The Real Reason Why It’s Hard to Be an Entrepreneur

There are so many reasons why it’s difficult to start a new business. Getting systems up and running. Delivering on your vision. Finding and communicating effectively with your customer. Just making all of these different parts work together.

But I hit a different kind of barrier - an internal one that’s always been a big part of who I am. It is a very deep fear of putting myself out there and all that comes from exposing who I really am. 

For most of my life, I have been executing other people’s visions–safely and behind the scenes. I worked hard for other people, making their dreams come true and in some cases making them very wealthy people. Every couple of weeks, I had a nice paycheck deposited into my bank account via ACH. If you’ve been following me at all, you know that I am the daughter of Sicilian immigrants. In my family, we valued humility, working hard, and more ‘manual’ labor rather than creative or entrepreneurial work. 

When I started working on Phlox, the fear of failure popped up (and continues to do so). But I realized I was equally terrified of putting my dream out into the world. 

When you put your dream out there, you are opening yourself to all sorts of judgments, criticisms, and opinions. Some people will get what you are doing and love you for it. But some people won’t, and that’s the part I am learning to live with.

I realized that people have opinions, but it doesn’t usually have too much to do with you. I used to get really upset when I sensed someone wasn’t supportive or didn’t believe in what I was doing. But now I kind of feel the feeling–I notice it, but I don’t get too worked up about it. 

I did some sessions with a writing coach, Sasha, recently. My goal was to improve my writing for my Instagram posts. I wrote something for one of our sessions and, technically speaking, it was fine. But it was also pretty blah. 

Sasha thought I was holding back and you could really feel it in my writing. And he asked me: what’s up with that?  I told him about my upbringing and that I have fears of being wrong or ‘not nice’ or that if I say something too opinionated maybe people wouldn’t like me. He encouraged me to put more of myself into my writing and to be vulnerable–that’s what people would connect with. And so that’s what I’ve been trying to do. And honestly, it is sca-ry (at least for me). But I’ve been practicing really letting go with my writing, with my Insta stories and in the way I talk about my business to other people (at least the people I trust).

So, of course, putting your business plan and finances together, creating various systems–are all important aspects of getting any business or creative endeavor off the ground. But, sometimes, there’s a belief or fear on the inside that is holding you back.  And you need to address, maybe even embrace, this fear before you allow yourself to bring your vision into the world.