Is entrepreneurship risky? To go out on your own, build something new, not see a deterministic path from point A to point B – these things do imply a high likelihood of failure. But when people speak of risk, they’re usually referring to financial risk. I’d suspect that entrepreneurs are more focused on time risk – the risk that they spend time doing something in preparation for a future objective, only to realize later that the objective wasn’t as great as they first thought and that the time spent getting there wasn’t that much fun.
Humans are notoriously bad at predicting future happiness. Although I must always accept some present sacrifices to obtain a big future benefit, I need to discount the value of the future happiness based on (i) its uncertainty and (ii) the time it takes to get there. So not only do I need to think deeply about the goal that I’m working towards, I also need to be realistic about how great it’s really going to be when I get there. Therefore, I should be more careful about the present sacrifices I’m willing to endure to make it happen.
Added to this, money is replaceable but time is not. When I was in college and then law school, most of what I did was preparation. You prepare for college by keeping a strong GPA, building your resume, doing well on the SATs, and preparation for law school is much the same. Then the preparation you do in law school is for private practice – you prepare to find a law firm job, prepare to take the bar, prepare to be a good associate. At each step, you tell yourself, “This makes sense because I’m keeping my options open – I can always change down the road.” But this is a paradox – by not choosing an option, you in effect choose the default option. And by seeking to earn as much as you can today (“I need to have a net worth of $X at Y years in the future, so I’ll have my options open”), you begin the process of optimizing for wealth (retooling your life to maximize present earning potential) instead of optimizing for time.
But when does the preparation stop? When have I reached the goal for which I’ve been preparing all this time? When can I start doing rather than getting ready to do?
For me, these were the questions that caused me to leave my job and found GreenLine. I wanted to create something new, craft my ideal working environment (always casual, can regularly work from home, quality and efficiency are the metrics that really matter) and more than anything, control my own destiny. Succeed or fail, you do it on your own terms and can take much of the credit and much of the blame for whatever happens.
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