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The Entrepreneur Curse: What It Is and How To Avoid It
All entrepreneurs know the curse.
The agonizing frustration from never having enough spare time to enjoy life outside of your business and the frightening supposition that something is wrong with the business when you do.
My first endeavor into entrepreneurship taught me this painful lesson firsthand. I had just come from an international consulting position where I had learned to artfully augment my vacations by capitalizing on local holidays, layovers and a number of other strategies. More important, while I took my job very seriously, I was adept at turning off the job completely to fully enjoy my holiday.
When I had ventured into entrepreneurship, like most, I had the lofty idea that “being my own boss” would provide me more freedom and independence, and with managers and employees in my business, I would no longer need to apply a complicated algorithm when I took my holidays.
Of course, this perception was nothing like the truth.
From the start, the business beat me up, consuming every minute of my time and every ounce of my energy. Worse, when I actually did have time to indulge in something entertaining — reading a book, watching a movie or attending a college football game — it was almost impossible for me to fully enjoy the experience due to…