Ben Franklin is a hero of mine.
If you didn’t know, the guy was a:
Politician
Inventor
Writer
Scientist
Diplomat
The list goes on, but you get it already. The guy wore a lot of different hats.
Since 2015, I’ve been a:
Freelancer
Blogger
Vlogger
Streamer
Course Creator
And Tiktoker (most recently 🙈).
But guess what?
I haven’t freelanced in five years.
I haven’t vlogged in two years.
I stopped streaming after 5 months.
I’ve become certain things and un-become them a few times in my life. For me, entrepreneurship isn’t a “find what you want to do and live happily ever after” type of a deal.
Entrepreneurs go through a certain evolution every few years as one thing gets stale and another thing becomes interesting.
My Friends Say The Same Thing
I have a friend who’s been a photographer, founder, graphic designer, writer, and teacher.
He’s in his golden years right now and all he wants to do is teach photography to people. He ran an ad agency for years.
“Is entrepreneurship just a never-ending series of changes?” I asked him.
“Absolutely, Tom,” he replied. “It’s doing one thing then getting interested in another and moving on to that..”
This brings me to the bad news..
To Be A Happy Entrepreneur, You Must Abandon Your Comfort Zone Constantly
How ironic is it that to have happiness as an entrepreneur, you need to constantly dive into new challenges?
Stuff gets stale for us after a while.
Ev Williams, one of the most-influential entrepreneurs of our time, co-founded Twitter before moving on to founding Medium. Now he’s moved on after nearly a decade of running Medium to the next phase of his life.
It sucks that entrepreneurship — so predicated on uncertainty — never gives it’s practicers a break from danger.
Why can’t we kick back and enjoy what we made for 40 years, like normal people do?
Because that’s exactly the kind of hell we wanted to escape from with 9–5 work.
And who says what we made will be able to survive for 40 years anyway?
One thing I’ve learned is that entrepreneurship is a lifestyle, not a goal.
It requires that you dive straight into the deep end of the wave pool and get used to the violent swells.
You can’t conquer the waves. You can’t shut them off. You can only get used to them.
The good news is, it’s mad fun.
The bad news is, it’s a blender to be in sometimes.
So before you start your business, understand that you’re not going to ascend the mountain, plant your flag at the top, and live off the interest for 40 years.
You’re going to constantly be ascending the mountain — constantly grinding.
It’s what comes with the territory.
And it’s the price of taking on the challenge of the mountain while everybody else remains at the bottom.
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