The Anguish of Being an Entrepreneur

Last week, I got a call from a friend of mine who's an entrepreneur that was probably one of the hardest calls he's ever had to make. He was calling to tell me that he hadn't raised a dime for his fledgling company in six months, hadn't taken a salary in almost a year and was about to miss his mortgage payment on his house for the third month in a row (after three, the banks tend to begin the foreclosure process).

His call got me thinking about how many more entrepreneurs out there were in exactly the same boat he was in but just either (a) couldn't bring themselves to make the call or (b) were still in a stage of denial where they didn't know their ship was sinking.

Now if this were some first-time, 20-something entrepreneur, you'd probably think that 90% of the reason he was in this mess was a combination of naivety, lack of experience and/or youthful brashness. What was so particularly disturbing to me was this friend of mine was a mature, experienced executive who'd "been there, done that" many times before.

How could someone like that get into such a hole? As if he'd anticipated my question, he volunteered, "At every step, it seemed as if I were making the right decision."

If you've ever had an entrepreneurial failure, I'd bet you can relate to his comment. No one becomes an entrepreneur to fail. From the time we have our "great vision" until the time we finally decide to take the leap and try and make it happen, we do so with the absolute expectation that we'll succeed.

But as the saying goes, "If it were easy, everybody would be doing it," and for many entrepreneurs, that soon becomes a personal reality. With few exceptions, every entrepreneur must struggle through some very dark and difficult times before eventually, if their luck matches their determination, pulling out a winner.

Unfortunately, for every one who succeeds, there are far more who don't. For them, their hidden pain is both complex and deeply personal. But they share some common concerns:

The Doubt Demons

"Dare I tell anyone of my doubts? If I show my doubt, will all my supporters crumble with me?" You have no idea how much pressure this one thought alone can place on an entrepreneur.

On the one hand, history may show that an absolute irrational belief by the visionary entrepreneur may be the only thing that leads some companies to success. On the other hand, it's also the main cause of many a company's failure. So how do you know if you're the cure or the disease?

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