Two good friends of mine recently told me:

Owning a business is kind of like being in a relationship……. you can love the other person with all your heart, but, before you know it, they can start sucking the life out of you; you forget who you used to be, you get so wrapped up in spending every moment on that person. It’s not healthy, even if you love it.

…you will accomplish all the goals you’ve set forth for yourself, and there are plenty more in the horizon awaiting you, but coming from an ex-workaholic myself, make time for self personal growth — don’t bottle in your feelings for too long, it only leads to further frustration of self. And entrepreneurship is indeed a way of life, but it need not overtake your life, if you don’t want it to.

These statements really give great balance to my last post about thinking of entrepreneurship as a lifestyle and not as “work.” My friends’ thoughts really made me think about my situation as a young entrepreneur.

There is no doubt that I as well as many other young entrepreneurs encounter times when it feels like our business is sucking the life out of us. There are always going to be cycles when we are feeling low and our companies are inevitably suffering due to that.

For many of us, myself included, we are struggling to find that balance in our lives. That balance of devotion to our business and devotion to our personal lives. Not matter how much I continue to tell myself that there can be no difference between “work” and “life” in the world of entrepreneurship, I must concede to the notion that there simply is a difference and there does come a time when you have to step outside of the “zone” and allow yourself to grow as a person, not just as an entrepreneur.

It’s a struggle to find that balance, sure. But it’s something worth fighting for; something that will not only change our lives, but has the potential to change the world.

Never stop seeking that balance!

(Thanks for your support guys. You know who you are)

A few days ago around 11:30PM a close friend of mine asked me to “stop working, get away from the computer, and to give it a rest for the day”. I responded with: “this isn’t work, it’s my life.”

In all honestly, I don’t like to think of what I do as “work.” Indeed, there is no denying that what I and many entrepreneurs do on a daily basis is hard work, but to me, it’s more than work. It’s a way of life. Something that I eat, breathe, and sleep.

One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that we can make things happen 24/7 and we are not confined to a 9 to 5 workday. So if our creative juices are flowing during the late hours of the night, then we can jump right into it and make something happen.

In all reality, I think that the entrepreneur lives a much rougher life than the average person who works a 9 – 5. Personally, I have never experienced so much stress, drama, and worry in my life until becoming an entrepreneur.

But at the same time, I have never experienced so much excitement, joy, and exhilaration any time in my life. I guess it’s a tradeoff, eh?

Entrepreneurship isn’t something that can be turned on an off like the flip of a switch. It’s something that is always on our minds no matter what time of the day. So the second you start to think of it as “work” then you may have a problem.

Wouldn’t it be So Easy If

“I could just continue to work at my job, make my $60,000 per year, take my yearly 2 weeks vacation, purchase my BMW, and just sit back and enjoy my life without worrying about becoming ’successful’ one day like what those entrepreneurs are trying to do. Heck, I’m already set with my sweet weekly check and raise in 5 years. Right on!”

I’m sure that many young entrepreneurs have

thought about just forgetting their entrepreneurial goals and ambitions to resort to an “easy” life of comfort and control. The life with the steady paycheck, predictable days, and the company car with the company vacations. And, maybe even a company meal here or there.

Blah..Blah…

But it’s never that easy for the hungry entrepreneur that won’t settle for less. The entrepreneur with the burden to succeed by all means necessary. The entrepreneur that says: “F$#K SAFETY! I’m going to make my own future. There has to be more to life than just working for someone for 40 years of my life. Nah dude, I’ll pass.”

Many young entrepreneurs wakeup every morning and go to work. They are sad. They are unhappy with their jobs. They want to take the step of quitting and venturing off to start a company but the fear haunts them and keeps them from leaving their corporate jobs that mom and dad are so proud of them for getting.

But for many of you, deep down inside you feel the burden.“The Burden of the Entrepreneur.” The burden to always want more out of your life. The burden not to settle for less. The burden to stake your claim in this world.

But here’s the thing:

The entrepreneurs who are going to make it, are not the ones who lock in this burden, but the one who free themselves of this burden and take a risk to just go for it! To take that necessary leap into the unknown. To do something to change your life and break the monotonous cycle of safety and comfort.

Will you free yourself?

What’s Naturopathy?

Naturopathy is a blend of different therapies, all attempting to restore the body to health in the most natural way possible. Based on the idea that the body has the innate ability to fight disease, its techniques are noninvasive and designed to stimulate the body’s natural healing powers.

Naturopaths believe disease is not just a physical symptom, but rather a product of the mind, spirit and body. A consultation may include analysis of your medical history, lifestyle, diet, exercise habits, stress, relationships, sleep patterns, bowel habits and mental and spiritual health. The goal is to find the underlying cause of illness. They also assess a patient’s unique situation, paving the way to create optimal health, not to just treat disease.

Ok Soo…

Instead of covering up the problems in your business, take a naturopathic approach to get rid of the underlying problems – focus on correcting the source of the problem.

