[As_You_Wish]

Making money excites me. I don't really care too much about what it is, I find that as I earn more and more money, the business starts to excite me more and more. I'll sell potatoes if I make millions, I'll sell my used underwear if it makes millions.

I don't want to do something that I hate, but I'll be ok if it is "average" interest.

Plus, nothing excites me...so what do I do? Well, sleeping all day every day is exciting, but I don't think anyone would pay me for that, damn it. Not working at all excites me. Does someone want to hire me for not working? If I start my own company, does anyone want to pay me for sending me money and getting nothing in return? Because as I think about it, that is what is starting to get me more and more excited.

Also, I think about all the people who work in jobs that they hate, just to make money. One woman I know, she works 2 jobs, 8 hours each, every day. She has 5 children she supports. She used to didn't work but 3 years ago, her husband, who was the main earner, died. She is now working minimum wage jobs, at $15/hour, struggling.

One does what one has to do, even if they hate it for a long time. I kind of get sick of the whole "Do what you love otherwise you can't work" mindset. It's kind of arrogant... you have to be happy working, but others still go out every day, to jobs they hate, and somehow keep doing it every day. But, you will quit if you don't LOVE what you're doing. Crazy thought process, as I see it. Arrogant. I mean, guess it's great that you are a Stanford or Harvard MBA and only have to do what makes you happy, otherwise...well, there is no otherwise. I must be happy, nothing else will suffice, right?

[VoodooJuJu]

This.

Do you know what excites me? Do you know what I'm passionate about? Drinking, fucking, playing video games, supporting my family, gardening, and creating art (not necessarily in that order). Can I get paid to do those things? No, and if I could, it'd pale in comparison to what I might earn as a urinal cake factory owner. I may not be excited by manufacturing urinal cakes, but I'm certainly excited by the money, which I then use to pursue my true passions.

[JohnFen]

If money is your sole goal, then you might be happiest working for a FAANG company, engaging in investments such as real estate, etc.

Starting a business is probably not for you. The odds of you making bank in a relatively short period of time are very low. The odds of your business failing are very high (regardless of your motivation for starting a business).

[As_You_Wish]

Sorry, don't mean to be mean here, but this is exactly what I'm talking about.

To start out, my last comment not about me. It's about "loving what you do" unthinking mantra. Which I think the whole idea is a load of crap.

As far as your saying to work in a FAANG....that pretty much exemplifies my point. You prove it for me in your first sentence. You do realize that it is more difficult to get a job at Google than it is to get into an Ivy League school? And let me tell you, there's on way in heck that I, or 99.999999% of the USA is going to get into an Ivy League school, let alone Google...want to see my GPA? I graduated with a 2.01...2/100s of not graduating because of GPA. So yeah. No way in heck am I going to get into a Ivy League shool OR a FAANG company.

There are people who have to work at McDonalds or as a cashier at 7-11 their whole life. They can't do anything else. Do you think they like it, or hate it? If someone has a high school education and is not a Stanford graduate, that's what it is. Minimum wage job for so many. And no real hope of getting more.

So prattle on about having to love your job, otherwise you're not going to work at it and will fail...I've always seen this as the height of arrogance. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad if you love what you do. But if someone with all the advantages in the world (university degree, great parents, etc) is going to whine because they don't LOVE what they do, while the lowly peons have to suck it up and work two minimum wage jobs to make it...just total arrogance, and tone deaf by most of the startup community. The world is chock-o-block full of people that hate their jobs. But they go in, every day, to a job they hate, to support themselves and their family.

That's all I'm saying. And, this is not meant to be aimed at you personally, because there are SO many people that repeat this. It's aimed at the startup community's philosophy of you must love what you do or fail.

[JohnFen]

> It's about "loving what you do" unthinking mantra. Which I think the whole idea is a load of crap.

Which is not the mantra I was intending to evoke.

My only point is that starting a business is something that consumes your entire life. You will eat, drink, and live the business 24/7 for a very long time -- if what you're doing isn't something that you inherently derive enjoyment from, it will make your life very unpleasant and reduce your ability to make it succeed.

This is very different from some sort of bland "do what you love" thing. This is recognizing the human truth of what starting a business entails.

[As_You_Wish]

>My only point is that starting a business is something that consumes your entire life.

John - this is for sure not true. I've known a lot of business owners that work a straight 9-5 and have done VERY well. Not Facebook, but $300,000-$400,000 per year, that's top 1% earners.

I know a LOT of business owners that come in one day per week to check on how their team is doing.

This whole "24/7 work" is just a load of nonsense. Do some? Sure. But we all have a choice, and I know as an actual fact so many people that are successful do not do that. For a fact. And, I know people in the exact same industry, don't pretty much the exact same thing, that work 18 hours per day. Usually the one working 8 hours per day is wealthier, because generally, the person who works 8 hours per day is organized and prioritized, and the person working 18 hours a day is unorganized, doesn't know what they are doing, can't prioritize, etc.

So, John, it is just not true. I urge you, if you are starting to run your own business, not to fall for that false god of working 8 days a week, 48 hours per day. I don't care what Elon Musk or anyone else says.

So again, if I were you, I would say to work 9-5 and then when you are done, leave the business at your office, come home and do other things. It's ok, really.

Starting a business does NOT entail what you think it entails. Heck, even someone building a nuclear power plant, all the workers and CEO don't work 18 hours per day.

>This is very different from some sort of bland "do what you love" thing.

I don't think so. Do what you love is at the root of all of the whole work 18 hours a day thing.

>This is recognizing the human truth of what starting a business entails.

I know what starting a business entails. I've started many. A lot of what people say is just simply not true. I've read the same exact things as you have, about how one has to work 24/7 and live and breath it every day. No. I know this is not the case, I've seen it personally. Reality is what you make it. If you say reality is working 18 hours a day, that's what you're going to do. If you say it is 8 hours a day, that is what it will be. And both can succeed, have succeeded. I've seen it, in person.