This Business Stuff is Hard

This morn­ing I was greet­ed on my Face­book feed by a ​“mem­o­ry” of mine. It was a post from 1 year ago that I appre­ci­at­ed being on the receiv­ing end of today. I want­ed to share it here too.

I have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to speak with oth­er busi­ness own­ers near­ly every week in var­i­ous con­texts. Some of them I have per­son­al rela­tion­ships with out­side of entre­pre­neur­ship, oth­ers I hard­ly know but we were con­nect­ed via some­one else. Cer­tain themes come up with most of these peo­ple at one point or anoth­er. And it’s not uncom­mon for some­one to think it’s just them. So here are some thoughts for you as we lean into a weekend.

• Own­ing and run­ning a busi­ness can be exhausting.
• It can be stressful.
• It can be confusing.
• It can chal­lenge your self-confidence.
• It can be isolating.
• It can mess with your phys­i­cal health.
• It can mess with your men­tal health.

These things are espe­cial­ly true if your busi­ness is more than just a 1 or 2 per­son operation.

The rea­son I’m shar­ing this is because so many busi­ness own­ers I’ve spo­ken to haven’t had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to hear these state­ments from some­one else. They know they feel them, but aren’t sure if it’s just them. And that’s dangerous.

So just to be very clear, here’s my in-con­text ver­sion of the above thoughts.

• Own­ing and run­ning my busi­ness, Focus Lab, can be exhausting.
• Own­ing Focus Lab can be stress­ful, con­fus­ing, and some­times even iso­lat­ing if I let it.
• It chal­lenges my self-confidence.
• And on occa­sion it has absolute­ly affect­ed my health.

No one I’ve met over the years has been immune to these chal­lenges of own­ing a busi­ness. You prob­a­bly aren’t either.

So if any of these state­ments describe some­thing you’re feel­ing or liv­ing in right now, take heart — you aren’t alone. Don’t give up. Remind your­self why you start­ed this in the first place. Reach out to some­one if you need a hand or even just an ear. And I’d be hap­py to be that someone.

If you know of some­one who could ben­e­fit from these thoughts today, for­ward this their way. Feel free to change it up and make it your own. They’ll appre­ci­ate you for it.

How about you? Have you ever expe­ri­enced this stuff? I’d love to hear from you.