Lessons So Far - On Entrepreneurship

First guys, I want to thank you guys so much for leaving encouraging comments. I’m not sure you’ll fully understand how much they help me. I appreciate all the love and advice cuz somedays it’s just that much harder to follow through but then I truly wouldn’t want to let any of you down!! So thanks again!

Now I’ve been thinking about some of the lessons I’ve learned so far on this journey. It’s been interesting because it’s not at all what I thought it’d be like. It’s quite a different world, sometimes I feel like I’m living in an undercover world I never get to see while sitting at a desk at your 9-5 job. But anyways, here are some lessons:

1. Surprisingly one of the hardest things to get used to is the not waking up in the morning and going to the office. Or sitting in a boardroom in a meeting while someone prepares coffee or something like that. As an entrepreneur, meeting is anywhere, and work is everytime! This is actually VERY challenging for me as I’m always feeling like a slacker. It takes repeating it to myself over and over again like a mantra: “I’m trying to build something here”.
   
2. You do everything, everytime. It sounds clichéd cuz you always hear people say it but you don’t really get it until you have to go meet with client, come back type proposal, develop your ad, give ad material to communication vehicle, go pick your cards from the printer, write contracts, speak with your lawyer, etc. all in a day’s work!
   
3. Entrepreneurship is like school. (school of the hard knocks lol). But really it is like school because you have to know your sh--. You have to know your apples from your bananas and how do you do that? You research and research and research and read and read. Then you have to apply yourself. Except this time your grades are not printed on a paper and handed to you with a pat on the back at the end of the year. You get them in you bank account. A D grade = no money = you’re gonna drop out soon my friend!
   
4. As an entrepreneur you’re constantly thinking in the future, and I think as an employee, you’re constantly thinking in the now. That’s a different orientation that I have to be conscious of changing. As an employee you’re worried about THIS project, and THIS work your boss gave you, and THIS year’s performance review…etc. As a self-employed businessperson you’re thinking, how will what I’m doing now translate 2, 3 years from now?
   
5. I cannot explain the feeling of fulfillment you get when you see your project implemented in the real world. When you see 4 young men, working, making an income because of your project or your brainchild. It is so fulfilling. Yesterday as I was just about to go to sleep, you know that time period where you’re kinda almost dreaming already but you’re kinda awake, it felt like I had a dream where I actually commissioned a market research project and people are actually out there, answering it, and I felt this sense of pride, and then it occurred to me, I wasn’t actually dreaming, it was REALLY happening. The feeling is amazing.
   

So I think that’s it so far, I really want to take the time and ruminate more but I have so much work to do and on days like this where my focus is 110%, the less distractions the better. But you get my drift.

Ciao bambinos!