How Hard Is It, Really, To Start A Business?

Starting a business sounds exciting until you realize it asks for more than just a good idea. If you've ever wondered whether the struggles, long hours, and uncertainty are exaggerated, this episode is your reality check. The truth is, building something from nothing can push you further than you expect, and the challenges often show up long before the rewards do.

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• 0:45Speaker 00

  Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, like impressions. But then we don't see revenue. LinkedIn has a word for that: bull spend. Instead, you can get the highest ROAS of major ad networks with LinkedIn ads. Cut the bull spend, advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/MBAShow. Terms apply. How hard is it really to start a business? Here it is. It's harder than you think. It's harder than I can even fully explain, to be honest. And I say this as someone who's made it on the other side. You know, I've built multiple businesses. I sold one of them. I currently run a growing media company.

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  And I'm here to tell you the truth. Today, I'm going to tell you exactly what it takes. I'm going to share with you the statistics, the sacrifices you're going to have to go through. I'm going to share with you some of the dark days I had to go through that, you know, not a lot of people talk about. And then I'm going to tell you the one thing that makes it all worth it, because it is worth it. Today's episode is me sharing the real price of being an entrepreneur, because you deserve to know what it is before you pay it. So let's get into it.

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  Welcome back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business.

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  I got a quick favor to ask. If this show has helped you in any way, leave me a quick review. You could do so wherever you listen to podcasts. This helps me and my team reach even more people who need the same no-fluff, practical business advice that you're getting from the show. It only takes a few seconds, but it makes a huge difference. Thanks for being a part of our journey to help others on their journey.

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  Step one, we're going to look at the numbers. And we're going to look at reality for what it is. This is what the statistics tell us, because the statistics don't lie. The numbers don't lie. Doesn't matter how excited you are about your business. It doesn't matter how brilliant your business plan is, or how unique you think your idea is. The numbers are going to tell us a different story. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly 22% of new businesses fail in the first year. Nearly half of them, about 49%, fail in five years. So within the first five years, half of all businesses go out of business. And by 10 years, about 65% are gone. So after 10 years, only about a third of businesses survive.

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  Now, a lot of people, when they hear these statistics, they think, oh, you know, that's not me. I'm smarter than that. I'm hardworking. I'm not going to be one of those statistics. I'm going to guarantee that those people that are in those statistics that did go out of business, they're not lazy. They worked hard. They thought their ideas were great, just like you do. And it's just a matter of numbers. When I say a matter of numbers, I mean that it's just a matter of fact that starting and growing and sustaining a business is hard. There are obstacles that you do not see even coming that you're going to face. It doesn't matter how hard you work. If you don't have answers to these obstacles, you don't have a way around these obstacles, they're going to be really hard for you to sustain your business.

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  So this is why on this show, I constantly try to give you as much information as possible to increase your likelihood of success, because the odds are not in your favor. I don't share this with you to scare you off. I want you to succeed. I share these numbers to calibrate you, because the person who walks into entrepreneurship thinking it's a two-year sprint to freedom and their life's going to change overnight, those are the people that quit, because they expect one thing and another thing happens. The person, on the other hand, that walks in knowing the odds and chooses to play the game of business anyway, is in a completely different kind of position. They understand the statistics are not in their favor.

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  But by knowing that it's going to be hard, it makes it easier for you to expect what you're about to experience. And this is why I like to share this stuff on the show, because most of the internet shares the glamorous part of business, you know? The hammock on the beach and, you know, enjoying this wonderful lifestyle and the fancy cars and the fancy vacations and the first-class tickets and all that kind of stuff, right? That is not the reality of being an entrepreneur. Even when you do make it, most of your life is going to be solving problems, okay? Putting out fires. And the more that you accept that, the more that you understand that's going to be your life, the more you're going to embrace it and see it as a challenge.

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  Now, even though this first step is just a reality check, I want you to do an exercise so that you commit before you continue on your journey as an entrepreneur. I want you to write down honestly, what are you prepared to endure for how long? Because a lot of us are not really expecting what's ahead. I sure didn't expect what I had to face to get to where I am today. I literally did this exercise when I got started in my journey. And I wrote down, I'm willing to survive as long as possible on the bare essentials. Like, literally, if I can eat and drink and have a place to put my head down at night, I'm happy to do this as long as it takes. If it takes me a decade, it takes me 20 years, it takes me 30 years, I'm happy.

