March 29, 2024 • 12 mins
Imagine carving out a life where the only boss you answer to is yourself. It's the entrepreneurial dream that promises ultimate freedom—but what if that freedom is more fiction than fact? Your host, Seth Mills, strips away the glossy veneer of entrepreneurship to expose the sobering truths beneath. In this no-holds-barred episode of Astro Craft Grow, Influence, Invest, I take you through the unanticipated sacrifices and relentless commitment owning your own business truly entails. From personal sacrifices to the relentless nature of a business that never sleeps, I'm sharing the raw realities of what it means to be your own boss.
Prepare to get real about the financial risks, the societal pressures, and the heavy investment of both time and money that the entrepreneurial lifestyle demands. This episode doesn't sugarcoat the trade-offs, nor does it shy away from the stark reality that sometimes, your phone becomes your most demanding boss. With no guests to distract from the message, it's just you and me on a deep dive into the heart of what it really takes to grow, influence, and invest in your business—and in yourself. Subscribe and tune in for an unfiltered look at the entrepreneurial journey, where freedom comes at a cost, and the phone never stops ringing.
Denzel Washington Motivational Speech:
https://youtu.be/e3FfL46OzYI?si=XGxWgVLlYrR4cpo0
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the Astro Craft Grow, influence,
invest podcast.
I am your host, seth Mills, andin today's episode we're going
to be talking a little bit abouthow entrepreneurship is very,
very far from being free, andonce again, I do apologize for
the brief hiatus that we havetaken since February or January.
We had a lot of personal thingsgoing on, a lot of things we
(00:21):
had to figure out and a lot ofstuff going on in the business.
Unfortunately, that will alwayssupersede the podcast.
However, I am going to be doingmy absolute best to get back on
the weekly schedule ofuploading these out on every
Friday at 9am Central StandardTime.
So if you like what you hear onthe podcast, go ahead and hit
the follow, download the podcastand subscribe if you're
(00:44):
watching this over on YouTube,and I will see you guys here in
a second.
So, guys, I was actuallylistening to a podcast a couple
of weeks ago and in the podcast,the host was talking about how
entrepreneurship is far fromfreedom, which I could not agree
with more.
Whenever you become anentrepreneur, you're going to
(01:08):
find out very quickly that it'sgoing to eat into your time.
It's going to take away fromfriends.
It's going to take away fromfamily, it's going to take away
from your job.
It's going to take so manythings away from you, but it's
also going to give you so manythings at the same time.
So, while it may not be freedom, it's freedom in the sense of
you work for yourself.
(01:29):
You don't have to answer tosomebody else unless you have
shareholders, and at that pointthen it becomes you're working
for a corporation that you build.
So whenever I say thatentrepreneurship is not freedom,
it is in the sense that youmake your own schedule.
But it isn't, because inreality, if you're really
pushing yourself as anentrepreneur, you're going to be
(01:50):
working 12, 16, 18 hour dayssometimes and you're going to
have to tell all your friendsand your family like I'm sorry,
I can't make it.
I'm sorry I can't be there.
You're going to miss familybirthdays, you're going to miss
holidays.
You're going to miss a lot ofdifferent things as an
entrepreneur that you wouldn'tmiss otherwise, right?
So if you have a nine to five,you can put in time off requests
(02:11):
.
You can say, hey, I can't behere this day.
Hey, I have something to do.
When you're an entrepreneur,you can't do that.
You have to answer the phone.
The phone doesn't stop ringingjust because it's a holiday or
just because it's a birthday,and that's especially true in
the service industry.
We have people call us everyholiday, like on the day.
(02:33):
Typically it's because ofsomething's going wrong or they
forgot about it to the lastsecond and they expect us to
work on our holiday because theyforgot about it prior.
So whenever we delve into thispodcast episode, it's really
just taking a closer look at theidea that being an entrepreneur
means having freedom, but italso means that it's not always
(02:57):
that simple, right, becausewhile starting your own business
, it might seem like theultimate freedom.
We're going to talk about thechallenges and the pressures
that entrepreneurs facefinancial risks, uncertainties,
dealing with expectations fromsociety and all the regulations
that come from being in aspecific industry.
I'm very, very lucky that ourindustry has not fallen under
(03:21):
any of the organizations thatmandate different safety
concerns and other things yet.
However, it is coming, as itwill end up being in every
industry, right.
So join us as we break down themyth that entrepreneurship
equals total freedom, and let'sget more in depth in this
episode.
So the first point that I wantto hit is that a lot of people
(03:42):
dream of becoming entrepreneursbecause they see it as a path to
freedom right, we've alreadybeen over that.
