The Brutal Truth about Being an Entrepreneur Nobody Will Tell You

Recently I was asked by an Austin based community startup named, #besomebody to write about what makes someone an “Entrepreneur”.

This is the story:

Working since very young, we quickly learned the benefits of innovation and finding hidden resources to bring value, answer a problem and develop the solution. It’s not just blind ambition or a competitive desire to win, it’s much more to being a fabulous entrepreneur. It’s doing what others think can’t be done, it’s working through the constant peril of obstacles and dead ends to get that internal juice to find flow and create.

Entrepreneurs don’t choose this path, the path chooses them and then grinds them into refinement to become consistent business people that form strong foundations, employ others and keep our economy moving.

We are the first to arrive, the last to leave. We’re often seen as insensitive, arrogant or even greedy yet nothing could be further from the truth. We give relentlessly and live for a sense of legacy and purpose. Our nature is to inspire and grow, invest in others and consume with mindfulness. If we have the nicest car, house or material possessions, it’s because it has a purpose behind it, it exists to fuel a larger dream.

Entrepreneurs will work 80 hours a week to prevent from having to work 40.

We have dined with kings, and also been at the mercy of the generosity of a friend’s dinner table. We live on love and we’ll die for our convictions. We have soured mountains and also spent sleepless nights in the valleys. We know the pain of defeat and held the heavy glory of success. We have failed and failed, yet our wrinkled hand returns to the bow of the ship to begin again, and again and again. Why? For the taste, maybe even the morsel, of winning.

It’s not that we don’t want to quit, it’s that we don’t know how and don’t associate with people that live, teach and breathe failure.

Our education is our investment, the books we read, the discussions we emerge in and the lessons that are often costly. We don’t rely on accolades or ego, only a readiness to embrace the next task, trusting fully God has us in a grip and will remember us when it’s time.

We are entrepreneurs and we are here. #entrepreneur

Our affirmations are a rant of dreams, blind ambitions held together by a strategy our business coached forced us to write by way of threatening to fire us as clients.

The thoughts in our heads are a mantra sung like the morning jogging chant of Marines in training.

I believe anything is possible!

I see opportunity with other see a possibility!

I take risks!

I’m focused!

I hustle!

Sound off … 1, 2. Sound off … 1, 2.

I know that nothing is unrealistic!

I feel overwhelming love!

I’ve embraced my child-like wonder and curiosity!

I take flying leap and the unknown!

I contribute to something bigger than myself!

I create. I learn. I grow. I do!

I believe it’s never too late to start living the dream!

“Now S P R I N T … you’re an Entrepreneur!” the inner voice dictates as our bones creak and palms become sweaty from the task at hand.

The political philosopher, Thomas Paine said it best:

The harder the conflict, the more generous the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

So I ask you, dear friend.

What is it that YOU want to create?

What grand tale do you want to live and thereby live to tell about?

What business awaits your glory of vision?

What man needs your tender hand of affection and kind-hearted loyalty so that you may usher him through the doorways of true love where he will ravish you in every way?

Who is in desperate need of your greatness, your beauty, your talents, your mindfulness to be present and listen?

To be an entrepreneur is the highest level of a dualistic state of both ambition and service. You will be a god one minute and a pauper the next, a King in one transaction and a beggar the following and in the end, you will become highly comfortable being UNcomfortable as you make your home on the head of a needle.

Welcome my friends. Have no fear if this is not you whom I’ve described, for this world takes all types to spin effortlessly on its access and service the needs of a hungry planet. Hire us, support us, trust us and partner in a co-habitative state of oneness trusting that together … we are all glorious and amazing creatures with untold creative manifesting powers.

I love you. Yes, all of you … powerfully. painfully. peacefully.

~Robin Reed

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