What They Don’t Tell You About Starting a Business
Alt Text: Contemplation over coffee while looking peering through the window in Ventura apartment.
The truth is that starting a business cracks you open. Our friends and colleagues love to remind us of the challenges of entrepreneurship – the inconsistency of pay, the long hours, the hard work. They tell us we have to pay our dues to sit at this table. But the price of the dues isn’t what you’d expect.
Because when you trade your own goods and services for direct income, it feels like using a completely different system of currency. It isn’t that it is a harder system to grasp than the commercialized one we live in - it’s just different. Your relationship with money is now so much more complex as a business owner.
You know you have to worry about things like obtaining your own health insurance, creating a marketing budget and a business plan. But what they don’t tell you is this.
They don’t tell you about the inner work you have to do when you start a business. Actually the work begins long before the business is even born. You have been preparing for this your whole life, young grasshopper. You just didn’t know it yet.
You can fail in business. In fact you should. The best business owners I know got there by creating a solution to something where they failed. That takes immense courage and unbridled creativity. A lot of productive inner work comes from our deepest failures.
And then suddenly you have to get so very honest with yourself. The kind of honesty that is usually doled out in small doses. You need to know your strengths and weaknesses intimately — as if every day is a Shark Tank pitch while attached to a lie detector. Except you are only interviewing yourself.
I knew that I wasn’t meant for the 9-5 lifestyle soon after I graduated college — I dreamed of one day working for myself. But I had no idea how I would get there. I thought maybe I could open up a quaint little coffee shop in downtown Seattle after I retire. Maybe I would have a husband and a 401k to fall back on.
Well I’m almost 30 and I don’t have a husband and my 401k is nothing but a tiny nest egg. Yet here I am. It wasn’t until many years of gravitating towards marketing, sales and wellness that I realized that I wanted to make it a career.
The path that brought me to that conclusion was far from perfect and I had to do a lot of soul searching. I had to actively try to be my true, authentic self every day. Which is, frankly, a lot more work than it sounds. Just the other day I tried to convince myself that working full time was the smart thing to do right now, but when I sat with that thought and spoke honestly to myself — I knew that wasn’t true. As long as I maintain the 40-hour desk job life, I will not be fulfilled. And that’s a tough pill to swallow.
Whittling down your paths to success is terrifying. When you start a business, you are taking away a lot of safety nets and other options. You are choosing to commit to something bigger and you have to show the world who you truly are. So be the best, most honest version of yourself and your business will grow with you.
You can’t spend your career trying to please everyone and have “a little something for everyone.” Because when you give away a little something of yourself to everyone, there’s not a whole lot of substance left over.
Be honest in your marketing too when starting a business. Do not make yourself or your product into something it is not. Tell the story. The real story - warts and all. Who was it made for and why? Double down on your target audience and let them tell you what they need.
I’ve said it so many times that one size does not fit all and you can’t just follow some cookie cutter magic recipe and expect to be an overnight success. Growth comes over time when you are dedicated to the process. You have to be vulnerable in a way you never have before. Opening yourself to strangers and close friends alike. Owning a business can’t just be your dirty little secret. Something I am learning quickly.
I learned so much last week from a colleague who was planning to leave her full time job to stay home and raise her two young boys. She said that it felt like she was only putting 50% into being a mom and 50% into her job and something had to give. She wanted to devote her full attention to her kids and had the awareness to admit that all she ever wanted in life was to be a mom. And it was time to do right by herself.
She inspired a lot in me as I thought about giving my attention to so many things that didn’t fulfill me and how it funneled all my energy away from my passions. My business(es) included.
So as I start off into the “official” world of owning a digital marketing agency (everything is official once it has a website right?) – I know a lot of positive changes are coming.
Even though it’s just the beginning, I have had to overcome a lot of fear and shame to even write this blog article. But I have poured my heart out to so many like-minded people and I’ve watched countless others open up and live their truth. I am honored to follow in their footsteps. I am so inspired by the reckless and the brave that exist in this space.
I never would have known the way owning a business would change me. And I am so grateful for it.