But First you have financialrisks, right?
So starting a business, itoften requires a pretty big
investment of time and money,and if you have a lesser
investment in money, then itrequires a bigger investment in
time.
(04:02):
And then vice versa, if youhave less invested in time, then
typically it becomes more of amoney issue to hire people to
run it for you if you don't havethe time to run it yourself,
etc.
Etc.
Right?
So entrepreneurs, often I meanand let me back up there's also
no guarantee of success.
Right, you can pour your moneyand your time into something
(04:23):
24-7, 365 days of the year.
You're not always going to.
It's not always going to be awinner.
Right?
I tried developing threedifferent other companies before
I hit my success right here,before I was able to fully pour
into one thing and before Ifully said, okay, this is going
(04:46):
to be a winner, it's alreadyworking, let's focus everything
we have into it.
Right?
Entrepreneurs also often puttheir personal finances on the
line, which can create a lot ofstress and uncertainty, and that
can ultimately cause anentrepreneur just to give up on
their dreams, because ifsomething doesn't work, we live
(05:07):
in a very I don't want to say avery entitled generation, but we
live in a generation whereeverybody wants everything.
Right now, amazon, for one,ruined it for a lot of people
with their two-day and next-dayshipping right.
So if somebody orders something, they expect them to have it
(05:28):
the next day, and that alsoscrewed a lot of small business
owners out right.
So whenever there's uncertaintyand there's people wanting to
becoming uh, to become anentrepreneur, they have these
staples and these myths andthese stipulations that it's
going to be instant, overnightsuccess.
(05:48):
And that's just not how itworks, right?
Um, and I I mean getting backto that like next we're gonna
talk about, like uncertainties.
I mean, in the business world,things can change rapidly.
What works today may not worktomorrow.
You may have a product that isdoing extremely well today and
then tomorrow zero sales, right.
(06:11):
So we're always having toconstantly adapt to shifting
market trends and also consumerpreferences, which, in my
experience, it can feel anythingbut like freedom.
Because if you're constantlyhaving to go and change and
adapt, you're going to have tobe working overtime, you're
going to have to be working oncethe day's over.
There's no nine to five.
(06:33):
When you're an entrepreneur, ifyou're the entrepreneur running
the entire show, even if you'reon the back end cutting checks,
you're still getting calls,you're still going to have to
answer to people, you're stillgoing to have to help your
employees, you're still going tohave to contact your customers
every once in a while and stillhave a hands-on approach, right?
Yeah, you're always going to beworking, whether you realize it
(06:56):
or not.
There's times where it'll be 11o'clock at night and I'm laying
in bed still thinking aboutwork, thinking what I could have
done differently that day,thinking what I can do tomorrow
to expedite something or makemore money.
And that's the way that anentrepreneur has to think to
succeed, at least in ourgeneration, and not only that.
(07:20):
Then there's the pressure fromsociety and expectations from
society, because people oftenalways have very high
expectations for entrepreneurs,right?
Expecting them to be innovative, successful and constantly
hustling.
And the pressure.
It can be overwhelming and itcan make it feel like there's no
room for failure, when,realistically, failure is what
drives us to succeed more andmore and more.
(07:43):
Um, whatever you, you havefailure going on.
It's, it's one of those thingsthat it's a building block,
right?
So if you're failing, you'redoing something right.
You are going.
I mean you're, you're tryingright, and if you're doing
something right, you are going.
I mean you're trying right.
And if you're failing, thenyou're going to be learning from
(08:03):
those mistakes.
Um, I, I, personally, I hadthree companies that failed
before I found the one thatstarted, uh, or that took off,
like I mentioned earlier, andthe failures are what pushed me
to continue going.
A lot of people, if they fail,they say, oh well, better luck
(08:24):
next time.
But with me, when I fail, it'slike one of those things where I
have to push myself to dobetter, just to prove to myself
not to prove to everybody else,but to prove to myself that I
can make it and that I can do itRight.
So I, I, just I, uh.
What I want to get across, thepoint I want to get across today
, is that if you're failing, atleast you're trying.
(08:47):
You're doing more than 95% ofthe population, um.
So keep on going, push throughit, you can get it, and and
you're going to end up having asuccess.
I can't tell you when, I can'ttell you if it's today, tomorrow
or 50 years from now, but ifyou keep trying, at some point
you are going to succeed andthere's this stigma that you
(09:12):
have to succeed on the first orsecond time.
Or you're not going to succeedat all on the first or second
time, or you're not going tosucceed at all, and that's just
not accurate.
That is not accurate.
Thomas Edison, I believe he madeover a thousand light bulbs and
a thousand, and first was alight bulb and it worked.
