If you’re getting ready to take your entrepreneurial journey, be prepared for loneliness, but don’t resign yourself to it. Learn to say “no,” but recognize when it’s okay to say “yes.” And finally, be willing to sacrifice some things for your business, but don’t ever sacrifice everything.
Mike Speer on Quora, Why Is Entrepreneurship Considered a Lonely Journey
As I’m taking stock of the week that was, it dawned on me how lonely this journey is. Granted there are many highs too, if you’ve noticed the giant strides Purpose has achieved in two short years.
Much of these successes you can see in the public domain. The conflicts however, are very much kept a secret.
Everyone has ideas, and of course with these ideas, they come with advice. Yet humans are self-serving by nature. Me included, we all make decisions that put us, and our ambitions first.
It is this self-serving nature that led me down this path to become a founder of Purpose. Wrapped in the belief that what I’m doing now is for the greater good, later.
As with every advice I’ve received. Self-serving advices aren’t necessarily bad. But they can conflict with another advice, maybe even many other advices. Worse still when these advice go against what my beliefs are. Good as they may sound at the start. And the truth is, that happens more often than not.
The penultimate decision, comes down to the founder alone. As I have learnt. Because no one else will bear responsibility of a bad result even if based on the good intentions of listening to others.
And there are, as I have experienced, many with opinions.
As a result, founders find themselves often times, in a mode of conflict. Between different ideas and advices of others. Most times, these go against what his belief are.
This cycle continues. With every major decision, the more the opinions come.
The further along the journey, the more the noise. To a point that, to make a key decision the founder closes himself off from the noise.
That’s the loneliness.
I’d like to hear from other founders out there if they’re feeling the same too.
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