Ep 1. Why I like abusing myself. Making an Entrepreneur

When we first started SageRock I told everybody how great owning your own company was.

"You should start your own company," I'd say like some kid who just discovered gummy worms.

I don't say that any more.

In fact, while I don't tell people not to start their own company, I rarely encourage them if they tell me they're thinking about it.

• I'm pretty sure there have been multiple times I've been on the PTSD spectrum.
• Wondering if we'll make payroll has happened so often I don't even get stressed about it any more.
• I regularly don't pay myself.
• Stuff gets stolen regularly. (a projector walked out the door this week. Like... I have the person on tape walking out the door with it.)
• Huge parts of my income are tied to a few clients that could easily cancel at any moment.
• I am quite sure I make less money than if I went to work for someone else.
• There have been times when I didn't know where we were going to get the money to buy toilet paper.
• I get so angry sometimes I can't sleep.
• I get so scared sometimes I can't sleep.
• I'm on anti-depressant medication.
• I used to drink so much that I had to get help and cut myself off altogether.
• I'm not even sure I'm really any good at running my own business.

I could go on and on with that list.

But I'll tell you this: For me... it's all worth it.

There is one reason I am an entrepreneur: FREEDOM.

I'm not talking the kind of freedom you may think. My work day is 10-12 hours. I often work at nights and on the weekends. I can't get it out of my mind most of the time.

I like to joke that the kind of freedom an entrepreneur has is the freedom to work all the time.

It's not freedom from work. It's freedom of work. (Like religion. See what I did there?)

I have the freedom to do the work I want to do, when I want to do it. (Basically all the time.)

I can make any choice I want to make. It might be right. It might be wrong. And when I make the wrong choice I get the full brunt of the consequences. But it was my choice, not someone else's choice.

That's the kind of freedom I'm talking about.

I would rather deal with that entire list of crap up there than to have to deal with someone telling me how to run my business. That is a cage I'm not sure I could survive in.

Basically, I'm a spoiled juvenile delinquent that doesn't like to be told what to do. And I just get more so the older I get.

Wanting to be an entrepreneur probably has more to do about my insecurities and shortcomings than anything particularly great about my personality.

But it's who I am and I'm cool with that.

I try to never hurt anyone. I try to be kind. I try to be a good community member. I try to be a good dad and husband. But after that I get real immature, real quick.

My immature internal teenager self is always just below the skin. In my head I'm in my own room listening to Nirvana playing Call of Duty on my XBox. I do it how I want to do it, when I want to do it.

"You can't tell me what to do, dad!"

That's why I'm an entrepreneur.