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  And that is kind of easier said than done, but I lived that life. When I left my teaching career, we literally moved to New York City in this dungeon apartment. We had no luxuries. We barely had heat, because the landlord was so cheap, didn't put the heat on. It was freezing cold, and we still made it. As long as we ate, as long as we had a shelter, as long as we had each other, Nicole and I, we were happy to continue on this journey. And you literally have to commit to that, because it might be your reality. Step two, you need to start accepting that you will suck at this for longer than it feels reasonable. Nobody really shared this with me. I wish they did, because I thought I was stupid. I thought there was something wrong with me. Why am I so bad at this?

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  And then I started to realize that, hey, everybody's bad at entrepreneurship, at business, at making this work in the beginning. I'm telling you right now, if you haven't heard this already, you will be bad at this for a long time, longer than it feels comfortable, longer than it feels reasonable. It kind of feels like, hey, shouldn't I be good at this by now? It took me years. I'm talking about three, four, five years to start getting any kind of real traction, where I could say, okay, I can have a sustainable life with this journey, with this business that I'm building, with what I'm doing. It's going to feel longer than it feels fair, okay? And at first, your offers won't sell. At first, your marketing's going to fall flat. At first, all your hires are going to be mistakes.

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  At first, your pricing's going to be all wrong. Why? Because it's the first time you're doing it. You know, you're not going to be great. One of the things I talk about is, if you want to become a successful doctor, okay? Let's say you want to be a successful surgeon, somebody that is sought after, a highly acclaimed surgeon. How long would it take for you to be a great surgeon? Well, first of all, you'd have to go to university, and then you would have to go to medical school for a few years. And after you graduate from medical school, you still can't become a doctor yet. You have to do residency, right? You have to do some practice runs, right? And learn from other doctors. And then, once you do that, it's going to take you about a decade for you to have on-hand experience as a surgeon, to become a well-renowned surgeon, somebody that is sought after. So we're talking about 20 years.

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  And that's being a doctor, which is very common, okay? And being a successful entrepreneur is not as common as being a successful doctor. So you've got to be willing to put in the time and the effort, so that you can learn how to be good at this. The crazy thing is, is that with most jobs, you have to learn a few skills and just be very good at that. With entrepreneurship, with being a business owner, you have to learn a plethora of skills. It's a combination of a lot of skills put together. And you have to do it all right, at the right time, for the right people, for the right customers, so that this can all work out. So you have to be patient, and you have to understand that you have a learning curve you have to get over. That learning curve, those years where you are learning how to become an entrepreneur,

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  you're learning how to find your voice, find your customers, understand how to put an offer together, how to sell, how to market, all those things. I call those years the years of eating glass, because that's what it's like. You're eating glass, and you're chewing glass, and it's painful, and you're swallowing it, and it just, nothing feels great. It all feels uncomfortable. It feels strange, because it is strange. You haven't done this before. It's, you're out of your element, until you start to get used to it. So you start getting some traction. And the thing is that most people quit before they even get any wins. So you have to be willing to endure those tough days. And let me be very specific when I say tough days. This means giving maximum effort with zero results.

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  That's what a tough day looks like for me. When I look back at the days, and I still have these days, by the way, where you're working so So hard, you're trying so hard, you're doing everything you can, you're sacrificing, you're committing yourself, you're learning and you're trying as much as you can and you still get no results. That is what it's like being at the beginning of your journey. Everybody's journey is different, but for me, I would say it was about four years of experiencing that. That was my experience. Four years of working 12-hour days, 15-hour days, sometimes six, seven days a week. There was a period of time where Nicole and I did not take a day off for over two and a half years. And we were just grinding it out to try and make this business work, right? We would watch people that we knew from high school, university,

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  getting promotions and buying houses and having nice cars. And we were struggling to pay the rent. And this is the moment you will be tested. In those moments where you can just say to yourself, you know what, why don't I just get a job? Why don't I just, you know, hang up this dream for a moment and just get back on my feet and I'll come back to it later. Well, later never comes. Okay. And we had that moment, Nicole and I had that moment where we couldn't figure out how to make ends meet. And one of Nicole's friends back home said, hey, why don't you just get a job and so you could pay your bills, right? And I knew in that moment, if we got a job, that is time and attention away from the business. And we had to figure out a way to just maybe spend less money

