Entrepreneurs have to be made of very special stuff. We live in an age when people are being persuaded that if they don’t start their own business, they are somehow failing in life, because they are helping others fulfill their dreams.
I’m not trying in the slightest to discourage anyone from becoming an entrepreneur; quite the opposite. I simply want people to know that the image in which successful entrepreneurs are presented, selling free time and wealth, making money while you sleep, or lying on an exotic island with a beer in your hand while money pours into your bank account, may well come true. Of course it can. But before that, you will have to travel a very dark road that very few people can bear.
See also: 12 business lessons from Tim Ferriss
What they don’t tell you about starting a business
If someone has sold you a course telling you that the road to wealth is easy, I hope you had money to spare, because that road is never easy. If it were, everyone would make it. And the reality is that 80% of entrepreneurs fail.
Some time ago I published an article prompted by an award-winning piece of journalism that had gathered testimony from several of today’s leading business figures, who confessed that they had battled extreme stress, and some of them depression. The piece also mentioned others, less fortunate, whose businesses led them to take their own lives. We called that article The secret price of starting your own business.
The entrepreneur: the truth
You are bombarded with the idea that starting your own business is a way to achieve freedom, to work whenever you want, to never again have to put up with bosses. That you’ll make a lot of money while you sleep. And above all, lately there has been a message going around that suggests that if you’re not an entrepreneur, you’re failing in life.
There is some truth in all this, but there are also many things nobody tells you that can end up getting you into trouble.
I believe that before you go into any place, you should know very well where you are going, and even more importantly, you should never go into a place you don’t know how to get out of, or how you’re going to get out. If you have ever imagined yourself as an entrepreneur, I just hope it’s for the right reasons.
Forget the message of freedom. It isn’t true. Not in the first years. The entrepreneur’s path is not a red carpet where everyone will admire your work. It is no bed of roses.
It will be hard. Very hard. Harder than you can imagine right now. And there will be times when you go through a bad patch, a really bad one. Worse than most people can bear.
It’s a path with no guarantees. Only risk. A risk very few want to take for a possible reward in the long term. You may make a lot of money, but before that happens, you should know that you will very probably have money troubles. More troubles than you had before you went looking for that financial freedom through entrepreneurship.
True, you won’t have to put up with those jerk bosses, because now you’ll be the boss. Whether or not you’re a jerk boss, now you’ll have to put up with customers, suppliers, banks and employees. To make money while you sleep, you’ll have to lose sleep before that happens.
To earn your freedom, you will have to be a slave for a while. Sometimes a long while, and sometimes the slavery never ends.
True, you’ll work whenever you want. But if you start a business so you can work whenever you want, blinded by the picture you’ve been sold of the entrepreneur lying in a hammock while checks roll in to pay for a luxurious lifestyle, you’ve chosen the wrong profession.
That picture suits the person selling you the course on getting rich, but it isn’t real. Not in the first years.
Your income will be lower than you calculated, and your expenses higher than you thought. Sales will take longer to arrive than you expected.
You will suffer, and at times you’ll wonder whether you chose the right path. There will be days when you tell yourself you weren’t so badly off before, that at least you had security, while now insecurity is with you every day, all the more on those days when getting up in the morning to face problems and complications becomes part of your daily routine.
Then you think everything will get better, but the truth is that things get worse.
That’s when you realize that however bad things are, they can always get a little worse. You’ll think about giving up and you probably won’t, not because you don’t want to, but because you’re terrified that everyone else will find out you’ve failed, when, ironically, failure is part of this profession.
But make no mistake: it won’t depend on luck, or on your talent either
Luck is something we create through effort in the right direction. And as for talent, there are probably thousands of people more talented than you, much smarter than you. The only way to beat them is with determination and by gaining a competitive edge, which often lies in doubling your effort.
In any case, you’ll find success by taking risks, being persistent, working hard and with determination. In other words, you’ll find success by doing exactly the same as the person who runs into failure.
Exactly: they don’t tell you this either, but we can only know the steps that led someone to success in hindsight. If someone carries out an idea when everybody tells them it’s a bad idea, but it ends up succeeding, they become a visionary.
If they fail, they become a stubborn fool who wouldn’t listen. The thing is, in business the stubborn fool and the persistent visionary are the same thing, but we won’t know which one we’re looking at until we see whether the stubbornness leads to success or to failure.
This is known as outcome bias. When you start a business, you should know that failure is not an option you choose, but it is a probability that is always there. If you’re afraid of failing, entrepreneurship is not for you.
If you start a business only to make a lot of money, entrepreneurship isn’t for you either, because money is precisely what you’ll be short of for some time.
In our culture we idolize great business leaders, and we idolize them because we see them at the top. We don’t see the work and the effort, or the struggles against anxiety and, in some cases, against depression.
These are battles those business leaders fought in silence, because in that same culture of ours it is frowned upon to show this kind of mental state. It could be associated with weakness.
If you start a business because you truly believe you can improve the world and other people’s lives; if you start knowing that the road will be hard, that you’ll work longer hours than everyone else and that there’s no guarantee of success; if you start knowing that failure won’t sink you… if you start with the conviction that you’re doing it for a purpose bigger than yourself… then the road will still be hard, but entrepreneurship is for you.
See also: The secret price of starting your own business
So if you’re thinking of starting a business, in addition to the usual advice repeated ad nauseam, take this other piece of advice that business schools won’t give you.
Imagine the bleakest scenario you can picture right now: tiredness, confusion, frustration, stress, anxiety… now multiply it by two. If, once you start your business, you find that the road has been easier than you pictured, congratulations.
But if that scenario comes true, which is the most likely outcome, at least you’ll have counted on it. But never start a business because someone told you it would be a more comfortable and freer life. If you do it, let it be because you feel comfortable where others wouldn’t last.
Don’t do it because you’ve been told that if you don’t have your own business you’ve failed in life because you’re fulfilling someone else’s dream. Bear in mind that business owners build companies thanks to great professionals who sign up for those owners’ dreams and projects.
If you do it, let it be because entrepreneurship is your way of life, because it’s what you know you have to do, because you’re going to improve society, a service or people’s lives.
Only then, whether you succeed or fail, will it have been worth it.
If you succeed, don’t fall asleep, because up there at the top you’ll be in plain sight of everyone who wants to knock you down. If you fail, it won’t be the end, but the beginning of your next project.
Over time, I have changed the way I answer the question:
What is the most important trait an entrepreneur needs to succeed?
Although many other traits and qualities are needed, the one I now consider most important is the mental strength to overcome obstacles and manage failure.
If you don’t have these two qualities, then just as people who can’t swim are advised to stay away from the edge of the pool, you shouldn’t get too close to the world of business.
See also: 40 hard life lessons you need to hear
Featured image: User:Mattes, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
