For 18 years I thought I was crazy.
I owned my own business and there wasn’t anything in the world I wanted to do more, but I thought I was crazy to do it. And I thought it was crazy they let me do it. All I knew was that it kinda felt like the right thing to do, even though I didn’t have a clue how to go about it. I was just feeling my way, day after day, hoping and praying that I was doing it right enough to be able to pay the mortgage and buy juice boxes for my kid.
No one knew
No one knew I thought I was crazy, I don’t think. After all, I had clients and employees. And things buzzed along. But I was just making it up, sort of hoping no one would find out . . . that I was crazy.
As the years went by and no one found out, I got more brazen. “Well, if they don’t know I’m crazy, maybe I can push it a bit more.” I didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t get any advice. It felt a bit naughty, a bit delicious, a bit thrilling to be so crazy. I could say, “Things will be like this,” and, by golly, things were “like this.” And when I looked over my shoulder, it was okay. The Business Police were not coming to arrest me or drag me off to the looney bin or tell me I was doing it wrong.
I was making it up
Sometimes I felt like telling on myself. It was like when I got home from the hospital after my son was born, and I was absolutely dumbstruck that they let me walk out of there with that thing when it was totally obvious that I didn’t have a clue what to do with it. And here I was, running a business, with people working for me, and I didn’t have a clue how to do it. I was making it up. Should I be allowed to do that?
And so it went for the first 18 years of my business.
And then I met some other people who were crazy too. My god! There were other people JUST. LIKE. ME. These people shunned traditional jobs, they stuck their necks out year after year. They owned businesses and had employees and made it up as they went along.
Of course I didn’t find this out right away. At first I didn’t know they were crazy — they hid it well, just like me. We met at an industry conference and decided to get together to support each other, and for the first few meetings we danced around and kept at a distance, posturing. But we couldn’t keep it up, and now it’s been seven years of meeting four times a year. I like it so much I found a second group of entrepreneurs for support, and we’re well into our second year.
We’re all crazy together
So I no longer think I’m crazy. Now I know I’m crazy — you have to be crazy to be an entrepreneur. And there are no rules, no one else decides whether you’re qualified to run a business or not, you don’t get a certificate — you are the one who decides. You are the one who is bold and creative and out there.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you know it. Because you have to be crazy.
