MBA2479 The Hardest Part of Becoming an Entrepreneur

0:09Heyo, welcome to the$100 MBA show, showing you how to get better so your business gets better with our practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. And in today's lesson, you will learn the hardest part of becoming an entrepreneur. This is a lesson I've been working on for weeks, really. And it's because ever since I sold my software company, Webinar Ninja, a lot of new entrepreneurs have come to me, asking me for advice, asking me, hey, how can I build a great company and have a great outcome? And every time I gave an answer, it all boiled down to one struggle, one thing you have to overcome when you're making that transition into becoming a full-time entrepreneur.

0:49And it's the hardest part of being in business. If you master this, if you get over this hump, you're golden. And it's just a matter of time when you'll be successful. So I wanted to cover it in a lesson here on the podcast, share with you some of the stories along the way in my journey as an entrepreneur, showing you how this is absolutely true and some strategies on how to implement a game plan so you can be your best self and reach your definition of success faster. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. One of the things that a lot of people don't talk about when it comes to entrepreneurship is how much of a change it is in your life.

1:29And I'm just going to front load this episode and tell you that the hardest part of becoming an entrepreneur is that you actually have to change who you are. You have to drastically change your identity. And that's just the truth. A lot of people think that you can just be who you are and be great at entrepreneurship. No, you actually have to change your habits, what you do every single day, the way you think, what you consume, who you hang out with, all that changes who you are. And in that change is the challenge, not only because you have to do all this work and all these different things to change, but how that affects everything around you, the people around you.

2:06I've lost so many friends in this journey of entrepreneurship because of several reasons. One, it could be we've just outgrown each other. We've lost interest in the topics that we used to discuss. So we don't have common ground. I've lost friends because of jealousy. They may not admit it, but they just wanted me to stay where they are. And frankly, I've lost friends and family members even because it wasn't in my interest to achieve what I wanted to achieve to spend time with them. Jim Rohn says that you're the average of the five people that you spend time with. And it's true. You are going to rise to the level of the company you keep.

2:42And if you want to get better, you got to find people that are doing the things, achieving the things, or living the life that you want to live. And often, those are the people that are not around you right now because you'd be living that life already. So the challenge of entrepreneurship is really the challenge of change. I don't recognize who I am 10 years ago. Let me give you an example. Let me give you a story. Back when I was a teacher, this is pre-2012, my daily life was I would get up in the morning, I would make a quick breakfast, fill my thermos with coffee, get in the car, drive to work.

3:18I needed to get in my car by 6am so I can get to work by 6.30 because my first class I had to teach was maybe 7.20. So I needed about 40 minutes to kind of unpack my bag and unpack my lunch and just get in the headspace and be prepared for class. I would then teach five to six lessons or five to six classes a day. Each class is about 45 minutes. I would squeeze in a lunch. I would then go to a management meeting in the afternoon, maybe coach the team of his basketball season. I would go home, right? Pretty tired. I'd be around five or six o 'clock in the evening. Basically just put everything down, take a shower, relax on the couch, eat dinner, go to bed, rinse and repeat every single day, right?

3:59I just was busy every day. I was doing so much in my job, but I wasn't really investing in myself. This is, you know, before I started building businesses on the side or even having ambitions of being an entrepreneur. This is what I did every day. Everything was dedicated for my work and for me just getting through the week, right? Any downtime I had, I spent it just kind of vegging out and just, I guess, recuperating from the day. And if you look at the day, I didn't invest anything in myself. I didn't actually go and exercise. I didn't go and invest in my health. I didn't go and read a book and invest in my knowledge.

4:38I didn't go and spend time with people and have interesting discussions and grow from those discussions. I wasn't investing in my education through courses or training or coaching. Of course, I'm not going to change because I'm just doing the same thing over and over and over every day. The inputs I'm putting in my life didn't change. So the outputs didn't change. Okay. Garbage in, garbage out. I'm not saying my life was garbage, but I'm saying that if I'm not really putting things in my brain that are useful, like if I'm just sitting on the couch and watching Netflix constantly, it doesn't work with Netflix and it's great to watch a good film or great series.

5:13But if that's all I do, then that's all that gets into my brain. And that's not really what I can use. I can't really use that to change my situation in life. And this is really the story of most of us, right? This is where things really hum at a very low frequency, right? And we just do this over and over and over. Today, right? If I look at my life, it's totally different. It's all designed to help me get better every day. I wake up in the morning early because I want to get up early because I want to have an early breakfast and I want to have enough time to just take my time and have a slow morning, whether to journal or to read or just to eat my breakfast in the sunshine without rushing, right?

