Success rarely comes easy and must be earned.
I’ve witnessed a disturbing trend lately amongst many entrepreneurs. They want to work the hours of a successful person without yet attaining actual business success. All this talk about work-life balance has made people a bit confused. If you want to run a business that supports a flexible lifestyle, you can certainly choose to work for yourself as an option, but financial success usually requires arduous work, especially at the beginning. You can’t enjoy the experience of having climbed the mountain without having made the climb in the first place. You cannot please everyone, including yourself; you must make difficult decisions about your time management.
You can’t have a business plagued by cash flow and sales problems and then leave work early to coach soccer practice. You can’t volunteer for multiple boards if your own company is lacking direction. You can’t give yourself a raise or a distribution to cover increased living expenses if you can already barely make payroll. You can’t have a policy of not working weekends or being home for dinner every night when you can barely keep the doors open. You can’t regularly show up to work late when your customers typically arrive early. You can’t limit your client geography due to commuting headaches if your clients are located beyond your travel comfort boundaries. You can’t take long vacations if your business requires you to have an active daily presence. You must be honest with your spouse about your networking responsibilities and pressing deadlines, rather than attempting to meet unrealistic family expectations during the workweek.
There is an enormous difference between starting a lifestyle business and running a genuine company. The former is more of a personal job program where you prioritize your quality of life over economic benefits. Many people do this and are happy, but they are aware of their financial limits and try to stay within them. Most of these businesses, at best, only employ a handful of people. The latter has the potential for great economic benefit but often requires significant personal sacrifice, significant risk-taking, and delayed gratification. You are building something over time, and as with most construction projects, there is a lot of design and build work at the front end. Delays and problems are inevitable, but if you stay focused, follow the plan, and work hard, the rewards can be substantial in the end.
Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but they are few and far between; therefore, we refer to them as exceptions. I am deeply concerned that our society is becoming increasingly addicted to shortcuts, personal convenience, and unrealistic expectations. We want what we want, and we want it now with minimal sacrifice on our end. America was not built on this mindset. We have arrived at our current global position through significant effort and personal sacrifice. We outworked our competition and consistently grew our capabilities and network of contacts. We pushed economic boundaries and raised the bar on what was possible through sheer determination and effort. We prioritized progress and success over personal self-exploration and leisure time. We did what was necessary to complete the job and didn’t complain about the difficulty of the task. You can’t have it all, despite what some experts try to tell you — no one can, but you can always prioritize what’s most important at a given point and then live with the consequences. Success must be earned, and you can never take for granted what it takes to get there.
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- Selected Quotes on Life and Success by Ralph Waldo Emerson (capacity-building.com)
- Don’t Talk Yourself Out of Success (capacity-building.com)
- Success or Survival? You Pick… (capacity-building.com)