic about any kind of hardship. Yeah it’s true that an entrepreneur’s vision of changing the world is very important, but I am sure every entrepreneur will attest that; it would be nice to be told what to do, when to do it and then get paid for it. It would be nice to have colleagues that you can tell how your weekend was. It would be cool to escalate problems to someone else, or not worry about other people’s salaries. What would be best though is the ability to never take any criticism personally. I would love to look forward to Friday’s and month ends! Entrepreneurs are people who are willing to worker harder than anyone else now so that they won’t have to later.
The article says it’s love that stops us from quitting. That’s BS, as in the UB40 song, love don’t pay the rent. And we all know that eventually love runs out and then it’s just hard work. So then what really stops us from quitting? It’s purely survival. It is the ability not to romanticize the problems. It’s about not fighting tomorrow’s fights today. Basically you survive each day. Luckily as an entrepreneur no two days are the same and often bad days are followed by more bad days, but somewhere in between there are some amazing days. In fact in the same day you can have a great hour followed by the worst.
It is important not to glamorize entrepreneurship as it will further entrench unrealistic expectations. Entrepreneurship is one of the loneliest gigs, it is hard and it is unforgiving. But it is also important not martyr it. It is one of the most rewarding experiences, you are in control of your destiny, changing the world for the better is a possibility. No two days are the same. The highs are really high.
The sense of purpose is one of the best energy bars you could ever eat. Knowing why you are on this planet is an incomparable feeling. Every one has a purpose, for some their purpose is to work on other’s purpose and there are very few people who get to drive their purpose.
Neither purpose nor love stops you from quitting, it all just boils down to not quitting today.