5:55Because I want to start the day with positivity. And I really believe the start of anything is really a great indication of the way it's going to end, right? If you start positive, there's a good chance it's going to continue to be positive, right? I then get on my computer and do my most creative work. I do my writing. I do my recording for the podcast. I plan things. I meet with great, talented, wonderful people on my team. I get to work with interesting people. I have interesting conversations that help me grow and expand my mind and challenge me. I then take a break and have a healthy meal.

6:25I don't rush through my meals. I make sure that what I put in my body is delicious and healthy and good for me. I then go to the gym. I get to work out. I get to exercise. I get to use my body. I get to just be grateful. I have the use of my body and I get to exercise. I have a chance to listen to audiobooks or podcasts while I'm in the gym. So I'm putting in great information. I have a protein shake. I enjoy the whole process of walking back home from the gym. I then go home and spend some time enriching myself with information, with knowledge, whether it's taking a course or reading a book or learning from a mentor.

7:00I wrap up around three o 'clock in my work. This allows me to just attend to life, wash the car, go and do the laundry, prepare dinner, whatever it might be. The point here is, is that it's designed now. Now I'm doing everything to help me grow, help my business, enrich my mind, enrich my health, all that kind of stuff. But that didn't happen by accident, right? That took a major change in my life. It took me to change my mindset. It took me believing I deserve to change. I deserve to have good things. I deserve to have the time and the space to work on myself. You know, I grew up in an immigrant family.

7:39Both my parents immigrated from Egypt. And they were very hardworking. working. They instilled a lot of great values in me in terms of, you know, nothing is for free. Nothing is going to be given to you. You got to work hard for it. You got to be ambitious. You got to try your best. And all that kind of stuff was instilled in me very young age. But also, because they're immigrants, they're very sacrificial, right? And they don't really value their own worth in a lot of ways. I hate to say that. A lot of times they just kind of think that they don't deserve good things. They don't deserve to take care of themselves.

8:08They don't deserve to have that leeway of time so that they can do things to improve their mind, so they can improve their careers and all that kind of stuff. So I had to learn a lot of things. So this is really the hardest part of becoming an entrepreneur is changing, is actually becoming the person that is capable of building a successful business. A lot of people think it's just a bunch of actions. A lot of people think that to have a successful business, you just got to do a few steps or you got to work hard. You got to want it bad. All that is true, but in order for you to actually be able to do those things, you have to be the person that is able to pull that off.

8:46That means you need to change. And the way to change is to change your habits. You got to change what you do every day. So when I was in my job and teaching, one of the things I did to just start that is I wanted to start changing what I consume. So a very baby step. I mean, this is so small, but you know, when I drove to work every morning, I would listen to Tony Robbins CDs, right? Tony Robbins, love him or hate him. There's a lot of good things that he teaches. I'm a big believer in, you know, taking the good and leaving what you don't like or don't agree with, right? But I think Tony Robbins offers a lot of value and he helped me in a time I needed to change, okay?

9:21So he was kind of an inspiration and I listened to his CDs on the way to work and the way back and that was just one small step. I'm not going to listen to music. I'm going to listen to something that's going to help me out, right? And that was one baby step to the next baby step. Well, he was mentioning some books when he was talking on the program on the CD. Let me pick up some of these books. Go to the bookstore and find these books. Buy these books. I mean, buying a book is such a great value. The bang for your buck with what you give a book. I talk about this all the time. But for, you know,$15,$20, you're getting some incredible information and inspiration and knowledge.

9:59So I'd pick up these books and I I would read them while I was in my lunch break. Another small little thing. I'd read them on the weekend. I would read them, you know, maybe if I had a slow day at work at my desk. Now I'm starting to invest in myself, not just my career. I'm starting to make sure that I improve my own worth, my own value, okay? Again, baby steps. After reading those books, I got inspired. Maybe I'll try this entrepreneurship thing. I started a little business, a little eBay store online. Just got me taking action. It wasn't super successful, but I learned a few things along the way.

