Takeaways
- Entrepreneurship isn’t glamorous it’s hard, complex work that requires learning things you might not enjoy.
- Wanting to be an entrepreneur is easy, but being entrepreneurial means confronting challenges and dissatisfaction head-on.
- If you don’t know what makes you content, entrepreneurship will likely amplify your frustration rather than provide fulfillment.
A friend once introduced me to someone who called himself an entrepreneur. He had an idea for a startup and wanted to know if I was interested. He explained the concept and said he just needed someone to build it and monetize it. I told him, “If I do that, then it’s my startup, not yours.”
He laughed, but I wasn’t joking. I assumed an entrepreneur would already know that. Like many people who think they want to be an entrepreneur, his idea of what it takes was incomplete.
I didn’t become an entrepreneur because I thought it looked fun or glamorous. I became one out of necessity. And let me tell you, whether I’m boasting or venting, I am an entrepreneur. I’ve launched startups and run companies with employees, so I’ve earned my credibility. But I don’t love it, and I don’t hate it either—it’s simply my path.
Here’s the hard truth: if you don’t know what brings you fulfillment, entrepreneurship will make you more miserable than you can imagine.
The Glamorization of Entrepreneurship
What frustrates me is how the business press glorifies entrepreneurship, turning it into success porn. The lone entrepreneur overcoming impossible odds gets all the attention, while the critical factors that made their journey possible are often ignored. It’s like fan fiction for aspiring founders. It’s no surprise that this kind of coverage attracts people like the guy I met, who see only the highlights and none of the real grind.
Being entrepreneurial and wanting to be an entrepreneur are two completely different things.
Wanting to be an entrepreneur is fun. Who hasn’t daydreamed about quitting a soulless job in dramatic fashion, moving to a seaside town, and opening a cozy little bookstore or café? I get it—those daydreams are appealing. But that’s not entrepreneurship.
Being entrepreneurial is hard. It often starts with dissatisfaction. You begin by questioning everything: the status quo, conventional wisdom, your workplace. You either keep your frustrations bottled up or speak out and become unpopular for pointing out the flaws.
The Reality of Entrepreneurship
Once you take the plunge, you realize that entrepreneurship isn’t just hard work—it’s nothing but work. And much of that work is stuff you’ve never done before and probably never wanted to do.
People say, “Entrepreneurs aren’t afraid of hard work.” Well, to me, that sounds more like the perfect employee. In reality, entrepreneurs make terrible employees because they’re constantly looking for ways to do less work for someone else.
Entrepreneurial work isn’t just hard—it’s complex. You get to wear many hats, they say. But what no one tells you is which hats you’ll wear, what size they need to be, or when to put them on. Every day, you’ll have to decide what you should be doing and hope you’re right—because if things go wrong, there’s no one else to blame. You’ll oscillate between feeling empowered and overwhelmed, often within the same day.
There’s no shortage of advice out there about entrepreneurship, but much of it is recycled and full of clichés. What I can offer is my personal experience. The hardest part for me wasn’t the work itself—it was having to unlearn things I was good at, while learning things I was bad at.
Knowing What Makes You Content
Whether I worked for myself or someone else, there were moments when I hated my life. And here’s the kicker: if you don’t know what truly makes you content, entrepreneurship will amplify that misery.
For me, the drive to be autonomous is what keeps me going. This path is the only way I’ve found that comes close to satisfying that need. I may not have “f-u money,” but I have something more important—I’m content. I know the version of me from years ago would envy the life I have now, and that’s what matters.
With the right mindset and expectations, entrepreneurship isn’t a bad life. But it’s important to know what you’re signing up for. Once you’re in, you’ll find that going back is nearly impossible.
You’ve been warned 😛.