Entrepreneurs - Get Used To Failure, Or Get A Job

A lousy Christmas bonus from my boss. I mean, really lousy. That’s all it took to get me to quit my job and start my own business. 16+ years later, and hundreds of failed ideas and a few major successes, and here I am. Just a regular guy from Cleveland, Ohio who works for himself, with his own hours and lives the freedom only an entrepreneur can live.

This is the part where most of the people write how successful they are to impress you. I’m going to take a different approach.

I don’t have a multi-million dollar business with a complicated “lead funnel”. Employees? I have one, just one, who lives on the other side of the world, and he’s worked for me for ten-years and I’ve never even met him. I drive a car that I could leave the keys in it and nobody would steal it. Yeah, I can afford something nicer, but I like my beat up ride. There’s no vacation house in Hawaii to go to either so you be seeing photos of me on the beach with in my ocean-view palatial home.

Nope. I’m just like you probably. I’m not retiring any time soon because I can’t afford it; My kids need to go to college and someone has to pay for those braces.

Why would I tell you this? Because it’s true, and if you’re like me, you’re tired of all the gurus telling you how successful they are and showing you how much better they are than you and trying to convince you that if you just listen to them, you can be rich and famous too.

I get it. Who doesn’t want to be rich and famous?

Oh wait, I don’t. I want to be free, comfortable, and happy.

Look, just because I don’t drive a Ferrari, or travel the world and stay in five-star hotels, does not mean I’m not successful, in my own way. In fact, I would absolutely consider my story a success. And that’s the same feeling I get when I speak to small business owners and entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter if they have five employees, or 500. Most of them, if not all, struggle and have to worker harder than anyone to make success happen and sometimes keep the lights on.

I’ve started hundreds of businesses and brands over the years. 95% of them failed, miserably. But the 5% that didn’t? Those businesses have allowed me to create a comfortable lifestyle for my family where I haven’t had a boss all that time. Like every small business owner or entrepreneur, my businesses succeed and fail based upon the idea being good enough, but mostly how hard I work on them.

Sound familiar?