He kept trying.
That's what I'm getting at.
(09:34):
There's a very good quote.
I'll have to find it for thenext episode.
That's what I'm getting at.
There's a very good quote.
I'll have to find it for thenext episode.
Denzel Washington did a very,very good motivational speech
for a college campus at theirgraduation and he used that
example.
I will have to find it becauseI would love to plug that here
or at least in the bio on thisepisode.
As a matter of fact, I willlink that link on this episode
(09:59):
like description or bio.
So just go to this episode,click bio, click description and
the link will be there.
I'm going to make sure that Iput it in there for this episode
because it's a really good listand it's like six or seven
minutes, but it just talks aboutfailure more in depth and
having a fallback plan or nothaving a fallback plan.
(10:23):
It's definitely something youguys should listen to, though,
and finally, when we look atbusiness freedom, there's a lot
of regulations and red tape.
I mean, you have a lot of rulesand regulations, from taxes to
licensing requirements toemployment laws, and in
navigating all of this, it canbe very time-consuming and
frustrating and, again, it willcontinue to take up your time,
(10:47):
especially because laws changeevery year in September, and, as
a business owner, you have tostay up to date with them or it
could come back and haunt youand it could potentially
bankrupt you.
Um, now, a lot of businessowners find loopholes, and they
(11:09):
find where they can have alittle bit of gray areas.
I, for one, don't like doingthat, just because it's it's
very dangerous to mess with alot of people in the government,
so I do my best to stay ashonest as I humanely can be, you
know, but it's just one ofthose things where you have to
(11:29):
stay up to date on everything.
I'm just trying to give youguys all of the different things
that could potentially be goingon as a business owner that you
may or may not realize, right.
A lot of people aren't going tothink about regulations and what
they're going to have to do todo that and everything else that
comes along with being abusiness owner, until they're
(11:51):
already a business owner.
And then it's like, oh well, Idid this to have freedom, but
now I have less freedom than Idid with my nine to five right
freedom, but now I have lessfreedom than I did with my nine
to five Right.
Um so when we talk aboutentrepreneurship and freedom,
it's very important to recognizethat the reality is far more
complex than the dream.
Um now, while entrepreneurshipcan offer a sense of
independence and autonomy, italso comes with its own sets of
(12:13):
challenges and constraints.
For example, what we we talkedabout in this episode and I know
it was a short episode, but Ijust wanted to hop on here push
out an episode for you guys.
Next episode will be probably anormal 30, 40 minute long
episode Going to try and get ourco-host, nick Dawson, back with
us for that episode, but wewill see what comes from that,
(12:40):
from that.
But I do appreciate you guysfor listening.
That's it for today's episode.
Join us next time as wecontinue to explore the
fascinating world ofentrepreneurship.
Thanks for listening.
I am your host, seth Mills, andthank you once again for tuning
in to the Astro Craft GrowInfluence Invest podcast.
We will see you next Friday at9am.
Welcome back to the Astro Craft Grow, influence,
invest podcast.
I am your host, seth Mills, andin today's episode we're going
to be talking a little bit abouthow entrepreneurship is very,
very far from being free, andonce again, I do apologize for
the brief hiatus that we havetaken since February or January.
We had a lot of personal thingsgoing on, a lot of things we
(00:21):
had to figure out and a lot ofstuff going on in the business.
Unfortunately, that will alwayssupersede the podcast.
However, I am going to be doingmy absolute best to get back on
the weekly schedule ofuploading these out on every
Friday at 9am Central StandardTime.
So if you like what you hear onthe podcast, go ahead and hit
the follow, download the podcastand subscribe if you're
(00:44):
watching this over on YouTube,and I will see you guys here in
a second.
So, guys, I was actuallylistening to a podcast a couple
of weeks ago and in the podcast,the host was talking about how
entrepreneurship is far fromfreedom, which I could not agree
with more.
Whenever you become anentrepreneur, you're going to
(01:08):
find out very quickly that it'sgoing to eat into your time.
It's going to take away fromfriends.
It's going to take away fromfamily, it's going to take away
from your job.
It's going to take so manythings away from you, but it's
also going to give you so manythings at the same time.
So, while it may not be freedom, it's freedom in the sense of
you work for yourself.
(01:29):
You don't have to answer tosomebody else unless you have
shareholders, and at that pointthen it becomes you're working
for a corporation that you build.
So whenever I say thatentrepreneurship is not freedom,
it is in the sense that youmake your own schedule.
But it isn't, because inreality, if you're really
pushing yourself as anentrepreneur, you're going to be
(01:50):
working 12, 16, 18 hour dayssometimes and you're going to
have to tell all your friendsand your family like I'm sorry,
I can't make it.
