5 Things About Entrepreneurship Nobody Mentions

I consider myself a pretty calm and emotionally intelligent individual, but I’ve had it!!! Entrepreneurship changed my life, took me from being homeless to a business owner, and I’ll forever be grateful for it. But today when you look online all you see is fake entrepreneurs, people “faking until they make it”, or simply cashing in on a good time to be alive. Everyone talks about the pros that come along with being an entrepreneur and fail to highlight the cons/warnings. This is highly irresponsible and risky on the part of those who have so much influence, impact, and power!

If I can do anything in this article I wish to paint a realistic picture of a lifestyle that has been misconstrued, manipulated, and exploited to be perfectly honest. I learned early on in my entrepreneurial journey that when expectations don’t meet reality is when disappointment happens. And too many people are giving crazy expectations when it comes to being a boss. I definitely don’t want to crush anyone’s dreams. If you’re committed to changing your life and doing WHATEVER it takes to hit your goals; hats off to you. But you’ll at least know what to expect!

1. It’s FUCKING Hard: Have you ever been driving on the road where it was raining so hard you couldn’t see? So hard that you were forced to pull over to wait it out? Well add hot lava on the off-road where you want to pull over to, and gigantic Eagles are flying by attempting to pick up your vehicle, and there’s an earthquake happening simultaneously……that’s entrepreneurship on the best day! Of course, this is an exaggeration but for most entrepreneurs, they will meet situations they never could’ve imagined. At the age of 23, I was a District Manager for a Marketing & Advertising Firm. My duties were to recruit a sales team, train them to sell a premium product, and develop them to reach personal goals. I ended up generating over 6 figures in my first 18 months from scratch and building a 150 rep sales team. I was a sole proprietor of this business meaning everything was on me! My expenses for the month were ridiculous but to put things in perspective; the average college student makes north of $3k a year and the first month of checks I wrote for my receptionist’s department was north of $2k! Not to mention my other bills for the month! That changed my perspective completely about money and gave me a true CEO mindset when it came to running a business. Today there are so many solopreneures working out of coffee shops or their mom’s house(both I’ve been guilty of by the way) but to truly scale and grow a full functioning company you have to invest and pour back into the business. Plus the consistency that’s required in the beginning. Think of an old water pump on a farm. You may pump the lever 10, 20, 30 times and nothing comes out! But due to momentum and your consistency water begins to flow! That’s entrepreneurship! When you’re doing things the right way it takes patiently aggressive. Working hard in the moment like it’s all up to you while being patient knowing it’s a process.
2. It’s Too Glorified: Nowadays everybody wants to be an entrepreneur! In 2013 when I was homeless I was desperate to change my life and knew what I was doing up until that point wouldn’t yield the results I wanted. I remember actually getting a job at a Walmart in New Orleans but declined because I got the sales job at the District Headquarters in my hometown. It wasn’t cool to be into sales or an entrepreneur…I was completely out of desperation! Search a hashtag pertaining to entrepreneurship today and you’ll see cars, trips, money, girls, etc. And I get it. Today it’s all about getting attention and breaking through the busy world of the internet but there has to be a sense of integrity also. I always laugh when I see the meme of Zuckerburg and Bill Gates and the caption reads “138 billion dollars in one picture and not a Gucci belt in sight!” Now, a Gucci belt has nothing to do with it. Some designers and models make millions because of brands like Gucci. But it speaks to how people have correlated brands and flash to entrepreneurship and wealth!
3. It’s Lonely: This is possibly the hardest part of the process if you ask me and an aspect many refuse to talk about. Now, this isn’t an absolute. Many people have built amazing organizations with friends and even family members. They have a plethora of team members and they’re surrounded by people. It’s out there. I’m just speaking of the generalization of entrepreneurship and truth is it’s lonely. Many entrepreneurs are conceived from witnessing people around them living a life they don’t want to live, doing things they ABSOLUTELY don’t want to do, and often times killing themselves. This causes someone to repulse against the system and seek an alternative and that alternative more times than most is entrepreneurship. So just imagine that you disapprove of the life those around you have, you have this vision or idea to create something special, or pioneer something in your environment that many are unfamiliar with. This is a breeding ground for people not understanding you, resenting you, and even wishing to sabotage your efforts in some cases. So if you do have an amazingly supportive environment you’re fortunate because many entrepreneurs are deprived of this!
4. It’s Undefeated: I know I’m going to get much flack for this point because it’s my favorite. But at the end of the day, entrepreneurship is undefeated. Meaning if you suck, you lose! There’s no amount of advertising, marketing, mentorship, or personal development that can reverse this. If you don’t have what it takes the marketplace will eat you alive and if you’re lucky it’ll merely chew you up and spit you out! Sounds harsh? Good! Welcome to the real world kiddo. The #7 guy on the totem pole at Facebook makes 100X more than many “Presidents”, “Cofounders”, “CEOs”, and “Chairmen”! There’s nothing wrong being an employee at the right opportunity and it’s better for some to succeed being an employee than you get your brains blown out by the marketplace with entrepreneurship.
5. It’s Risky But Worth It: We’ve all heard the cliche, “anything worth having doesn’t come easy.” But there’s no place this reigns truer than with entrepreneurship! In fact, when you’re a true entrepreneurship there’s no such thing as “Risk”. It’s just a part of the process. It’s just what it takes. It’s just what you can’t afford NOT to do in order to manifest your goals. All of the sleepless nights, early mornings, phone calls, knocking on doors, messaging/emailing, crying yourself to sleep, eating rice and eggs, scared to look at your bank account, ashamed to go around your family because they disapprove of what you do, embarrassed to go around influent people because your clothes aren’t on their level; all of that shit is worth it! Because if there’s any trait that entrepreneurs share its perseverance! Many people may feel one of the feelings I just mentioned anyway but only the true entrepreneur fights through! They make the call ANYWAY! They go to the networking event ANYWAY! They make the investment ANYWAY! They go without ANYWAY! Because they know in the end on the field of victory; no fatigue is felt!

If you’re reading this I really hope you took something from this and something resonated. Whether you had a realization that entrepreneurship may not be for you. Or you had the realization that you may not be an entrepreneur but you know someone that has something going and you would love to help them in their cause.

ACTION STEP: Please do the favor and pay this article forward. Share it here on Linkedin, hit the share to twitter and facebook button, retweet if you saw this on twitter, hit the share button if you saw this on Facebook, copy the url and text it to a friend, coworker, boss, manager, etc! More people need to see this side of entrepreneurship and have all the info when taking that first step. This definitely won’t be the last time I speak on this but I appreciate you and thank you in advance for sharing this message!

#BeBrilliant

CRC