10:34Now, all of a sudden, I noticed I'm not vegging out on Netflix. I'm not spending all this time watching shows. There's this era of between 2002 and 2012 where I haven't been caught up on pop culture. I don't know what happened during that time because I just was so immersed in trying to change who I was. And I got excited with the project of, you know, building a business. I started realizing, okay, it's really lonely being an entrepreneur. Is there other people like me? So I started going to meetups. I started going to co-working spaces. You know, again, filling every moment of free time with this transition project of me becoming an entrepreneur.

11:13When I say become an entrepreneur, I'm not saying become some sort of mogul, some sort of huge multimillionaire. I'm talking about having the entrepreneur mindset, being the person that is able to build something incredible one day. So this is the hardest part of becoming an entrepreneur, changing your habits, changing what you do every day so that you can change and become a different person. Now, why is this so hard? Because we love comfort. We love routine because it gives us comfort. And doing things differently puts us out of our comfort zone. And it's great to take these small steps along the way, like I mentioned in my story, because it really helps us ease into the change.

11:55But along the way, you're going to take more and more bigger leaps, bigger steps that are going to feel uncomfortable. You're going to feel kind of imbalanced, right? But that's okay. That's how you grow. You know, when you go to the gym and you do, you know, bench press, it's going to hurt, right? It's going to feel uncomfortable. It doesn't feel as great as just laying down, you know, in a lounge or on the beach or at the pool, right? You would prefer that in terms of comfort, but you're not going to grow by just laying down. Another reason why this is so difficult is because of your environment.

12:25This is huge. And this is the hardest part of this transition is the people around you and where you are, your physical space, actually. One of the biggest leaps I made is when I moved to New York. One of my dreams since I was a kid is to live in the city, in New York City. I was born in Long Island, but I wanted to live in New York, in Manhattan. And the thing about New York is that everybody's chasing their dream. Being around that energy really matters. Some people are doing great. Some people are failing at doing what they want. Some people are somewhere in between. But the fact of the matter is people don't go to New York to just have a lifestyle business to enjoy themselves.

13:05No, everybody's hustling. Everybody's working hard. Everybody's chasing their dream, okay, which is really inspiring to be in that space. You don't have to move to a major city, but you have to be around people that are doing that. That could be a local community. That could be a meetup group. That could be a co-working space. It could be anything of the sort, but you're just around other people. And when I say other people, it could be two, three people. It doesn't have to be that many people, but just so that you could feel that, hey, we're pushing each other along. Now, you only have capacity for a certain number of people in your life.

13:38That means some people are going to be kind of dropped off from your list. And it's not, you know, a malicious thing. This is just, hey, you're in the season of growth and you need to find people that are going to help you grow. The people that, you know, you maybe were friends with as a kid, you know, family members, wonderful. Make sure they're great. Stay in touch. But at the end of the day, you're going to have to swap out your friends for new ones so that you can start to see what's possible and move to a new station in life, a new level in the game of life, if you want to use a video game metaphor.

14:11But the point here is that that is what makes it difficult, is that you're changing so much around you that it kind of starts to feel a little uncomfortable. You've got to reintroduce yourself to new people. You have to start to build bonds and trusts and memories. And it's just easier not to do that. That's why this is so hard. The environment, the people around you, that needs to change if you want to become an entrepreneur. Now, listen, I know very successful entrepreneurs that have friends they still had back when they're in university or high school. That's okay. You can have one or two friends, things like that.

14:44But the vast majority of the people around them are successful people, the people that weren't with them when they were, you know, kind of grinding it out and starting out. But just to wrap up today's lesson, understand if you want to achieve great things, you need to change. You need to qualify for those great things. You need to become the person that pulls those great things off. Okay. You can't just expect them to happen. That means you're going to be uncomfortable. That means you're going to have to become something new. And that's a good thing. Embrace it. Thanks so much for listening to The$100 MBA Show.

15:15If you love what you hear, make sure you hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app. It's the best way to support the show. So if you're on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any podcast app, go ahead and hit that follow button to make sure you get our next episode automatically. Thanks in advance for doing that right now. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I believe that entrepreneurship is one of the best personal development programs on the planet. It forces you to grow and become something new and something different. This doesn't mean you have to neglect every single value you grew up with.

15:44It doesn't mean you have to change who you are in terms of your belief system or your faith or whatever it might be. This is a great way to kind of make yourself like the new and improved version. Entrepreneurship does that to you. It's like going from never exercising to becoming an Olympic athlete, you know, training like an Olympic athlete. Entrepreneurship takes you to that level when it comes to personal development, your mind, your way of thinking, the way of doing being an action taker. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.