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  or make it happen because if we took a job, we would lose our focus. That's a painful moment. That's painful for me to share because we were not winning. It was very difficult. But I'm glad we made that sacrifice because the funny thing is, is that it was just a few months later when we started to see some progress. It's like, right when it's the darkest, it's when the light starts to come in, when things start to shape up, things start to change for you. And I can't tell you when that's going to change for you. It's different for everybody. And I gotta be honest with you, it's like torture in a lot of ways. It's like, why am I putting myself through this? But I gotta tell you, one of the gifts of entrepreneurship, yes, the money is great. Yes, the success is great, the accolades, the awards, all that stuff is great. But what I have to say, the biggest

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  reward, it's what you become, is who you become in that process through those challenges. They say that if you divided all the world's money, all the money in the world, they divided it equally against everybody, everybody got the same amount, that in a few years, it would end up in the same pockets again. It will find its way back to the same people because they have the skill, they have built that skill of knowing how to earn more money and how to build a business and how to be valuable and how to be able to create value for the marketplace. So I love this idea of like, hey, in order for me to be successful, I have to learn how to be successful. I have to learn the ways of success. I have to become something new so that I can make something new, so I can create something new for my

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  life. So as an exercise for this step, I want you to ask yourself a really hard question. And that question is, if you work as hard as possible and sacrifice everything that you can sacrifice for three years and still see no results, will you still be working on your business? Will you still try to be successful as an entrepreneur? Or will you quit? The honest answer is going to determine everything. Because like I said, when I was at the start of my journey, I was just happy to be on the journey, to be an entrepreneur, to try to build something new, to try to be something new, to create something for other people. And I was okay with being poor. I was okay with having those sacrifices. You have to make peace with that because you don't know how long this is going to take.

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  Step three is understanding the real sacrifices. And let me be very specific about this because there is a price to any kind of success. Because it's not just long hours, you will also lose people in your life. You will lose friends. You will go through some difficult conversations. Your relationship, even with your own family members, might change. Why? Because you're changing. Anytime there's a change in any relationship, including the person, one of the people in the relationship changes, you're going to have a rift, you're going to have some friction because they're not getting what they're expecting, right? They're expecting somebody that's happy to hang out all weekend or go out drinking and that's not your jam anymore because you're working on your business. That's going

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  to create some friction. So you gotta be ready to sacrifice even the things that are dear to you. Because I have found that I only got traction in my business, in my journey, when I prioritize entrepreneurship. I know that sounds a little bit crazy. I know that sounds a little bit, maybe a little bit narcissistic, but I had to say, hey, this is the most important thing for me right now. And this comes, again, from my background. I didn't grow up with money. My parents were immigrants from Egypt. And all my life as a kid, said to myself, I want to solve this whole money problem. When I grow up, I don't want money to be an issue anymore. So I got to my 30s and money was still an issue for me. And I was like, I'm going to solve this once and for all. So I made it

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  my top priority to be successful as an entrepreneur, to build something that would make me financially independent. And that means saying no to a lot of fun things, a lot of things that my family wanted to do, outings with my friends, you know, game nights, whatever it might be. And I know that sounds a little bit unreasonable, or maybe it sounds a little bit crazy. But the truth is that if you don't prioritize this journey, if you don't prioritize success in entrepreneurship, it just will never happen. There'll be something else that will come before it. So you have to make it your number one priority. When I look back at the start of my journey about 20 years ago, a lot of the friendships I had did not survive. A lot of the family members I used to hang out with, I don't hang out with as much. I'm still very close to my close family, my nucleus family, my

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  sisters and my mom and dad and, you know, Nicole, my wife. But a lot of my extended family, I'm not in touch with anymore because they weren't really helping me get to where I want to go. They were actually dragging me down. I'm telling you, there are a lot of people in my life, especially my family, thought I was crazy. I lost my mind and all you care about is money. All you care about is this whole business thing, you know? And the honest truth is, is that in that moment, yes, that's all I cared about, right? Yes, I had to focus on that because I felt like I would never get out of the cycle of where I was in my job or with my career or where I was financially if I didn't take it that seriously. You're going to hear some things that you don't want to hear. You're going to hear people telling you that you're a dreamer. You're going to hear people saying

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  that you're being unrealistic. You're going to hear people say that you're too old, you're too young. They're going to say a whole bunch of stuff that are going to hurt and it's going to make you feel bad. And you're going to have to just say, we're going to have to wait it out. We're going to see what happens at the end, you know? And they say the best revenge is success, right? And that's really the truth when it comes to this journey. And you don't need to throw it in their face, but the point is, is that you're going to have to endure and sacrifice a lot of things that you probably are not imagining you're going to have to sacrifice at the start. I would say one of the things that I had to sacrifice was really my ego. Because when you are starting on this journey in business, you are not very good at it, like I mentioned. So you automatically start to feel bad about yourself. You start to not feel as confident about yourself because you're just not winning.

