The Not-So Effortless Entrepreneur

Dan Barton's keynote to the Victoria Prodigy Chamber of Commerce group.

Good evening prodigy chamber members and guests.

Who here would like to create more wealth and prosperity in their lives?

Who here would like to do that with early any effort at all?

Well, if this is a room of entrepreneurs and business owners, then I’m sorry to say, I think were all in the wrong room! Since I bet we have all experienced that entrepreneurship can sometimes be far from effortless.

Since, to this day I still have to meet an entrepreneur who hasn’t put a ton of time, energy & money into growing the company, an idea, a thought.

I have come believe; that it’s for the perceived freedom, that entrepreneurship and business ownership offers, that lures so many in.

It’s commonly a belief that freedom doesn’t come easy and freedom doesn’t come cheap. To entrepreneurs freedom comes to those who are willing to persevere their time, energy and money and risk it all on a thought, on an idea.

2008 proved to be an ‘interesting’ year. I had the wonderful opportunity & was blessed to receive the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award from the Chamber of Commerce. I also had the opportunity, as did many of you, to see every stock market and real estate market around the world take a nice steady decline.

Some called it a roller coaster of a life time.

But it doesn’t really matter what’s going on in the markets when you’re an entrepreneur, when your searching for freedom. See were on a ride of our own, were on the big scary ride that everyone avoids, and everyone advises us to avoid it, the one with the upside down loops and the dark scary tunnels and you never know what’s going to come next.

We do it for freedom

Most of us have put a ton of time, energy and money into developing our thoughts and ideas and creating them into a physical reality. There is nothing more magical for an entrepreneur than seeing one of our ideas manifest itself and come to life.

You’ll find dedicated entrepreneur working late and afterhours, putting the finishing touches on that proposal that needs to go out, or adding the sales page to your website and awkwardly making excuses to friends about why we’re working at 11pm on Saturday night.

Like a good business owner, we’re often accused of being workaholics, and their right, we are, but we do enjoy it and we thank you for the compliment.

We feel like Facebook’s a waste of time – but we do think it’s good for marketing.

The dedicated entrepreneur will spend every last ounce of energy working to get that client, to closing that deal or to fix that mess.

When you ask them what day it is, they had no idea, because weekends have become some type of myth they no longer exists.

With Credit Card at their limits and Lines of Credits maxed out, if you check the dedicated entrepreneurs personal bank account you often find no money.  

Anything we have goes right back into the business, into developing our ideas, into developing our thoughts in to creating our freedom.

We’ve herd, and know of the saying ‘Pay Yourself First’ but we blatantly just don’t understand!

Many of us started down this path by looking for freedom of some type;

Freedom from a Boss,

Freedom from a Job, or

Freedom from living pay-cheque to pay-cheque

And we no longer have any of those, including the paycheque.

Whether it’s financial, mental or physical freedoms were looking for, we believe it’s worth it and that’s what matters most.

Over the years counties and people have fought and died for freedom, so this concept is not new. In fact we, as entrepreneurs, are inspired by those who fight for what they believe in so strongly and with so much passion because we relate.

We see in them, what we deny of our self. In studying our heroes we realize a great truth. We realize that after all this work; freedom is not something we can work for, find or buy, but something that already lies in each and every one of us.

When we live our own freedom, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.

We realize that freedom is a decision, that freedom is a choice,

And that ‘Man is free at the moment he wishes to be’

Thank you!