The Real Life of an Entrepreneur

Being an entrepreneur isn’t like you see in the sales letters, at least not very often. Most don’t have the fancy car, the gigantic house, the leisurely lifestyle, especially right off the bat. Instead there’s a great deal of struggling, hard work and frustration.

I know this all too well. My income goes up, my income goes down. It’s not always in relation to how hard I’ve been working, even. That’s the trouble with being an entrepreneur.

Becoming an Entrepreneur

There are many ways to decide to be an entrepreneur. Many people make that choice because they want to own their own business. The challenge is really appealing and they don’t mind the risk.

Others become entrepreneurs because they see little other choice. They don’t have a job and a new one isn’t forthcoming, so they start a business and try to make that work. Happens a lot when the economy isn’t so good. Some of these businesses take off pretty well. Others not so much.

Then there are folks like me. I never planned to be an entrepreneur. I kind of fell into it.

I started out working at home as a medical transcriptionist. Decent pay, flexible, fairly steady work, plus I would be able to stay home with my daughter once she was born. It was nice.

So nice that any time I mentioned to someone that I worked at home, people asked me what I did. Then they’d ask how to get into it.

I was just finishing my last semester of college at the time, and had one course in website design. It seemed logical to make a website about getting into medical transcription. Little free website, some work, and there it was.

Then I found out I could earn money with my own sites with affiliate marketing and AdSense. There was my medical transcription site, just begging for its own domain. I took things a bit further than medical transcription, and created Home with the Kids. I hadn’t particularly planned on being an entrepreneur, but there it was. And a few years later its income overtook what I was earning with part time medical transcription, so I gave that up.

The Frustrations of Being an Entrepreneur

The actual having your own business be your sole income thing isn’t all easy. Matter of fact it can be incredibly frustrating at times. Things you think will work don’t. Money doesn’t quite come in like you wish it would. And there’s lots of hard work to be done.

For most entrepreneurs it’s not sit back and let the residual income roll in, or even set a few ads each day and watch them work their magic. It’s hard work. Sometimes it seems like you can’t get money to come in no matter what you do.

It’s made up for somewhat by the times that you have no idea why things are going so smoothly. The big question is which side comes around more often.

I’ve had it both ways. I’ve had my income soar up to about $5000 in a month. I’ve had it plummet to a couple hundred in a month. You can guess which one is more fun.

All you can do is try to build things up so that your income is a bit more stable. If you offer services, you need to get a good client base as well as keep advertising for new ones. Having a good number of clients means that much of the time one or another will need you to do something for them.

If you’re doing affiliate marketing, your best bet is a variety of sites and companies whose products you offer. Even if you have one that is soaring above the rest, you need others in case the other one drops down, the competition increases or the affiliate products that were selling so well suddenly vanish.

Just think of the affiliates who have suddenly been dropped from the Amazon Associates program essentially for living in the wrong state, because the state decided to call them a tax nexus. That’s a lot of income vanishing in a very short time, and it’s really hard to replace quickly. If that’s your primary or sole income, you’re in trouble as an affiliate.

Getting Into the Entrepreneurial Mindset

As an entrepreneur, you’re going to think differently than you did as an employee, or at least you had better if you want your business to thrive.

No more relying on the boss to keep you motivated. No more guaranteed paycheck. Lots to learn, lots to do, not so many hours in the day as you might like.

The best part is when you can go from trading dollars for hours to earning passive income, but that takes time, and that’s not every entrepreneur’s goal. Many are happy earning directly for the services they provide.

When you work for yourself you quickly learn that you can’t slack off, at least not if you want to earn money. Kicking back too much means your business loses out. You can’t afford that unless you have that passive income thing going well, and even then you need to pay enough attention to catch it if it’s slipping.

You have to have that drive to be the best you can be at your business. To provide a better whatever than the others out there. To really love what you do so that even when you get frustrated you keep going.

The Frightening Parts of Being an Entrepreneur

Yes, running your own business can be frightening. It’s not the independence, not as such. It’s realizing that you may not earn anything at all for a time. That if you don’t have some way of getting money in, you’re really going to struggle with paying your bills or maybe even not be able to pay them all that month.

That’s a terrifying time for any entrepreneur. I’ve had a few months where paying the bills has indeed been a very close call.

The frightening times have a silver lining, however. If they don’t scare you into working even harder on your business, nothing will. They’re one of the great tests of being an entrepreneur.

The Balancing Act

When your business is at home and you have kids, the balancing act gets even tougher. You need to work a lot of hours but you need to be there for your family too. But both want a ton of your time and can be quite unforgiving of each others’ needs.

My own balance mostly involves doing my heaviest work at night. I’m not a morning person. But I also work during the toddler’s naptimes and do light work when the kids will let me otherwise. Now that I have a laptop I can also retreat upstairs to work when my husband is home and can care for the kids.

The balance is a difficult one, especially with a toddler. She wants lots of Mommy time. So does my 5 year old. My oldest is in school and is very independent, but when she has needs, they’re pretty immediate since I don’t have many times I can say “later” or “soon.”

When you’re an entrepreneur, you’ll come up with your own balancing act. How it works will depend on you, the needs of your family and the needs of your business, but you’ll find your way.

It will probably change regularly. Children grow. The needs of your business changes. Your preferred routine changes. You have to be adaptable.

Entrepreneurs Don’t Settle for Less

If you really have that entrepreneurial spirit, you aren’t settling for just anything. You’re shooting for goals that others only dare dream about. It doesn’t matter if your income goals are modest or high, you’re taking a chance that many others wouldn’t dare.

It doesn’t matter that for a time you probably will have less than others who work at regular jobs. Your goals will be set higher, whether in monetary terms or in personal satisfaction. With hard work you may achieve those goals, to the envy of those around you. Even when you haven’t reached your goals, you’ll have the challenges of running your business, which itself should be pleasing.

That it’s not easy shouldn’t really matter. Not easy just means you’ll appreciate the successes you have all the more. And it’s a great example for your family.