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  And it really doesn't feel good when you're losing and losing and losing. It's just easier to be like, oh, let me just go back to my career where I feel like a winner, where I feel like I'm important, where I feel significant, where I feel like somebody cares about me or I'm being praised constantly, right? Nobody's praising you as an entrepreneur. No one's cheerleading you or you're, you know, giving you any kind of motivational speech when you get up in the morning, right? You have to push yourself. And one of the things I had to sacrifice is this feeling of needing to feel good about myself constantly. I don't have to feel good about myself. It's okay. It's okay if I stink. It's okay if I suck at this right now. It's okay that I'm not winning, right? This is my season of losing right now. Okay, I'm okay with that. But as long as you just understand, I'm going to have to delay gratification for a little bit in order for me to start

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  getting better at this and start seeing some wins, having that patience and sacrificing your ego is going to make things a lot easier for you in the long run. Now, you might be saying, hey, Omar, what if my business is not working out? What if I am not making money? What if the product is not selling? Shouldn't I just quit this business? Is that bad? Should I never quit? And my answer is, is that you don't really quit until you quit on being an entrepreneur. So for me, the definition of quitting is quitting on this career, quitting on the journey of being a business owner, of being a business builder. The business itself may not be doing well and you might have to pivot, change it, sell it, close it down and start a new thing. That's fine. You didn't quit yet, right?

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  You're still in the game. You're still playing. That's what's the most important. It's okay for you to lose these battles, but the war you gotta win at the end. You have to be able to sustain yourself and continue to push yourself and grow and become a better person, a better entrepreneur, so that you can build that better business that's going to take you to the promised land. Hey, I hope you're enjoying this honest and raw episode. I really encourage you to subscribe to the show because we have an upcoming episode that I don't try to miss. We are sitting down with Taki Moore, who is the coach of coaches. He is like the OG coach of coaches. Every coach that you know in the world that's successful, he has coached them and he's going to show us how he helps other people build seven, even eight-figure businesses in the coaching industry. Taki's a good guy, he's a good friend of mine. We're gonna have a lot of fun.

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  He's actually a pretty funny guy and an interesting person, so you're gonna enjoy that episode. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss it when it comes out. Step four is to find your unfair advantage, which is having nothing to lose. Listen, once I got this, this changed everything for me, okay? You might be in a career right now, you might be in a job that you've maybe worked in for the last decade, like I did. I was teaching for over 10 years in the university I was working at. And I realized in a moment that, hey, if I left this job, there's a good chance I can always go back to it. I can get this job again if I wanted to, in another place, or even the same place if I wanted to. And I asked myself, what do I have to lose if I fail? Embarrassment? At least I tried, right? Most people don't even try to become an entrepreneur. I don't really have much to lose.

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  Yes, there's gonna be some sacrifices financially that you just have to come to terms with, but once you get into the mentality that you have nothing to lose, you have an unfair advantage. One of the best things about being a beginner is that nobody's watching, okay? When people post their first post on Instagram, or their first video on YouTube, and it doesn't get many views, good, that's great, you're not good yet, okay? You're probably not so good at that craft yet, because it's your first time you're doing it, and there's not a lot of people watching. It's kind of a blessing in disguise. And as you get better and better, more people watch, and therefore you can start to get better and start to improve and start taking on that feedback and improving your product or service. For me, I just had this mentality where it's like, hey, I already experienced being poor

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  most of my life. I didn't have much, I didn't have luxuries. And yeah, I could have a job that is gonna give me a paycheck and give me a few niceties once in a while, and I'll feel good about myself with a little treat here or there. Or I can just go back to being very basic in my lifestyle and go after my dream. My dream is worth more than that, right? To go after what I wanted. Nicole and I decided we moved to New York City, which was a dream of mine. And the reason why we chose New York City is because everybody in New York is chasing their dream, right? And being in that environment really helped us, because everybody's going after it. They're trying to be an actor, they're trying to be a startup founder, they're trying to be a musician, they're trying to do something. No one's there to relax and retire, alright? Everybody's in the city to chase a dream.

