The “working entrepreneur” is definitely not an easy shoe to fill. Why? It’s simple. The “working entrepreneur” in this sense is typically a new business owner, someone stepping out on faith to pursue their goals, or someone who doesn’t particularly qualify for certain loans needed to fully operate a business. This entrepreneur is still employed by an employer while building their business or brand. Sounds easy right? Not so much. Again, you ask why? This entrepreneur has to actually dedicate more hours and time than an entrepreneur that’s a self-funded entrepreneur. In most cases, more hours of the day are dedicated to working. Their motto is simple, “All work and no play.” Sounds sad right? Not so much. The one thing that this entrepreneur has is passion to be successful in their business.

Let’s play a scenario. Jill works for her employer from 7 am to 4 pm. Jill gets off work, picks up the kids, fixes dinner for the family, spends quality with the family talking about their day, and goes into her office to start on her business. Jill typically gets up at about 5:30 am Monday through Friday to get the family ready for their day and probably about 8:30 am on the weekends. What time does Jill go to bed nightly? How many hours of sleep does Jill get per week? From our calculations, sleep is foreign to Jill. If you calculate the time that it takes to complete our scenario, you probably came to the conclusion that Jill possibly gets about four to five hours of sleep during the week and probably about less than sixteen hours on the weekend. Now, you are probably thinking that she can or should use the weekend to catch up on her sleep. Well, that’s not necessarily true because Jill will probably spend her weekends at sporting activities for the kids or various networking events for her business. True, she may be able to sleep for an actual eight hours on Saturday or Sunday but more than likely not both. Not only will Jill use that time to spend with the family since she can’t spend as much time during the week and spend it attending networking events; she will also use that time to spend more time working on her laptop sending emails and reaching out to current or prospective clients.

The life of an entrepreneur in itself is never ending but the life of a “working entrepreneur” is definitely continuous. Do most of them complain? Doubt it! They see the big picture in the lack of sleep and pure focus. You will hear most of them say, “Nothing comes to a sleeper but a dream.” That’s so cliché right? Most “working entrepreneurs” feel like they are cheating themselves if they dedicate 40 hours to an employer every week and don’t dedicate 41 hours to themselves. That’s where we have to draw the line. Can you imagine the amount of sleep that they would get if they actually contributed 81 hours a week to work? Where is the family time for those with families? Could this be why in some instances their kids have behavioral issues or divorce/separation is common? What about those that are single with no families? Is it still healthy for them to dedicate so much time to work alone? We grow up being taught to get our “beauty rest”. Where’s the beauty or rest if you are dedicating 81 hours a week to working? We want to challenge all “working entrepreneurs”. We want to challenge you to make sure you have an exit strategy for dumping your employer, to make sure that your planner has a time slot for sleep or you set a nightly sleep timer on your mobile device, and to make sure that you stay focused on your vision and your health. How about it? Can you complete this challenge “working entrepreneur?