Starting is Easy. Continuing is Hard.

I am suffering inner turmoil. It is a battle of my mind and spirit. It is a battle over me. It is a battle for today. It is a battle for my future. It is real. It is ugly. 

An easy choice is to surrender. To give in to the thoughts of, “I’m not making a difference. No one cares. What does it matter?”

But I know how hard it is to start something. Now I am realizing (again) how hard it is to keep something going. Every day I’m all alone with these thoughts. And these thoughts dictate my mood. And my mood is grey. I feel like I am walking through two feet of mud. Each step difficult. Each step taking enormous effort. Each step seemingly making little progress.

I talked to my son David this weekend.

He asked, “How are you doing?”

And all this came out. It came pouring out. I wanted to answer his question with, “I am doing great.” But I know he loves me, cares about me, and wants to really know. 

When I told him, “Every day I am one decision away from calling it quits,” I realized how serious this is.

I was thinking, “How easy would it be to just say, ‘No more.’ To wake up tomorrow without this elephant sitting on my chest. To wake up to a day filled with new possibilities. A day filled with no due dates. No business that’s like a crying baby in its crib. A baby always demanding feeding, changing, and attention.” 

But every once in a while this business smiles. People write an email of encouragement and appreciation. I’m stopped on the street and someone says, “I read your blog, and it really helps me. I often pass it on.” Or the entrepreneur who told me, “I get more value from listening to your hour-and-a-half interviews than by reading a business book for eight hours.” 

In moments like these, the light shines through my darkness.

I remember why I started it. I remember those early meetings of discussing the difference it could make in the world, in people’s lives. Yes, it would change people’s lives. Getting started is so easy. Keeping it going is so hard.

I serve entrepreneurs. I serve them because from the moment I met the first entrepreneur, I fell in love with them. Entrepreneurs are the most engaging people on this planet. They see things none of us see. They have a sparkle in their eye when they speak about what the future can be. They have a passion that is contagious. They have grit and perseverance that is supernatural and enviable. They just keep going. They are not put off by the people who blow them off. They survive, and even thrive, on the one or two people who “get” them and “get” their idea and the vision. 

I was the guy whose byline was, “I am the investor’s entrepreneur.” But now I’m the entrepreneur. I am the one starving for traction. I am the one wondering if what I am doing is making a difference in my entrepreneurs’ lives. I am the one who feels like the entrepreneur who is living on the crumbs from a crowded market. 

“How do entrepreneurs do this?” I ask myself. I’ve worked with them all my life, and I am trying to answer this question. In the past, I would give entrepreneurs a three-step or five-step formula. But I don’t want a formula. I want someone to tell me something that soothes me and makes it all right again. Makes me feel like I did immediately before I started this thing. I want the excitement, the new ideas, the energy I felt back then. Most importantly, I want the commitment I used to feel. The commitment came like an adrenaline rush from my passion for it all. The chance to be a difference maker in people’s lives.

Then my son broke the code. He gave me the answer.

“It sucks being a solo entrepreneur,” he said matter of factly.

As an investor to entrepreneurs, I believed my job was to help the entrepreneur frame the problem and help the entrepreneur solve it. There is so much good and bad going on in a startup, it is easy to get overwhelmed. The entrepreneur needs to understand the problem he is dealing with. Because the problem is the hidden daemon in the midst of all the daily chaos.

And here, in our conversation, my son did just that. He identified my daemon, my core problem. And my problem is I am a solo entrepreneur. I am all alone. I don’t have a partner in this business. I don’t have someone who is in it with me every day like I am. Someone who lives the vision and works every day to make it a day-to-day reality. 

Yes, I have people who give me advice. There are also people I pay to help me. I even have people who give me encouragement from time to time. But what I don’t have is someone in the trenches with me. A person who is in the day-to-day battle, suffering the same fight with the same consequences. Someone who picks me up and carries me when I can’t seem to get my legs under me. Someone for me to carry when they are in the same emotionally drained mental state.

I had this in my very first startup. My partner was a great entrepreneur, Richard Brock. We clicked. We were committed to making the business go forward, to grow. We would sit over dinners with our wives, and they would say, “You guys are so closely aligned, you are finishing each others’ sentences.” But I don’t have this now.

I am waging a daily battle as a solo entrepreneur in the content business. My content.

The problem here is I can’t count on myself. I need to be in it with someone who is relying on me to do what I said I would do. I need someone. I need a partner, a co-founder. It is too hard to do this alone. It’s been five (?) years, and the pandemic isolation has exacerbated this problem. 

This isn’t just my problem.

This is a problem of the ages.

Jesus sent his disciples out two-by-two. 

Jesus surrounded himself with an inner circle of Peter, John, and James. 

And Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, said in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, 

“Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”

My son who is also an entrepreneur is right. It sucks being a solo entrepreneur. I need a partner. I need a community that is doing what I am doing every day. 

I need people.