Uncomfortable

Six years ago my wife and I started a business.

Let me back up a little bit.

A few months before we started our business we got married. (Best day of my life) In the most optimistic of fashions we decided to leave the comforts of home and pack everything into a Uhaul trailer, attached to my little Honda, and move 2500 miles across the country. We had nowhere to live, we knew one family, and we had very little money. By all measures, a very stupid idea. BUT we went. We got in the car and drove. We had to stop every 100 miles to fill up the car... but we drove. 

We landed in Phoenix, Arizona and through a friend of a friend's brother, found a little apartment for $600 a month. We were happy. Happy knowing that we were on our way towards starting our business. 

Ideally this would have been the part in the story where the business took off and we started an upward climb to fame and fortune. However, this was not the case. I can remember vividly looking into the fridge, cupboards, and finding nothing. Then realizing I had no way to fill either. This was the first of many uncomfortable situations I would face while dedicated to the mission of being a small business owner. 

I will say that we eventually prospered. The business did take off and we had the chance to effect thousands of peoples lives... but it was a perpetually uncomfortable existence. One that we learned to live with. 

I don't want to make it seem like we weren't happy. We were, but we just had to learn to live with being uncomfortable. 

Being uncomfortable pushed us to dream more, to go places others wouldn't, and endure sometimes unbearable pain. The pain was temporary and the mission was powerful enough to not get bogged down by our current situation. 

Looking back, my small business journey didn't begin the day I signed the paperwork... it started the day I decided to get in a car with the love of my life and drive across the country with no plans. 

That's the entrepreneurial spirit. The willingness to be uncomfortable for the greater good of the mission. 

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.” - William G.T. Shedd

Here's to many more years of being uncomfortable.