16 Entrepreneurs Explain What They Love About Being An Entrepreneur

Mercy - CBNation Team

5 years ago

Being in love is great. Being in love with your business, when you’re an entrepreneur, is even better. Waking up each morning knowing you are getting to do exactly what you love is more than most people could ever say about any “job” they have had. Although there are days when tossing in your hat seems like a viable option, remembering how much you love your “job” can quickly snap an entrepreneur out of that mentality. Different business owners also have different reason why they love their business. It might be the products or the customers they deal with, or it could even be the fact that they are the ones in charge of it all. The reasons are as varied as the businesses themselves.

We asked some entrepreneurs what they loved about “being their own boss.”

#1- Having my life back

The last 4 months of my father's life were spent in a skilled nursing facility. That is NOT the kind of place any of us want to spend time, let alone our last time on earth. Owning my own business coaching business with my wife allowed us to be with him for over 15 hours a day and have our own private nursing service watch over him at night. Our clients, all small business owners, completely understood that it would take a moment after answering the phone for us to leave the room for a consultation. In fact, we created 5 entire marketing plans, 3 employee manuals, and dozens of marketing what-to-dos while in the room. So when we, all of us, as entrepreneurs say what we like most is the freedom to direct our lives the way we want, I would add that I am grateful to my last boss who through his actions made me decide to take my life back.

Thanks to Hank Yuloff, Yuloff Creative Marketing Solutions!

#2- Endless Creativity

Entrepreneurship is non-stop problem solving, and I love the creative aspect of connecting ideas and finding new solutions. From R&D to marketing, cash flow, personnel and so on, there is an endless road of challenges lying before any entrepreneur. The way I'm wired, creativity is the fuel to my engine, so these obstacles really drive me to solve them. Creativity is so much more broad than just artistic – it requires curiosity, ingenuity and imagination. A lot of people might get worn out or discouraged with difficulties, but I tend to welcome them as an opportunity to go exploring for a new path.

Thanks to Simon Trask, Large Chicken Coops!

#3- Freedom of Schedule

I’ve been an employee, an entrepreneur with a brick and mortar business, and and entrepreneur with an online business. Candidly, there’s no comparison when it comes to freedom of my schedule. In the online world basically any task or requirement can be time-shifted. When it can’t, customers or clients are oblivious to where I am when texting or speaking to them. We still work hard, but we do it on our own schedule. When our kids were in school we never missed a Christmas concert, play, or ceremony. We also traveled extensively with our kids. For the last ten years my wife and I have lived all over the world while always having reliable cashflow. I honestly wouldn’t take a 9-to-5 job in an office for any amount of money. Nothing compares to knowing we can spend weeks or months anywhere we want, and the older we get the move valuable it becomes. The global trend is definitely going in this direction and I think in the relatively near future there will be 100-million new online entrepreneurs who will never look back fondly on the constraints of being an employee.

Thanks to Pete Sisco, SafelyLeaveTheRateRace.me!

#4- Delegating

One of my favorite things about being an entrepreneur is the power to delegate. All those tasks that don’t fit my skill set, are time-consuming
or tedious can be offloaded. Not only does it free up my time to concentrate on areas where I excel and that I enjoy, but employees relish the chance to take on a role with increased responsibility, especially when it fits well with their personal strengths.

Thanks to David Tuzzolino, PathBridge Financial!

#5- Owning my successes and failures

I am a very intelligent, ambitious person. When I have had jobs working for others, one of the things that most frustrated me was that successes were ascribed to my bosses, even if it was my ideas and work that made it successful; but failures were ascribed to me, even if it was because of bad decisions made by those same bosses. Failure is a part of life, and particularly a part of business…but I /hate/ failing when it is because I had a better idea, but someone else overruled me and told me to do it their way. As an entrepreneur, I not only am able to take credit for my accomplishments, but also know that when I fail, it is because of me. I not only have full ownership of both successes and failures, but the opportunity to be constantly learning and improving. Life (and business) is an adventure. Yes, I can learn and improve in other jobs, too…but nowhere near as quickly, or effectively as I can as an entrepreneur.

Thanks to John Lombard, The Language of Culture!

#6- Continuous learning

I love being an entrepreneur because I'm constantly learning about multiple functional areas of a business from both a tactical level and strategic level. As an employee, you typically work in marketing or finance and may not have much overlap, but as an entrepreneur you work in all of them. In a given day, I may chat with a developer about internal systems, discuss strategies to close a potential client with our sales team and then meet with an consultant to improve our warehouse operations. Entrepreneurs have to be able to understand the details of what's being implemented (tactical) but also maintain a 10,000 foot view of the business and how this piece fits into the big picture (strategic) to guide the company in the right direction. Everyday I'm learning and that's why I love my job.

Thanks to Claude Burns, Office Libations!

#7- Control over my time

I've been an entrepreneur for close to five years now. By far, what I love most about being an entrepreneur is having control over my time. If I want to, I can wake up late or take the day without having to explain myself to anybody. This control helps my family because there is always somebody to handle tasks which are time critical. The flexibility also means that I'm able to spend a significant amount of time with my partner, which wouldn't be possible if I worked a 9-5 job because she works unusual hours. For me, I can't imagine going back to a career, I love being an entrepreneur.

