The Thing I Hate Most About Being an Entrepreneur
The Amplified Impact Podcast
December 13th, 2023
Today, I’m diving into a lesser-talked-about aspect of entrepreneurship: the struggle with structure.
As an entrepreneur, I craved freedom from authority but stumbled when I had to create my own schedule.
It’s a battle many of us face…being our own boss and employee.
If you’re stepping into entrepreneurship, remember, freedom comes with the challenge of self-discipline.
Embrace the journey, understand the struggle, and find ways to manage it.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“Ultimately, I’m responsible for creating the structure of my life. But that also means I have nobody to blame but myself and nobody to hold me accountable but myself.”
– Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony Vicino:
It’s alright, guys, I’m gonna share with you the thing that I hate the most about being an entrepreneur. There’s a lot of things actually that I dislike about being an entrepreneur, but obviously the, the things that I like about it far outweigh the things I dislike, which is why I continue persisting and keep doing the thing. And so if you are an entrepreneur, this is probably going to resonate with you. If you’re not and you’re like, oh, that sounds like something I don’t want to deal with. Well, that’s probably good. That’s talk you out of the game before you get in. That’s a good thing. But just know this is that we talk a big game.
Anthony Vicino:
Us entrepreneurs on social media, we like to tell everybody about all the good things that happened and we even tell people about, we even tell you about the things that didn’t go well. But because we’re here telling the story, it means that we survived, right. We have survivorship bias. We lived through the horror show to be able to come out the other side and tell you about it. And so obviously we have a little bit of a jaded perspective that should be taken with a grain of salt, as all things should, from survivors. Because for every successful guru entrepreneur person that talks about this stuff on social media, you don’t see the ten that failed. Right. And that might skew your expectations of what’s reasonable in this world.
Anthony Vicino:
And I share that because I don’t want anybody to get into this game thinking it’s going to be easy. I want them to get into it because they think it is something that they have to do, they feel compelled to do it. And maybe you’re at rock bottom and that’s a fine reason to feel compelled. That’s where I started from. Like, I was not a natural born and bred entrepreneur, circumstance forced me into it. But if you’re living a life right now that you love and you’re doing good and you’re w two and you hear all these things about you should start a business and all that stuff, but it doesn’t really sing and resonate with your soul, then don’t do it, don’t do it. Don’t feel like you have to do that. Because there’s a lot of things about being an entrepreneur that suck.
Anthony Vicino:
I’m going to share with you the thing that I dislike the most, and it’s counterintuitive, actually. It kind of surprised me, to be honest, because on the one hand, it was the thing that attracted me to entrepreneurship at least my expectation of it from the outside. So that thing is the lack of structure. Listen, I despise being told what to do. Like, growing up, this was probably one of the reasons I struggled the most in getting fired constantly from every job I ever had, was because I rebelled against external authority. Like, nobody could tell me what to do or where to be or why I should care. And so the idea of starting a business and being the one who ultimately owns my schedule, of being the one to decide what I do when I do it, it’s one of the things I thought would be so great about entrepreneurship. And it turns out you need to be careful what you wish for, because like the dog who catches the car, once I ultimately became the one responsible for organizing and structuring my life, turns out I had no clue what to do next.
Anthony Vicino:
And I didn’t have any of the skills necessary to enforce that structure on myself. Interestingly enough, because it turns out that not only do I buck against external authority, but at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, at least, I also resisted my internal authority. And truthfully, I still do. It’s still a battle every single day. So what that meant was, like, in the beginning, my alarm would go off in the morning, and because I didn’t really need to get up and get to work, there’s always more time in the day. I don’t have to be anywhere. I didn’t have a boss that was going to yell at me. I could make the decision in that moment just to stay in bed a little bit longer.
Anthony Vicino:
And when you do that, it has a way of seeping into everything you do. You start to take three hour lunch breaks and go down YouTube rabbit holes, justifying it as research and knocking off a little bit early every day to go and do something with friends. And it turned out like I was a very lenient boss when it came to holding myself accountable to the schedule that I was setting for myself. And this isn’t a story that’s unique to me. I’ve talked to probably hundreds of entrepreneurs at this point, and this is one of the things that I hear probably the most frequently about what they’re struggling with, which is like, how to organize their calendar and hold themselves accountable to it. How do you create structure in a life? That’s the question that you have to answer, and it’s not one that you just solve once, and then the problem is no longer a problem. As you kind of spiral up the mountain, the problem just keeps resurfacing in different ways, and it manifests itself with new faces. And I don’t think anything could have really prepared me for how hard this has really proven to be over my life as an entrepreneur.
Anthony Vicino:
But I can tell you definitively it is both. The thing I love most and hate most about being an entrepreneur is that ultimately I’m responsible for creating the structure of my life. But that also means I have nobody to blame but myself and nobody to hold me accountable but myself. Then some things that have really helped me actually is to bring in external accountability as much as possible. Whether that’s through Jamie or through coaches or through employees. Employees can be actually a hell of a external accountability. But you got to figure out how to win that battle with yourself. Because if you’re an entrepreneur, there’s probably a little bit of a rebel maverick in you.
Anthony Vicino:
And probably what attracted you to this crazy idea of building a business in the first place is that you don’t want a boss. Guess what? You are your boss, so you got to figure that out. If you don’t, ain’t going to be your boss for very long. I don’t know. Hopefully that doesn’t scare you off. Hopefully that gives you a little bit of feeling of like, oh, I’m struggling with this myself. In my business, you’re not alone and hopefully this gives you a clear perspective of what you’re getting into if you’re about to step into the arena, so to speak. So hope this brings you guys some value.
Anthony Vicino:
As always, thanks for being here. I’ll catch you around these parts tomorrow. Until then, stay hyper focused, my friend.
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