"That's it. We're never going to sell anything ever again. No one likes our products. We should just give up." - Me after getting 0 orders in one 24 hour period
"GREAT HORN SPOON! We're going to CRUSH this year! WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE!" - Me after getting 10 orders in one 24 hour period
When people think of entrepreneurial life, they often envision a happy, self-assured pioneer! If they've met any actual entrepreneurs, they also probably know about the long hours and unsteady income, sleepless nights, abandoned family, and sometimes financial ruin.
And that's all superficial stuff.
But I'm here to tell you that whatever emotional baggage you're carrying around through your life gets ripped open and thrown all over your house when you start a business. Every money issue, abandonment issue, popularity issue, authority issue, and social anxiety will shake out of your baggage in the course of your business.
Just like I said in my blog entry about Eight Things To Do When You Just Can't, it doesn't matter what the hell is going on in your headspace, you have to get out there and Do The Thing, Make The Stuff, Help The People.
And it's not really easy to Juggernaut through that stuff, but it's a heck of a lot easier than breaking that stuff down and dealing with it. Which is why some entrepreneurs look like
empty husks when they finally settle down to relax on vacation (if they can bring themselves to take a vacation at all).
But you know what makes people really crazy? Never dealing with their crazy.
The process of starting a business has been really weird, and exponentially more so since Russ and I are in this together, mixing both of our laundry piles all over the place. In some ways, it has caused a lot of problems. In many ways, it has brought us closer together.
I think if you have the stomach to yell into the abyss of opening a business, it's some of the best therapy you could get.
But don't believe me. I'm crazy.
