Being an Entrepreneur Can Help You Grow as a Person

1. You may become more responsible and self-motivating from achieving a series of benchmarks. You have to become more responsible and learn to hold yourself accountable.
2. You may become better at compromise and communication in all your relationships from working hard at it with a partner or co-founder.
3. You may become more understanding of others by putting yourself in the shoes of your employees to understand them, an important skill of a boss and a partner.
4. You become better at systemic thinking by being responsible for all aspects of the business and trying to see problems from the different perspectives involved.
5. You may become more confident from overcoming your fear of taking risks, learning new skills, meeting the demands of your business, and navigating the challenges as they arise.
6. You may find contentment by having the freedom to align your work with your passions and most important values.

The potential costs of starting a business, especially in the initial stages:

1. Time Commitment. Starting a business requires a major time commitment.
2. Strained Relationships. The long hours, fatigue, emotional strain, and financial uncertainty that often accompany starting a business can strain relationships. Life partners may feel the relationship is being neglected. Parents with young children may feel conflicted about how much time the business takes from time with children.
3. Financial Uncertainty. At first, you may not know how much money you can count on making. You may make less than you would as an employee in someone else’s business. You may even have to work at a paying job during the day and your new business in the evening, get a business loan, or skip being paid by the business for a while.

These “costs” tend to ease as the business starts to succeed, and the entrepreneur often increasingly enjoys the benefits promised by motivations to start a business (see previous section).