This video offers an insightful perspective on entrepreneurship, delving into the reality behind the glamour often portrayed on social media. While the online sphere frequently showcases the success of entrepreneurs, suggesting that anyone can run a thriving seven-figure business with minimal effort, the presenter stresses the importance of being mentally prepared for the challenges of entrepreneurship, citing personal experiences. The discussion revolves around understanding the tough realities, such as the immense responsibility and persistent pressure that accompany the entrepreneurial journey.

The video is a must-watch for aspiring entrepreneurs as it provides valuable advice and insights about the often-unspoken difficulties faced when building and running a business. Key lessons shared include the paramount importance of discipline, the inevitability of pressure and responsibility, and the challenges in finding a sustainable work-life balance. The video also touches on the significance of continual personal growth and embracing imposter syndrome as part of the entrepreneurial experience.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. entrepreneur [ˌɒn.trə.prəˈnɜːr] - (noun) - Someone who starts their own business, especially when this involves seeing a new opportunity. - Synonyms: (businessperson, founder, innovator)

If you scroll Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok for more than 30 seconds, you're quickly going to get the impression that everybody and their mom is an entrepreneur running a seven figure business from the comfort of their basement.

2. defiant [dɪˈfaɪənt] - (adjective) - Boldly resistant to authority or an opposing force. - Synonyms: (rebellious, insubordinate, disobedient)

Anytime somebody says I have to do something, I turn into this defiant little boy and I go out of my way to prove them wrong.

3. reinforce [ˌriː.ɪnˈfɔːs] - (verb) - To strengthen a point of view or condition, often by providing additional support. - Synonyms: (strengthen, bolster, support)

Now, the game of entrepreneurship has continually reinforced this simple lesson, that responsibility is the price of freedom.

4. cognitive [ˈkɒɡ.nɪ.tɪv] - (adjective) - Related to the mental processes involved in knowing, learning, and understanding things. - Synonyms: (mental, intellectual, cerebral)

There is an open cognitive loop occupying prime real estate in your brain every hour of every day, and it only ever closes the day you sell your business or shut it down.

5. constraint [kənˈstreɪnt] - (noun) - A limitation or restriction. - Synonyms: (limitation, restriction, restraint)

A system will never scale beyond its biggest constraint.

6. imposter syndrome [ɪmˈpɒstər ˈsɪndrəm] - (noun phrase) - A psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud. - Synonyms: (self-doubt, insecurity, apprehension)

You will live more or less in a perpetual state of imposter syndrome.

7. tribulation [ˌtrɪb.jəˈleɪ.ʃən] - (noun) - A cause of great trouble or suffering. - Synonyms: (ordeal, suffering, trouble)

And despite all the trials and tribulations they faced, they found a way to stay in the game and keep playing long enough that they eventually found success.

8. accountable [əˈkountəbl] - (adjective) - Required to explain actions or decisions to someone. - Synonyms: (answerable, responsible, liable)

At the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, I also resisted my internal authority. See, I simply lacked the self discipline to hold myself accountable to the actions I told myself I would do.

9. persistence [pərˈsɪstəns] - (noun) - The continued or prolonged observation of a behavior, as well as the repetition of certain actions or habits regardless of hardships. - Synonyms: (perseverance, determination, endurance)

But they didn't. They defied the odds and they persisted.

10. iterate [ˈɪtəˌreɪt] - (verb) - To repeat a process or set of instructions a number of times, typically with the aim of approaching a desired goal or target. - Synonyms: (repeat, refine, improve)

So growing a business is really nothing more than the continual process of identifying and removing your biggest weakness over and over and over again until you get to the point where you're no longer necessary to the operations of the machine.

The True Cost of Entrepreneurship Nobody Talks About

If you scroll Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok for more than 30 seconds, you're quickly going to get the impression that everybody and their mom is an entrepreneur running a seven figure business from the comfort of their basement. These gurus will lead you to believe that you too can get rich. You can drive fancy cars and live in outrageous mansions. And all you gotta do is spend 5 hours a week on your dropshipping store or your social media marketing agency or your YouTube channel. Now, in my experience, yes, there has never been a better time in the history of mankind to be an entrepreneur. And yes, I believe that if you do the hard work on a long enough timeframe that practically anybody can take advantage of this incredible opportunity afforded to us by the Internet, and you can do it to make a whole lot of money.