Thanks to Jack Prenter, ChoreBliss!

#8- Opportunity to improve lives

What I love most about being an entrepreneur is how it has given me the opportunity to improve the quality of people's lives – specifically, my employees. As my team's leader, I have had the amazing opportunity to create and implement our firm's culture. My law firm's culture is compassion. I have been blessed with the opportunity to create a compassionate work environment that treats my team members like people, not numbers. It has allowed me to pay a livable wage, provide affordable health insurance, and offer ‘perks' like flex time, paid maternity leave and baby-wearing in the office. I have discovered that being generous to your team reaps benefits for the business as a whole as a compassionate work environment decreases absenteeism, all but ends turn over and drives employee loyalty and, in turn, profits.

Thanks to Chelsie M. Lamie, Esq.

#9- A number of things

Being an entrepreneur allows me too constantly innovate and come up with new ideas and strategies that allow me to expand, not just my business but myself. I enjoy the idea of having total life freedom whilst continuously expanding my comfort zone to be the best as I can be. As well as having an impact and giving back to my community and family.

Thanks to Kamy Ahmed, How Did He Do It!

#10- Learning and solving problems

Being an entrepreneur is all about problem solving and learning. Not a day goes by that I don't learn something new or discover a new way to apply my skills. You have to apply yourself in ways you may never have expected to. Skills that you learned doing one thing may come in handy for a completely different task. Entrepreneurship is about flexibility, discovery, risk, and change. Those who adapt can succeed. I love seeing successes that are a direct result of hard work. The feeling of knowing you accomplished something is a kind of satisfaction that can't be found anywhere else.

Thanks to Darpan Munjal, Squadhelp!

#11- Freedom to implement my ideas

I felt working for someone else restricting. Creativity becomes restricted when ideas are restricted or controlled. I enjoy the freedom of coming up with a new idea and running with it. There is no one to answer to, but myself. It frees me up to come up with ideas I had never considered before. Of course, it also comes with the risk of making a mistake and failing. But, I look at these as opportunities to learn how to do something even better. Taking every client request to heart to see how I can improve my processes and services.

Thanks to Suzi Wilson, Gulf Coast Web Net!

#12- Putting my energy into my passion

As the founder and owner of my own food tourism company, I have been able to pull from every bit of education and more than a decade of professional work experience to grow a small business that is founded on my love of travel and giving tours. That's right, I love giving tours! I was a campus tour guide in college and loved every minute of it. While there are no complete days off, I actually enjoy the fact that I think of my company all of the time and truly put energy into something that I love. Plus, I enjoy being able show my three-year-old first-hand that women can work hard and run their own business. There's nothing like hearing my son say, That's momma's company when he sees my logo.

Thanks to Lauren McCabe Herpich, Local Food Adventures!

#13- Flexibility

I love being an entrepreneur because of the flexibility and example it provides for my children. I can teach my children that one should do what they love and follow their passions. I am able to balance my schedule around their needs, because I have the flexibility to manage my own time. As a female entrepreneur, I give my children an example of a strong, compassion focused businesswoman. They see me setting goals, managing my time and resources to achieve those goals, and providing for my family. I want to show them that there are options others than going to a job that they don't enjoy.

Thanks to Lisa Bowers, Office Allies Virtual Assistant!

#14- Autonomy in decision making

I'll be celebrating my business's 10th anniversary in February 2019. I quite my full time job at a startup to start my own interactive agency with a focus on small business and nonprofit organizations. One of the first things that delighted me when I started my business was the autonomy I had in making decisions, and that's still one of the things I love best about being an entrepreneur. I don't have to check in with anybody to turn down projects that I don't think are a fit, to take off an afternoon from time to time, or to decide to attend a conference. Whether I thrive or fail, I'm the only one with responsibility for the outcome. It can be scary at times, but overall it's freeing and rewarding. I can focus on whatever goals i want to achieve without permission from anybody.

Thanks to Natalie MacLees, Purple Pen Productions!

#15- Forming new relationships

The most amazing part of being an entrepreneur is the smile on another business owners face, and the loyalty and admiration after we have changed their business future for the better. What we do is not rocket science, but it is highly technical. But the most incredible part of bieng an entrepreneur is the adventure and new people relationships I forge all over the United States. I’m not an entrepreneur just for the sake of being be an entrepreneur, I’m an entrepreneur, that is in the people business.

Thanks to Jameson “Doc” Sharp, BlackBeard's MEDIA!

#16- Charting your own course

You can choose to work on anything you want when you start a business; something you wholly believe in yourself no matter how risky the proposition. That's not something that most larger corporations allow. Once you have a cash-flow positive business, the focus shifts towards minimizing risk so you can continue to keep customers happy and make more money. Perhaps that is why entrepreneurs often choose to sell their business after it gets to this point and go start another venture; they are inherently driven by willing risky prospects into existence. When you start a new business, you can move very quickly and if you don't like the direction you're going in, you can stop and start heading in a different one. That kind of autonomy is not something you find in most jobs and can lead to incredible discovery.

Thanks to Dominic Holt, Harpoon Corp!