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  And it's good to put yourself in an environment that makes it conducive for you to go after what you're going after. So even if it means moving location, like literally moving where you are, maybe you can't do that, but even if you want to do that, just to give yourself a little bit of a push, that helps. Even if it's changing the people that you're surrounded with, joining a community, joining a mastermind group, joining an online program or online community that can support you. The point is that there are going to be some moves you have to make, where you're gonna realize that, hey, the worst thing that can happen is I fail. And when you fail, you'll learn. They say failure is feedback, and it's good. So just have this mentality that you really don't have much to lose, you're gonna be sacrificing a bit, but at the end of the day, as long as you're eating and breathing and

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  surviving, you have a chance. You have a chance at making this work. I'm telling you right now, the hardest part of entrepreneurship is not the work. The work is easy. The hard part is the comparison. Comparing your hard work, your years of grinding, your years of being uncomfortable with people that have made it, people that are doing well, people that you see online that are being successful and making money. You're comparing your uncertainty of being able to make this happen with people's stability and people's lifestyles. Don't compare yourself. You're on your own journey, they're on their journey. You're most likely looking at somebody who's on chapter 76 of their story, and you're still on chapter one or two.

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  So just play your game, be on your track, and understand that one day you will be further along in your journey, and you'll get some success, and you'll actually reach levels that you never even thought were possible. I gotta tell you right now, that if I knew I was gonna be able to achieve the things that I've achieved over the years in the beginning, I wouldn't believe it. I'd be like, you're kidding me? I'm just trying to live a good life and be able to pay my bills on time. What you need to do, and this is what I did, is decide that your old life is simply not an option anymore. That going back would hurt more than going forward. Again, we're going that story analogy, right? I don't wanna go back a chapter, I wanna just keep moving forward. That person becomes very hard to stop.

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  That person that feels like, hey, anything's better than the status quo, I will do what needs to be done so that I can be able to change things in my life. So find that version of you that makes you feel like you have nothing to lose. For me, it was, I don't wanna be poor. Maybe for you, your career is slowly suffocating you, right? And you feel like you have no creativity, you have no chance to create something for yourself. Maybe it's unbearable for you to think about being in a job that you're in right now for 70 years. Oh man, I don't know if I could do that forever. Find a thing that makes you wanna go forward, to change things and not go backwards and not stay in that painful space that you're in right now. I find that whenever your frustration of your situation outgrows your fear of starting

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  something new, of taking a bet on yourself, that's when things start to change. When you're like, anything's better than this, once you get to that point, that's where you need to be. You need to live there so that you can keep moving forward. As an exercise for this step, I want you to write down honestly what your life is going to be like, how will you feel about your life if nothing changes in the next 10, 20 years? If you sustain what's happening right now for the next 20 years, are you going to be happy? Are you gonna be fulfilled? Are you gonna be, you know, patting yourself on the back, say, hey, I did the right thing by not changing anything? Or are you gonna have resentment? Are you gonna have regret? Are you gonna feel like you've wasted 10, 20 years of your life, or your whole life?

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  That answer, that honest answer is gonna motivate you to realize, hey, I don't have infinite time, I need to make a change. I'm speaking for somebody who moved into full-time entrepreneurship at the age of 32, which was late for a lot of people. A lot of people get into business when they're in their teens or twenties. And I realized at that moment, oh man, there is not a lot of time left. I'm 32 years old, retirement's what, like 60, 65, right? So like, I've pretty much, I got 30 years, how do I wanna spend those years? Do I wanna continue doing what I'm doing right now? Or do I wanna change things up and do something that fulfills me, that lights me up, that makes me feel like life is worth living? Let's move on to step five, and to me, this is the most important step, and that is to fall in love with the journey, and not just the destination.

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  You must, you must, you must enjoy the journey itself, not tolerate it. You have to enjoy it, you have to actually relish in it, because here is the trap that destroys most entrepreneurs. They say themselves, I'm gonna suck it up, and I'm gonna endure the present for the sake of the future payoff, for that payday, for when I'm gonna be rolling in the dough, grinding it through the years, and I'm gonna hate it, and it's gonna be horrible, but I don't care, I'm gonna go for it, because the destination is so sweet. Here's the problem, the destination keeps changing, okay? The goalposts will shift. Because I'll tell you right now, that my first goalpost, my first destination was, hey, I wanna just replace my income that I'm making in my job with my business. Once I hit that milestone, or even right before I hit that milestone, guess what happened?