But here's the truth. There's a dark side to this game of entrepreneurship that nobody really talks about. And if you're not mentally prepared for the hardships you'll face, then this game of business is gonna chew you up and spit you out. And I know this from first hand experience, because that's what the game almost did to me nearly a decade ago when I started on my entrepreneurial journey. Now, if you're gonna step into this world, which I hope you do, just do it with your eyes wide open.

So here are five things I wish I had known before becoming an entrepreneur. Number one, responsibility is the price of freedom. We can blame it on my ADHD. But here's the thing. I hate being told what to do. Anytime somebody says I have to do something, I turn into this defiant little boy and I go out of my way to prove them wrong. Now, this is not necessarily a healthy behavior, and it shows up in these tiny ways that I'm really not proud of. For instance, when my partner Jamie and I were driving somewhere and she's playing navigator from the passenger seat, she knows that I don't respond well to the instruction, you need to take a left in 200ft. So instead she says, you might want to take a left in 200ft.

Now, I know you probably hear that and you're like, what the hell is wrong with you, Anthony? What's the big deal? But trust me, I am way better about this now than I was 15 years ago. See, back in my twenties, it was impossible to tell me what to do. I rebelled against any type of external authority or accountability, which is why I was fired over 15 times before I even graduated college. Now, in many ways, this is what led me to entrepreneurship. I love the idea of being the one that owns my schedule, of being the ultimate authority who decides what I do and when I do it.

But what I didn't realize is that you need to be careful what you wish for. Because just like the dog who catches the car once, I ultimately was the one responsible for organizing, structuring, and directing my life. I had no clue what to do next. Cause not only do I buck against external authority, but at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, I also resisted my internal authority. See, I simply lacked the self discipline to hold myself accountable to the actions I told myself I would do. So I'd create these elaborate schedules and well intentioned plans of being productive.

But then, you know, when the alarm went off in the morning and I didn't really need to get up and get to work because nobody was gonna yell at me or note that I wasn't there, then more often than not, I just, I would stay in bed that little bit longer. And this wasn't just a problem in getting out of bed. It was literally everywhere. I'd take these three hour lunch breaks, and I'd go down these YouTube rabbit holes, which I justify as research. But at the end of the day, I just wasn't doing the things I said I would. And it turns out I was a really lenient boss when it came to holding myself accountable to the things I said I would do.

Now, the game of entrepreneurship has continually reinforced this simple lesson, that responsibility is the price of freedom, which simply means that if you want to be in full control of your life, of your schedule, if you want to be the one that's calling the shots, then you have to accept that nobody is going to come and save you or tell you what to do next. It all falls on you to create and maintain structure in your life, which sounds easy until you're staring at a wide open calendar and a buddy pings you in the middle of the day, and he's like, you want to hang out. And because there's nobody telling you that you have to get your work done right now, you figure, yeah, I can finish this up later. This right here is one of the hardest lessons every entrepreneur has to learn for themselves. So good luck figuring it out.

All right, now, here's the second thing I wish I had known before becoming an entrepreneur. Diamonds are forged by pressure. This actually is just an extension of that first lesson. But it's so damn important, it's worth drilling down into just a little bit deeper. Nobody is coming to save you. In fact, everybody is going to be looking to you to save them. Your employees will come to you expecting a weekly paycheck, regardless of how the business is performing. Your vendors are going to come to you with invoices that need to be paid right now, and your customers are going to come to you with problems entirely outside of your control.

And all the while, you're going to be thinking, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have a clue what I'm doing. And you're going to feel this in the form of a low grade, constant pressure that resides right here in your temple or right here in your gut. And this pressure is only ever going to get worse as you grow and you become more successful. And you realize more and more people and their families are relying on you to not screw things up. Some people can handle this pressure, most can't. But how you handle this pressure is going to dictate how quickly you go bald or how quickly you go out of business.

And this leads us to the third thing I wish I'd known before becoming an entrepreneur. You are always the problem. The further you go on your entrepreneurial journey, the more you're going to be reminded of a simple truth. A system will never scale beyond its biggest constraint. In almost all cases, the biggest constraint in any business, it's you, the founder. So growing a business is really nothing more than the continual process of identifying and removing your biggest weakness over and over and over again until you get to the point where you're no longer necessary to the operations of the machine.

And my favorite thing about entrepreneurship is that it's the greatest personal development program in the world. But beware, it literally only ever ends when you get out. So understand this. The secret to building a seven, eight or nine figure business is first, building the skills of a seven, eight or nine figure entrepreneur. In the beginning, you need to learn all sorts of skills because you're more or less the one that's going to be doing them all. You're going to be the one designing the products, building the landing pages, writing the sales copy, and handling all the finances. And truthfully, at times it can feel pretty overwhelming.

