Being the boss is GREAT you get to call the shots and you get to do what YOU want to do. For those who have been entrepreneurs for some years, we know that there is also a dark side to what we do, most of which many people never see. They are as follows…
We Sit Around All Day Making Money Doing Nothing.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We never SIT around all day doing anything but WORKING. A good entrepreneur who is making money,… NEVER stops working, there is ALWAYS something to do even at 3am in the morning the difference is when you LOVE what you do it does not take the same toll on you that doing something that you hate does. That’s why police detectives can work a case working 14 hour days (they are not “entrepreneurs” per say but they work like entreprenerus) or a bakery shop owner can get up at 4am and work straight through until 8pm etc. When you LOVE what you do, it doesn’t seem like work but you still WORK.
We Make a Ton of Money
That would be the hope of it but a GREAT entrepreneur never goes into for the money or because he or she can do something well. We do it because we LOVE it and the money comes from it. An entrepreneur who is only motivated by money is often not very successful.
We live Exciting Lives
If we FORCE ourselves to do so we can. Entrepreneurs often get caught up in the work circle so hard that we fail to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Some of us are terrified to leave the business in the hands of someone else or even walk away from it for a few day. We are paranoid, to an extent that someone like a competitor will vie for our positions or everything will fall apart. For the most part, being an entreprenruer is very lonely and you have to go out and make the contacts and events that you need to grow with other entrepreneurs.
You know, I am bad at this too… REALLY bad. I get so burnt out on seeing the same group of wannabes, hangers-on and please-validate-me-ers coming to the few events in LA with their uncles, cousins and Auntees. And it’s never anybody you want to phuck anyway. I mean really. I don’t want to meet an industry person’s Aunt! (lol) so I stopped going UNLESS it’s a client. I’d be a damn FOOL to think that if I stopped doing Radio Facts tomorrow, I’d still be relevant to the industry in a year. I’ve been out of work before, you don’t have to teach me certain shit twice. My so called competitors would attack my clients like blood sucking leeches and radio would forget about me so that’s why I focus on growth. Most entrepreneurs that I know who work in the industry feel the same way, If they are not getting a check they are not going and I totally get that even for PDs. A well-known industry person read me the riot act recently about my Howard Hughes-esque ness. He said everybody knows Radio Facts but they don’t know YOU. My personal feeling is the brand should ALWAYS be bigger than the owner just in case I sell this shit one day (and I will) so I like it like that but part of what he said was right… somewhat. Personally, I don’t like being the oldest, most attractive person in the room. When I was younger I would see older trade people at events begging for ads I thought that was pathetic. Business owners who beg for support are like bums on the street begging for money. I rather keep growing than to keep showing…up at the same events year after year. We all need to AT LEAST make an appearance which is what I plan on doing, blowing in and out like a fart and by the time you smell it, I’ll be gone (I kill me) Truth be told, most people bore me ACCEPT CLIENTS, and I say that because I have an ego and I like being around people who believe in me and who I believe in. I’ve never been good with the phoney part of the industry and I can understand why many programmers might be apt to shy away from the schmoozing too. I made a rally bad mistake a couple of years ago and brought a girl to an event who is an alcoholic. I didn’t know her drinking was that bad and she got drunk at the even with industry notables. We laughed about it, I and the notables but I knew it left a negative impression so I got drunk the next night (lol) not really, I have a very low tolerance for liquor and I had one drink and that was too much.