I sneak into the bedroom, my husband is already asleep, thank God. I don’t have to feel guilty about what time it is. I quietly change out of my clothes and into my pajamas. I go to the bathroom and in passing by look at myself in the mirror. My hair is tangled, my lip gloss gone, mascara is streaked, and only one earring remains. I am a hot mess and I barely recognize myself! I finish up, and hit the lights before quietly opening the door to creep into bed. I know he knows what I have been doing, but I still don’t want to wake him. I climb into bed, and slowly inch over, hoping he doesn’t wake up and look at the clock. 1:03 am. I am exhausted. I cautiously roll over and see my cellphone on my nightstand, hanging on to the 3% battery life from just finally plugging it in. A notification light, a message! Do I dare? I want to read it. I want to see. Maybe he won’t notice… Hes sound asleep. I grab the phone, and then I see it, a new email in my inbox! And so my affair starts again, with my business.
You see, the definition of love affairs vary from dictionaries to thesaurus to personal opinions. In my book, to have an affair it has to consist of these 3 things:
- passion
- purpose
- possibilities
All I have for my business. I’m madly in love with being an entrepreneur. So much that I am sometimes spending 12-16 hours a day living in a world where it’s just me, my clients and my MacBook. My husband has to pull me away and remind me to eat. (You would think I would have lost some weight) He has to force me to put down my phone, and reach his breaking point before I finally shut down and look up from the screen. I am always turned on by my business. I am always open for business. My life has become my business. And yet, most of the time he’s ok with this affair. Why? Because he knows how insanely happy I am. He remembers the days when I went to a job I hated, worked for bosses that were jerks, and had to miss family outings because of my hours. We agreed I would do this as an entrepreneur. All purpose-driven entrepreneurs know this story all too well. You’re sitting at a desk, or in a cube, and all you can do is visualize either of these 2 things:
- banging your head against the wall or
- celebrating because it’s 5 pm
For crying out loud, TGIF is what most people live and breathe by. Dread Mondays, love Fridays. You see, everyone has a calling; a voice within. It’s this passion that will drive you to want to share it with others. It will become an addiction, a craving, your purpose. And the only way to feed your addiction, will be to follow your heart and start a business. It’s of course with the intention that money will flow and clients will come, but there’s a lot more than that to it! You have to hustle your ass, love with your heart, stay hungry for what lies ahead, and never forget what you left behind! It’s back there for a reason. Your mind gets dirty in self doubt. You roll around in self sabotage. You want to punch Gay Hendricks in the face for introducing you to the illusive zone of genius you are now chasing. But, the spirit of the entrepreneur rebels and beats all odds. My biggest fear is that someday I might regret this affair, I might realize it was all just a dream. It might be not be sustainable. But for right now, I am going to soak this up! Yes, I might be working harder and longer than ever before, but it’s for me and my future, not for another entrepreneur that had a dream and didn’t give up. Yes, I might be awake late, up early, and constantly thinking about my business affair, but it’s mine and it turns me on. I would much rather put in 80 hours into this than 40 hours into what I left behind. This is my true story of what following dreams looks like. This is what it is like when you follow your heart. It’s worth it. It’s my mid-life legacy. Ditch the mid life crisis, be an entrepreneur.
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Great blog post!! I feel the same way. I’m in love with my work 🙂 #entrepreneursrock
THIS IS AMAZING!!!!!!!! Love that you took my life and wrote about it!!
Love this, Miss Amber!
I started last year always turning off thd light, with my love beside me at the same time. I’m so glad I started doing that, for my Kaye nights weren’t worth it for me anymore. ♡♡♡