Entrepreneurship isn’t easy. There are days when we soar and days when we struggle. This applies to EVERYONE.
It’s easy when you’re struggling to think no one else is sharing your struggle. They all look like they are succeeding wildly and with ease. But it isn’t so. We all put up our success wall to project what we want people—our customers, peers, friends—to see and think of us. It’s fun to talk about our successes. Not so much our struggles. A recent conversation with a colleague brought this issue to mind.
I originally wrote this many years ago to a mentor of mine who had invested with a substantial loan for my company. My business was struggling and I was feeling crushed under the weight of the debt I owned him.
I’ve grown to think about this entrepreneur stuff as a two-thousand pound gorilla. A big, mean sonofabitch. He stays out in the yard most of the time. But he never really goes away. He watches me always. Perhaps when I’m out of debt he’ll go live somewhere else. For now, he is ever present. Sometimes he comes up to the window and stares at me. I can feel him…staring into my innermost innermost. I know he sees me, all of me.
On occasion he comes inside. I can’t stop him. He’s bigger and meaner than I am. But we have a test of wills going. He knows I am afraid and tries to use it to his advantage. I try not to let him see me sweat. He moves slowly, in stages, to my desk. I have a direct sight line to the door, so as he moves, he knows I see him.
On rare occasions he stands close, hair touching me. I can feel his breath. It is hot and smells rotten. I want to run but I know I won’t get ten feet before I’m gone. There is no escape. My desk, the wall and computer table form a U-shape. His mass closes the open end. There is nowhere to go.
I can’t look at him as is my usual custom of staring down my worst fears…eye to eye. I’m a frontal-assault kind of person, but he is different. I know I won’t win. If I look him in the eye, it’s a challenge and he will crush me. I assume submissive position, head down, trying to ignore him. His weight is now leaning against me. His teeth are grazing my neck. He paws my back. His sheer strength is terrifying. I know he can crush me. I close my eyes and focus. If I work hard enough and smart enough, he’ll have to go back outside. I become very task-oriented, accomplishing what I can, avoiding what I can’t.
He came inside today and leaned on me. My nostrils are filled with his stench. I refuse to surrender although that’s what he wants. He beckons…alluding to ease and comfort. But I know he is lying. I know the alternative consists of mediocrity. An existence that would tear me limb from limb…as surely as he will. I feel a rage against an invisible enemy. I will not let him win. I will overcome. He shows me my bank balance. He shows me my credit card debt. He spits at me with a celebration of a company going public and raising millions while I have a nine thousand dollar uncollected judgment against that company’s owner. The owner is drinking champagne and I am worried about paying my utility bill. My gorilla knows all of this. He flaunts it. I seek solace in working harder but it doesn’t come easily.
Upon receiving this in an email, my mentor replied instantly, “Oh my dear, it was never a loan.”
Having shared the dark side of entrepreneurship, I would like to say that it is also the most rewarding, exhilarating, satisfying and thrilling endeavor I can imagine. To fellow entrepreneurs, I hope that sharing one of my darkest moments confirms that you are not alone in your darkest.