» Partnerships

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, things never seem to get better between you and your business partner. You try and try and… try some more, but the heads just keep on bumping and the frustration continues to rise.

You may have a rockin’ business, but it’s not seeing it’s full potential because the partners – you guys – never seem to agree on anything as a result, the performance level continues to plummet and your clients inevitably suffer as a result.

Instead of trying to brush it off – while your business is suffering – why not just part ways and seek another partner – or possibly go solo. Some things just aren’t meant to be and the sooner you realize that, the better of you’ll be.

» Explaining your business

I see this time and time again: entrepreneurs creating these elaborate business ideas to create services that the entire world (not a selective group of people, which is the right way to offer a service.) and their mothers can use. Then when it comes down to explaining exactly what it is that they do, they themselves never even get it right (ahh…umm…let’s see…. Ok…), let alone the person who they are explaining it to (huh…what do you do?…).

Whatever happened to the word “simple.” It seems to have left the vocabulary of many entrepreneurs nowadays. You really need to dig through all the fluff, bells, whistles, and yadda-yadda features of your company and come up with a service that is so simple, that even the local pothead stoner who is in a constant state of confusion can understand your business without a problem.

» Your business is sick, so heal it

Like people, your business may become sick from time to time. In order for it to recover, you’ll have to spend the necessary time taking care of it and coaxing it back to optimum health.

Just as the naturopathic doctor doesn’t shove pills down their patients’ mouths in an attempt to temporarily alleviate the systems, you – as the business owner – just can’t slap on a new logo, write some jazzy new copy, or hire a new team to magically repair the problems.

It has to be deeper than that.

You have to analyze what’s going on inside your head, because it’s in your head where all of your decisions that reflect your company are made. The problems need to be located from within, before changes can be made and improvements can be seen.

The mind controls the body, true. But it also controls the business. It’s so obvious and such a simple concept, but at the same time, entrepreneurs get lost trying to solve issues that are products of bad decisions that were made without going back to the source – the mind – where the problems originated. Always go back to the source.

One of the most important resources that any entrepreneur can have is a person who they confide in; someone who you can talk about the drama, stress, ups, downs, worries, concerns, etc… that come when running a business.

This person doesn’t have to be your business partner, business affiliate, or even your good friend – however it very well may be one of those people. It doesn’t really matter who it is, but it’s extremely important to have that special person in your corner that is always going to be there with an open ear.

Running a business is not easy and stress and worries are sure to be a part of your day as you continue on your entrepreneurial journey. If you have been bottling-up all of your feelings about what’s going on with your company – good or bad feelings – then you are doing yourself a disservice.

Every entrepreneur – even the solopreneur – needs an outlet to express their emotions. Having someone to listen to your concerns and problems is not only going to help you fight through the obstacles, but it’ll improve your state-of-mind and prepare you to come back even stronger the next day.

As much as we want to think that we can do everything alone, we really can’t. You need to be able to let your guard down sometimes and let people into what’s going on inside of your head. You need to have someone who will be there to help you get up when you fall. You need to accept the fact that you’re human and prone to being hurt while running your business.

Feeling too high and mighty enough to confide in someone isn’t only going to set you back on a personal level, but it’ll reverberate throughout your entire company as you continue to suppress emotions which can lead to making bad decisions. Holding in feelings = Bad business mind.

Give it a shot. Clear your head and press the reboot button on your emotions by talking it out with someone. Open up and release those problems to someone willing to listen and offer support. Do that, and you’ll be that much closer to finding success and running a less stressful operation.

I’ll admit it: most of the entrepreneurs that I have dealt with over the past few years have been males. Why? Not too sure, really. To be honest, I haven’t met too many female entrepreneurs, at least not ones who are writing about their businesses via blogs and business journals.

However, I’ve been lucky enough to have recently met a few highly talented and ambitious female entrepreneurs. And I must say, it’s be an awesome experience talking to female entrepreneurs about business, ideas, concepts, the future of the web, etc… A nice breath of fresh air, really.

I think that it’s fair to say that most women aren’t as vocal as men when it comes to speaking about business and expressing ideas and thoughts as openly as we do. Am I right? Just think about, how many business blogs do you read that are run by women?

I really want to see that ratio change. And I think that it is. Women, just like men, have excellent entrepreneurial insights, experiences, and lessons to share with the world. After talking to female entrepreneurs over the past few weeks, I have been able to see new sides of my ideas coming from a female’s perspective.

I highly recommend any entrepreneur who has been predominantly talking business within their own gender to venture out and start picking the brains of the opposite sex. I really believe that you’ll begin to see things differently and new doors will be opened.

So start today by sparking an entrepreneurial chat with that special dude or dudet.

If you’re like me, you always have a calculator by your side. Math homework and grueling calculus exams aside, the calculator has become a trusted friend over the years. Calculators are great for entrepreneurs in many ways, especially when it comes to playing around with numbers and figures of your startup. Fun stuff, I tell ya.

How much is that startup making?

I like to play a guessing game and experiment with numbers to try and figure out how much revenue and profits various internet companies make. It’s pretty fun and gives me ideas of how to charge for services that I have in the pipeline.