I'm sorry I can't be there.
You're going to miss familybirthdays, you're going to miss
holidays.
You're going to miss a lot ofdifferent things as an
entrepreneur that you wouldn'tmiss otherwise, right?
So if you have a nine to five,you can put in time off requests
(02:11):
.
You can say, hey, I can't behere this day.
Hey, I have something to do.
When you're an entrepreneur,you can't do that.
You have to answer the phone.
The phone doesn't stop ringingjust because it's a holiday or
just because it's a birthday,and that's especially true in
the service industry.
We have people call us everyholiday, like on the day.
(02:33):
Typically it's because ofsomething's going wrong or they
forgot about it to the lastsecond and they expect us to
work on our holiday because theyforgot about it prior.
So whenever we delve into thispodcast episode, it's really
just taking a closer look at theidea that being an entrepreneur
means having freedom, but italso means that it's not always
(02:57):
that simple, right, becausewhile starting your own business
, it might seem like theultimate freedom.
We're going to talk about thechallenges and the pressures
that entrepreneurs facefinancial risks, uncertainties,
dealing with expectations fromsociety and all the regulations
that come from being in aspecific industry.
I'm very, very lucky that ourindustry has not fallen under
(03:21):
any of the organizations thatmandate different safety
concerns and other things yet.
However, it is coming, as itwill end up being in every
industry, right.
So join us as we break down themyth that entrepreneurship
equals total freedom, and let'sget more in depth in this
episode.
So the first point that I wantto hit is that a lot of people
(03:42):
dream of becoming entrepreneursbecause they see it as a path to
freedom right, we've alreadybeen over that.
But First you have financialrisks, right?
So starting a business, itoften requires a pretty big
investment of time and money,and if you have a lesser
investment in money, then itrequires a bigger investment in
time.
(04:02):
And then vice versa, if youhave less invested in time, then
typically it becomes more of amoney issue to hire people to
run it for you if you don't havethe time to run it yourself,
etc.
Etc.
Right?
So entrepreneurs, often I meanand let me back up there's also
no guarantee of success.
Right, you can pour your moneyand your time into something
(04:23):
24-7, 365 days of the year.
You're not always going to.
It's not always going to be awinner.
Right?
I tried developing threedifferent other companies before
I hit my success right here,before I was able to fully pour
into one thing and before Ifully said, okay, this is going
(04:46):
to be a winner, it's alreadyworking, let's focus everything
we have into it.
Right?
Entrepreneurs also often puttheir personal finances on the
line, which can create a lot ofstress and uncertainty, and that
can ultimately cause anentrepreneur just to give up on
their dreams, because ifsomething doesn't work, we live
(05:07):
in a very I don't want to say avery entitled generation, but we
live in a generation whereeverybody wants everything.
Right now, amazon, for one,ruined it for a lot of people
with their two-day and next-dayshipping right.
So if somebody orders something, they expect them to have it
(05:28):
the next day, and that alsoscrewed a lot of small business
owners out right.
So whenever there's uncertaintyand there's people wanting to
becoming uh, to become anentrepreneur, they have these
staples and these myths andthese stipulations that it's
going to be instant, overnightsuccess.
(05:48):
And that's just not how itworks, right?
Um, and I I mean getting backto that like next we're gonna
talk about, like uncertainties.
I mean, in the business world,things can change rapidly.
What works today may not worktomorrow.
You may have a product that isdoing extremely well today and
then tomorrow zero sales, right.
(06:11):
So we're always having toconstantly adapt to shifting
market trends and also consumerpreferences, which, in my
experience, it can feel anythingbut like freedom.
Because if you're constantlyhaving to go and change and
adapt, you're going to have tobe working overtime, you're
going to have to be working oncethe day's over.
There's no nine to five.
(06:33):
When you're an entrepreneur, ifyou're the entrepreneur running
the entire show, even if you'reon the back end cutting checks,
you're still getting calls,you're still going to have to
answer to people, you're stillgoing to have to help your
employees, you're still going tohave to contact your customers
every once in a while and stillhave a hands-on approach, right?
Yeah, you're always going to beworking, whether you realize it
(06:56):
or not.
There's times where it'll be 11o'clock at night and I'm laying
in bed still thinking aboutwork, thinking what I could have
done differently that day,thinking what I can do tomorrow
to expedite something or makemore money.
And that's the way that anentrepreneur has to think to
succeed, at least in ourgeneration, and not only that.
(07:20):
Then there's the pressure fromsociety and expectations from
society, because people oftenalways have very high
expectations for entrepreneurs,right?