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  The goal changed. Well, what if I doubled my money? What if I would be able to make, you know, $300,000 a year? Wow, that'd be crazy, right? And once I got close to that, like, is it possible to make a million dollars a year in revenue? Oh, then I moved the goalposts to, can I actually keep a million dollars, make a million dollars in profit? Well, what about 10 million? Like, is that even possible? Like, the goalposts will keep on moving, right? And if you can't sustain your life, you're not enjoying the process, if you don't enjoy the journey, you're never going to make it, right? You're just going to hate it, and you're going to resent your decisions of actually going on this journey in the first place. I found that people that survive, the people that actually make it on this path, that

• 28:46Speaker 00

  are successful, that actually fall in love with the identity of being an entrepreneur, that just being an entrepreneur is what they wanna be. One of my favorite stories is a story about Jerry Seinfeld. Jerry Seinfeld, first time he went out and did stand-up comedy. He did his set and came out and he completely bombed his set. He did horribly bad, right? It was just a disaster. And the other comedians backstage were kind of consoling him and saying, Jerry, so sorry, that wasn't so bad, you know? It's okay, maybe next time. And Jerry was like, what are you guys talking about? That was great. I had a great time. And he's like, but you bombed terribly. And he's like, yeah, yeah, that's okay. I'll do better next time. I'll be fine. But now I'm one of those people. Now I'm a comedian.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  He was just happy that he was a stand-up comedian, that he's one of those people that stands up and tells jokes for a living. And that was success for him. And it didn't matter if he bombed or not. He enjoyed the journey. He enjoyed the process of becoming great at what he did. And you need to do the same in business. Win, lose, or draw. You make that sale, you lose that sale. The launch goes well, it goes terribly bad. Whatever happens, you gotta be like, hey, it's fine. I'm in the arena. I am competing. I'm part of the game of business. This is where I belong. As long as you enjoy the process. I say you get to be an entrepreneur because it's actually a privilege that you get to do this every day. Then you will be happy and you will actually have a better chance of success

• 30:12Speaker 00

  because you can sustain the years of challenges you're gonna go through. When we were starting out in business, there were some really dark days where I didn't know how we're gonna make it to the end of the month. This is like about 15 years ago where we were trying to make the business work. I had a consulting firm. I had some team members. I didn't know if I was gonna make payroll that month. It was really a disaster. Like, I remember it was like two days before payroll and my invoices were late. The invoices that were supposed to be paid by my customers were late. And I was hounding them and I felt all this anxiety of like, oh my God, if I don't get this paid in time, I won't be able to pay my team members. And those moments, you just feel like crawling up in a ball and never seeing daylight, right? You just don't wanna see, face the world anymore

• 30:57Speaker 00

  because it's like, why did I put myself in this situation? Well, I realized in that moment that if I could survive this, I could pretty much survive anything. If I could survive this pressure, if I could survive this moment, and I can learn from it, like, hey, maybe I should change my terms so that I get my invoices paid way before than I need them. Maybe my terms are a little bit too generous. And I made those changes and things moved a little bit smoother. But the point is, is that you're gonna have some dark days. And if you don't enjoy the challenge, if you don't relish in the challenge. One of the things I say is that, you know, Rocky is one of my favorite movies. And everybody's favorite part of Rocky is actually the training montage is where he shows what it takes, the grind and the hard days and Mickey yelling at him and telling him to like,

• 31:42Speaker 00

  get up when he doesn't feel like getting up. Those are the moments we actually respect and appreciate and actually enjoy watching as a spectator. But we don't wanna go through them in life, right? Because it's hard. But those are the things that you respect because you know that's what makes him a champion. That's what makes him successful at the end. And that same applies to your journey in business. You're gonna go through some dark days. You're gonna have your own training montage. You're gonna have your own times where you're gonna get knocked down and it's gonna be tough and you're not gonna know how you're gonna get out of it. But you can sustain those blows if you can continue to move on. And regardless of what happens, you can continue to grow as an entrepreneur. What I've found is that when you fall in love with your identity as an entrepreneur,

• 32:26Speaker 00

  that will sustain you longer than the outcomes, right? You can't guarantee all the outcomes to go your way. But you can guarantee how you approach your life and business when you identify yourself as, I'm one of those people. I'm one of the people that builds things out of thin air. I'm a creator, I'm a business builder. That is something that if you embody, you'll be able to sustain those tough days. And if you can find that, if you can find that love for your craft, that pride in that identity, that joy, that appreciation for the struggle, embracing the struggle, you become almost impossible to break. And I found that that has really helped me through my journey. So as an exercise, I want you to write down, what can you enjoy about building your business?

