1. It's supposed to be hard.
YES! This is supposed to be hard!
NO! You're not going to make a million dollars overnight. You're probably not going to make it in your first year, either.
We've all heard so many "get rich quick" and "instant results" promises so many times from so many angles that even if we don't believe the hype, we still have trouble accepting that some things are just HARD.
That doesn't mean starting a business is a bad thing. You can change your life by making the decision to start a business. But you need to go in playing the long game.
I think the difficulty in starting a business is an opportunity in disguise. Most people will stall, burn out, and give up. There's power in just staying in the game.
2. No one teaches us how to embrace ambiguity.
Our schools teach us to do X and get Y: Study hard, get an A. Do these clubs, get a certificate. It works great...until we graduate and realize, the world doesn't have those checkboxes anymore.
Any business is the extreme version of this. Every day you wake up, look at your business, and realize you could do 50 different tactics. Which are good and which aren't?
If you start a business, you might be overwhelmed at first. (I was.) But as you get more experienced, you'll start to love the ambiguity because it's actually another opportunity in disguise.
How do you face ambiguity in your life? Do you freeze? Do you hop from one random solution to another, hoping one will work? Do you seek out help from people who've already done what you're trying to do? (Check out the P.S. below for more on this.)
3. Sometimes, you should QUIT.
If you've gone a year with no clients, you might want to quit. If you feel disgusting selling your MLM, you should quit (actually...anyone doing MLMs should quit). And if you hate your lifestyle, you might want to quit.
The important thing here is to write down a basic goal: "Within 6 months, I want to have 50 new customers." If you have 45, great — you succeeded! If you have 4, it might be time to reevaluate. Your time is too valuable to work on a failing enterprise forever.
4. If you succeed, the rewards will be bigger than you ever imagined.
When I started IWT, all I really wanted was to work for myself and be able to order appetizers from time to time. That was the dream, but I can see now how small that dream was. My own business has actually allowed me to dream bigger than I ever imagined: I can travel more, donate more, be more creative.
If you grow your business around your values and lifestyle, you can work from anywhere...travel any time...be able to pick up your son or daughter from school every day. You choose.
Knowing what that big reward will be gives you the drive to push through the dips and keep growing.
5. Choose your heroes carefully (includes the people around you).
If you follow a bunch of people who tell you "it's impossible to start a business" and "you should just focus on your day job," you'll start to believe it. And you'll never start your business.
If you follow a bunch of people who tell you "hey, just throw up some FB ads or become an influencer and start printing money," you'll start to believe those tactics work. And you'll spend years jumping from one marketing fad to another.
Be careful who you take advice from.