Zero work life balance. You can go ahead and erase this concept from your mind right now. As an entrepreneur, it no longer applies. There is no distinction between your work and your life. They will melt and blend right into one another to become a singular thing. You dont get to punch the clock at the end of the day. If there is a deadline coming up and the work isnt done yet, guess whos sticking around and working around the clock to get it done? Thats right, its you. But heres the hardest part. The work is going to follow you everywhere. Theres no escaping it.

Resistance is futile, so you might as well stop trying right now. The work will always be sitting in the back of your mind. Because as an entrepreneur, there's always going to be more to do. There is an open cognitive loop occupying prime real estate in your brain every hour of every day, and it only ever closes the day you sell your business or shut it down. Now, because of this, I am a firm believer that you need to build a product you absolutely love for people that you love serving. If it's going to dominate your mind, it might as well be something you love thinking about.

But this is easier said than done. And the truth is, this right here is enough to break. Most entrepreneurs. They need more stability and balance in their life. They want the ability to shut it all off at some point. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just, you know, different strokes for different folks. But what I found is that instead of focusing on what you're giving up, that is work life balance and the fact that the work is going to follow you practically everywhere. The most successful entrepreneurs I know, they instead, they focus on what they're getting in this equation, which is work life control.

This means instead of having somebody tell you where to be and what to do every day, you decide what you want to do, when you want to do it, where you want to do it, and with whom you want to do it. Now, referring back to the first point, the start of this video, this can either be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you manage your schedule. So again, this life of entrepreneurship, it's all about trade offs. So just be certain you know what you're getting and what you're giving up.

And this leads us then, to the fifth thing I wish I'd known before becoming an entrepreneur. Perpetual imposter syndrome. I've yet to meet an uber successful business owner who has it all figured out. Hell, I've yet to meet anyone who hasn't even remotely figured out. Truth is, most successful people didn't get to where they are because they knew what they were doing. It was because they were too stupid to quit. Now, when I say stupid, I don't mean they're actually stupid people, though. A lot of them actually are. What I mean is, they found themselves in situations where, by all accounts, the chips were stacked against them and the probability of success was practically zero. And the logical move would have been to just pack it up, go home and get a job. But they didn't. They defied the odds and they persisted.

And wouldn't you know it, they eventually found success. Now, of course, not everybody wins the game of entrepreneurship. In fact, most fail. But there's one thing all the winners have in common. They understood the secret of success. Which is that you can't win if you don't start, and you can't lose if you don't quit. And despite all the trials and tribulations they faced, they found a way to stay in the game and keep playing long enough that they eventually found success. But that doesn't mean they ever felt as though they belonged in the first place. In fact, most of the time, they feel the exact opposite.

If you go down this path of entrepreneurship, there will come moments when you question yourself. You will question what you were doing and how the hell you got here. Because this game, it requires you to continually solve problems you have no clue how to solve. But because nobody is coming to save you, and it all falls on your shoulders to figure it out. You must keep moving forward the best you can while putting on a brave face to the world so nobody can see just how badly you're freaking out on the inside. And this means that as an entrepreneur, you will live more or less in a perpetual state of imposter syndrome.

Like at any moment, the adulting police are going to figure out that you don't belong here and they're going to come kick you out of the game. But here's the truth, and I hope it brings you comfort on your journey. If you don't ever feel like an imposter, it's probably because you stopped growing. You've stopped reaching for goals beyond your current capacity. You stopped stepping into rooms with people who are operating just beyond your level. You stop trying to do things that you've never done before. If you never want to feel like an imposter, then get out of the game.

Let somebody else take your place so you can sit safe and secure in the stands where nobody will ever judge you or laugh at you or try to sue you. But the trade off is that you're not actually in the game. You're not challenging yourself, you're not growing, you're not seeing what you're capable of. The cure for imposter syndrome is to stop striving. But in my opinion, that cure is worse than the disease. Now, despite all the downsides in my book, theres nothing better than being in the game and having control over your life of building a product that improves lives and building teams that can make ideas into a reality.

Entrepreneurship is the best vehicle ive found for doing just that. Its not an easy road, but for a certain type of person, its the only one. Just make sure you go in with eyes wide open.

Entrepreneurship, Motivation, Leadership, Responsibility, Work-Life Balance, Imposter Syndrome, Anthony Vicino