• 33:08Speaker 00

  Even if you don't get a win out of it, even if it's not successful, what about it that you will enjoy regardless of the results? So for example, like, you know, my results for the podcast are like viewership and downloads and numbers and revenue we make with ads and all that kind of stuff, right? Those are the wins, right? But what can I enjoy outside of those wins? Well, I enjoy the craft of delivering a message to my people, getting better at communication, trying to do something different every time I record an episode. Maybe it's the way I deliver it. Maybe it's my tone of voice. Maybe it's the stories I share. Maybe it's what I wear. Maybe it's the way I present myself. You know, that challenge, that little thing that I can look forward to and enjoy regardless of what the results are, is what's gonna allow me to get the results I want.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  It's kind of funny because when you don't chase the results, but you chase something else, you actually chase what gets you the results, it really helps you to become not only a sustainable business, but also enjoy the journey along the way. So how hard is starting a business really? Well, here's an honest summary. Two-thirds of businesses will fail within 10 years. And that's just the truth. Now, who will actually survive? Who will make it? Who will actually see success? Well, it's people that could stick it out for longer than that, longer than it feels reasonable. People that are willing to sacrifice, whether it's friendships or the comfort that they're currently in, or certainty, right? Certainty is the comfort, knowing that you're gonna get a paycheck every month. Know that if you're on this journey, this journey is not for the weak.

• 34:37Speaker 00

  Okay, it's, it's gonna challenge you. One of my favorite quotes is from a book called Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. He's the founder of Nike. And he said that, "The cowards never started. The weak died along the way. That leaves us." And that's really the reality of entrepreneurs. People that are still standing are the ones that are the winners, right? The ones that actually make it in business. This is why I highly recommend reading biographies. If you can get your hands on any kind of biography, whether it's in business, whether it's in sports, whether it's in music, whatever it might be, there are lessons in those biographies that will allow you to understand that, oh, to be great, it's gonna take a lot of hard work. It's gonna take sacrifices. Am I willing to do those sacrifices?

• 35:19Speaker 00

  You know, I've read a lot of biographies of successful athletes. One of my favorites actually is Open by Andre Agassi, where he starts the book where he talks about how much he hates tennis, right? How much he hates getting up in the morning and having to practice. But what he loves is success. He loves the win. He loves the matches where he gets to actually show the fruits of his labor. And the takeaway I get from these books is, is like a reality check. Like, am I willing to go through what I have to go through to get to that level of success? Am I willing to be uncomfortable? Am I willing to grow? And am I gonna enjoy that struggle and embrace that journey? So if you have the hunger, if you wanna be a better version of yourself,

• 36:03Speaker 00

  if you're just happy to be in the arena and be playing the game, then start, make it happen. Continue on your journey if you're on your journey. But now your eyes are open, you're fully informed, you know the real price, and now you're willing to pay it knowing what you know. And I'm here to tell you that it's worth it, right? Going through the trials and tribulations that we went through through our journey, I have to say that they pale in comparison to all the wonderful experiences I went through, the people I met, the places I got to travel to, the opportunities I've had, the things I was able to create, not only the businesses, but even just the ability to have great conversations with interesting people. It opens up so many doors by being in this space of entrepreneurship. You meet very interesting and noteworthy people

• 36:47Speaker 00

  that you'd never think you'd ever meet before. By being in a space where people are actually working hard, trying new things, taking risks and betting on themselves, you're gonna be in good company in the space where everybody's doing the same. If this episode gave you that honest picture you're looking for, good. That's what I wanted. But if you wanna continue learning, I highly recommend an episode we recently published called Why Most People Are Not Built For Business and How to Know If You Are. It's kind of like a test, a checklist to see if like, you have what it takes to become an entrepreneur or to survive or to succeed as an entrepreneur. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow, and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app,

• 37:32Speaker 00

  the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.