Expecting them to be innovative, successful and constantly
hustling.
And the pressure.
It can be overwhelming and itcan make it feel like there's no
room for failure, when,realistically, failure is what
drives us to succeed more andmore and more.
(07:43):
Um, whatever you, you havefailure going on.
It's, it's one of those thingsthat it's a building block,
right?
So if you're failing, you'redoing something right.
You are going.
I mean you're, you're tryingright, and if you're doing
something right, you are going.
I mean you're trying right.
And if you're failing, thenyou're going to be learning from
(08:03):
those mistakes.
Um, I, I, personally, I hadthree companies that failed
before I found the one thatstarted, uh, or that took off,
like I mentioned earlier, andthe failures are what pushed me
to continue going.
A lot of people, if they fail,they say, oh well, better luck
(08:24):
next time.
But with me, when I fail, it'slike one of those things where I
have to push myself to dobetter, just to prove to myself
not to prove to everybody else,but to prove to myself that I
can make it and that I can do itRight.
So I, I, just I, uh.
What I want to get across, thepoint I want to get across today
, is that if you're failing, atleast you're trying.
(08:47):
You're doing more than 95% ofthe population, um.
So keep on going, push throughit, you can get it, and and
you're going to end up having asuccess.
I can't tell you when, I can'ttell you if it's today, tomorrow
or 50 years from now, but ifyou keep trying, at some point
you are going to succeed andthere's this stigma that you
(09:12):
have to succeed on the first orsecond time.
Or you're not going to succeedat all on the first or second
time, or you're not going tosucceed at all, and that's just
not accurate.
That is not accurate.
Thomas Edison, I believe he madeover a thousand light bulbs and
a thousand, and first was alight bulb and it worked.
He kept trying.
That's what I'm getting at.
(09:34):
There's a very good quote.
I'll have to find it for thenext episode.
That's what I'm getting at.
There's a very good quote.
I'll have to find it for thenext episode.
Denzel Washington did a very,very good motivational speech
for a college campus at theirgraduation and he used that
example.
I will have to find it becauseI would love to plug that here
or at least in the bio on thisepisode.
As a matter of fact, I willlink that link on this episode
(09:59):
like description or bio.
So just go to this episode,click bio, click description and
the link will be there.
I'm going to make sure that Iput it in there for this episode
because it's a really good listand it's like six or seven
minutes, but it just talks aboutfailure more in depth and
having a fallback plan or nothaving a fallback plan.
(10:23):
It's definitely something youguys should listen to, though,
and finally, when we look atbusiness freedom, there's a lot
of regulations and red tape.
I mean, you have a lot of rulesand regulations, from taxes to
licensing requirements toemployment laws, and in
navigating all of this, it canbe very time-consuming and
frustrating and, again, it willcontinue to take up your time,
(10:47):
especially because laws changeevery year in September, and, as
a business owner, you have tostay up to date with them or it
could come back and haunt youand it could potentially
bankrupt you.
Um, now, a lot of businessowners find loopholes, and they
(11:09):
find where they can have alittle bit of gray areas.
I, for one, don't like doingthat, just because it's it's
very dangerous to mess with alot of people in the government,
so I do my best to stay ashonest as I humanely can be, you
know, but it's just one ofthose things where you have to
(11:29):
stay up to date on everything.
I'm just trying to give youguys all of the different things
that could potentially be goingon as a business owner that you
may or may not realize, right.
A lot of people aren't going tothink about regulations and what
they're going to have to do todo that and everything else that
comes along with being abusiness owner, until they're
(11:51):
already a business owner.
And then it's like, oh well, Idid this to have freedom, but
now I have less freedom than Idid with my nine to five right
freedom, but now I have lessfreedom than I did with my nine
to five Right.
Um so when we talk aboutentrepreneurship and freedom,
it's very important to recognizethat the reality is far more
complex than the dream.
Um now, while entrepreneurshipcan offer a sense of
independence and autonomy, italso comes with its own sets of
(12:13):
challenges and constraints.
For example, what we we talkedabout in this episode and I know
it was a short episode, but Ijust wanted to hop on here push
out an episode for you guys.
Next episode will be probably anormal 30, 40 minute long
episode Going to try and get ourco-host, nick Dawson, back with
us for that episode, but wewill see what comes from that,
(12:40):
from that.
But I do appreciate you guysfor listening.
That's it for today's episode.
Join us next time as wecontinue to explore the
fascinating world ofentrepreneurship.
Thanks for listening.
I am your host, seth Mills, andthank you once again for tuning
in to the Astro Craft GrowInfluence Invest podcast.
We will see you next Friday at9am.
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