Today, I came across an advertising network that charges just over $5,000 per month for each ad. I was wondering how much the network owner was making by setting up all these great sponsors for this network of sites. I played with some numbers and started hypothesizing and came up with around $13,000 per month for the owner of the network.

I simply took the total number of sponsors on the network and multiplied that by the amount of sites in the network displaying the ads, then thought of a number that I would have personally charged as a revenue share between the participating sites of the network.

You should try it! Yeah, the next time you come across a site making some cash, bust out that calculator and start playing around with numbers. You’ll gain an insight into how companies are making money and it’ll give you plenty of ideas of how to charge for your services.

How much do I need?

The calculator is also great when trying to figure out how much you need to create a service, especially if you belong to the school of Bootstrappers (every penny counts).

For my first business I played around with numbers of how much I could get if I sold my car, took out loans, and borrowed money from family, among many other things.

Believe it or not, when you’re actually sitting there with a calculator in your hand and you’re looking at the numbers adding up, it may inspire you to become even more creative when figuring out how you can raise more capital or cut costs for your business.

1..2…3…4…

You got it – just crunch those numbers and see what you can come up with. Have fun, experiment, and think about ways you can shape numbers to help create your business, save money, come up with payment models, and all that good stuff.

Crunch on!

You can become anything that you want in this life, but you must live the life of what you want to become, you must be open to the ideas and problems of others, you can not limit yourself to only one way of thinking, and you must allow your strengths to shine through without holding anything back.

Dr. Maslow breaks it down:

You want to become a successful entrepreneur? Fine. But the only way that that is going to happen is if you are 100% confident in your mind that you can and will become one; do that, and you’re already halfway there.

So many of us have doubts about our futures and aren’t confident in themselves of whether or not they can become the person they want to be. Forget that. You need to become that person today, not tomorrow.

Success starts in the mind.

Here’s the situation:

All day long I think about ideas. I have a million ideas. I am juggling between a dozen projects right now. I’m in over my head but I simply must explore all of my ideas or I won’t become a successful entrepreneur. I’m a genius and I’m going to make a killing by building a ton of successful companies with all these awesome ideas. YAY! YAY!

Whooaa… Slow down… Take a step back buddy

Thinking like that isn’t only going to bring about a heart attack and mental breakdown, but it’s going to lead to failures upon failures. I know that it feels great to have a bunch of great ideas, but it’s all about the prioritization of those ideas and the delicate choosing of which ones to explore, and how much energy to devote to each.

This may hurt, but I have to say it

Forget 99% of your ideas and choose “1” to explore, then throw your heart into it. This may not make sense to many of you; you may think that you can handle the difficult task of turning more that one idea into something big, but it’s the wrong route to go down.

It’s not about how many ideas you have; it’s all about the implementation of one great idea that you believe truly holds merit and promise. You can’t do them all at once and thinking that you can may increase your ego, but trust me, it’ll decrease your chances of success.

Just one, eh?

Yes, just one my friend. Muster all that passion, that love, and that enthusiasm within your body and catapult it into that idea. Sure, you run the risk (as we all do) that the idea won’t amount to anything and then – only then – you may wish to move onto the next.

But in order to work up to your fullest potential and your creative/innovative energy, you must dedicate yourself to one idea and work the $%&* out of that idea.

Sandwich anyone?

Don’t spread yourself too thin. Just grab your knife and dip it into a huge tub of creativity and passion and sprinkle on some determination and ambition and you’ll have the best tasting and most promising idea to work with.

On the other hand, that idea is going to taste like garbage if you only put a thin layer of passion and energy on it.

Rock on.

Your ideas sucks!

Give it up!

Forge’da about it!

Blah…Blah…Blah…

You’ve heard it. I’ve heard it. We’ve all heard it. You know… the sounds of the negative people trying to chop you down from attaining your dreams and goals in life. These people make it their job to do everything in their power to destroy visions and rip your dreams asunder.

Where the do these people come from?

Good question. I’d like to say that they come from the depths of hell but that wouldn’t be true. In reality, these people don’t come from anywhere but their mother’s wombs – they’re born that way.

They are born and raised to play it safe, conform to society, and protect the status quo by all means necessary. And when some happy and jolly entrepreneur comes along with big hopes and dreams to change the world, they’re all over them like sharks on blood.

So what’s an entrepreneur to do?

Easy. Just listen to them, nod your head, and move on. Makes no sense to argue with them or try to convince them that you’re on to something. These sort of people have 6 feet of titanium around their minds and nothing is going to sway them to becoming open to change – that’s something only they can do.

As an entrepreneur it’s not your job to break people’s minds into sharing your vision. Your job is to seek those who are open to change and who are willing to try new things. These are the people that you want to evangelize and become even more immersed into what you are trying to accomplish.

And…So…

Don’t build a business to satisfy the world. Build a business to satisfy a small group a people. And in a world as large as this one, “small” can amount to millions upon millions of people.