The Cost of Entrepreneurship

The drastic rise in popularity of “entrepreneurship” in just the last few years has been insane to watch. Being an entrepreneur wasn’t always a badge of honor, but because of Instagram and how easy it is to make it seem like you’re “crushing it” on social media, it’s become a status symbol of sorts. 

I know a lot of phenomenal marketers, and I understand that marketing is an important part of the game. But there’s a large discrepancy in the marketing of entrepreneurship vs. the reality of what it’s really like. 

I’m not here to knock anyone’s hustle, but I rarely ever see anyone talk about the dark side of entrepreneurship. 

While becoming an entrepreneur and running your own business is something that will pay massive dividends for you in the future, it’s not something to be taken lightly without understanding the territory. 

Becoming a real entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart, and no amount of flexing on Instagram about how well you’re doing will actually get you very far. 

The reality of entrepreneurship is that you’re playing a game with no certain end, no roadmap, no “5 easy steps” to making your first million (or billion), and almost no reassurance. 

Ask anyone that’s ever started a business, and they’ll be very quick to tell you about all the risk involved. The people who love you the most will try to talk you out of it - telling you again that it probably won’t work out. 

The worst part is, they have a point...and you know it. 

On any given day, you see your friends and family members going to parties, going on vacations, staying out late on weekends, sleeping in on Sundays, and enjoying their holidays off. But most entrepreneurs don’t get to enjoy all of those things...they have to sacrifice based on what they need to be doing to push the business forward. 

Entrepreneurs face loneliness, depression, bipolar disorders, and other mental health disorders. It’s also been found that only 24% of entrepreneurs don’t face some kind of mental health disorders or illnesses during their journey. 

This isn’t my case for why people shouldn’t become entrepreneurs, because in reality, I think that a lot of people should. 

I wrote this because I plan to do a lot more writing on entrepreneurship in the future, but I don’t think it’s fair to get into other topics surrounding entrepreneurship without painting the full picture. 

So the next time you see someone on their trip to Bali, or flying on a private jet, or even posing next to a Ferrari, just know that this is not the norm. 

However, with some years of hard work and continuing to build a business of your own, that might become your norm. 

The game of entrepreneurship is high risk, high reward. 

The question is...how far are you willing to go to make it happen?