You’re either doing your job, or talking about it.
Being an entrepreneur is a lonely life. Especially if you’re the CEO or founder of an early stage startup or a business, you don’t really have that many people to rely on. You can’t complain to your team, even when they fully support you. You can’t really talk to your friends since they don’t really understand the dynamics of your business, especially when most of your friends work in corporate jobs. Your family wonders why you bother hustling when you can get a secure and stable job at the government, and you wouldn’t dare burden your founder friends because you know they have a lot on their minds too.
There is also this huge stigma of hustle porn, that an entrepreneur must be hustling 24/7 for their business. Elon Musk worked all day and code all night when he started Paypal, and you complained for only sleeping 4 hours a day?
Being an entrepreneur is a lonely life, we don’t have anyone telling us we did a good job, we don’t get that many pat in the back. Most of our businesses fail, we tend to skip leisure time with friends, and don’t even get me started about dating. So early entrepreneurs tend to seek for constant validation for whatever they are currently doing.
It started out innocently, you’re just happy that your sales hit target, you got covered by your first big media, or you just met your entrepreneur hero. So you posted it on instagram, or on linkedin, or you talk to people about it, and people start to congratulate you.
You feel that high that you don’t get anywhere else, like people acknowledge your hard work.
and like all highs, they are addictive.
So you start doing it everyday, #motivationalmonday #humpday #hustle are your daily hashtags. You follow motivational speakers and accounts that quotes entrepreneurs. You post every little positive thing that happens, to compensate and feel like you are doing a good job. Whatever you say and whatever platform you use, the end goal is always the same: constant validation.
Reality is, being an entrepreneur is a lonely life, there are a lot at stake. You are anxious most of the time thinking about your team, you are thinking about whether your kpi hits, you are thinking about your conversion rates, the little things you post are a small compensation for all your struggles.
It’s not a negative thing to talk about your work, or to motivate people to hustle, but at a certain point, you have to ask yourself: why am I posting / talking about this? is it because I’m leveraging my branding? Am I advertising something? How will this give positive impact to both my business and to the people around me?
If you struggle to find the answer of those questions, the answer might just be that you want someone to see that you are doing your job. Which is something that most corporate workers don’t do (because they already know that they’re doing their job).
I fell into this trap when I started my business, and it was an innocent thing too. I was happy, I was excited, I wanted to share about what I do and I wanted people to be inspired by the things I learned along the way. Then came times when I was really struggling, and I kept talking about work as if I’m happy. Which leads to a lot of self loathing. I kept talking to media and interviews when I should have been figuring out how to fix several aspects of my business.
So I stopped talking about my work, and I started working.
This mindset shift has really helped me see a bigger picture for my self development, and my business. I learned to see things in the long term, instead of short explosive events. Now everytime I wanted to share good news, I ask myself: am I really happy about this or am I looking for someone to validate myself for me?
This writing seems like a bitter remark for an innocent act of sharing, but I wanted founders to know that, even when the world doesn’t know your struggle, your character growth is still happening, even behind closed doors.
So, I don’t follow motivational hustle porn accounts that tell me to keep working anymore. I don’t need anyone telling me I did a good job. Whatever the results of my work will be, I know that I have remained true to myself, and I’ve always worked harder than anyone will ever know. That weight of always performing for a crowd is still there, but if I were to perform, I wouldn’t be an actress, I would be a magician, with tricks up my sleeve that I’ve practiced hundred of times before I show you.
