11–20 of 29 posts
My darkest hour certainly had nothing to do with job woes. No offense, but if this is your darkest hour, you need to be living a much wider spectrum of human experience!
What's wrong with getting a job ? As far as I am concerned..one doesn't get any extra points for being self employed. Often times you need to work in teams to get stuff done especially in a startup. I'd rather be impressed by one's work and creativity than by his ego :)
Business is slow for everyone. It's is a dark hour for the world. As a nation, we have lost courage. Don't lose yours.
If you run out of cash, it's okay. Lot's of companies run out of cash. How many banks are closing right now? How many companies are bankrupt? How many companies are unable to pay their employees? Be glad you are not in debt. You are ahead of many. You are out of cash. Many are out of cash and credit.
It's okay to go back to work. It is okay to build a cv and send it out. Take the time to find a good company where you can learn and bring the skills back to your business. You can keep running it while you work. It isn't going away. Longevity has value. How many companies stuck it out through the last dot-bomb?
Learn from any mistakes you have made that brought you to this dark hour. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. There are many tunnels.
Keep your head up. Be proud of how far you have come. Many don't even begin the journey. Life is long. You will have many failures enroute to your final destination.
My darkest hour was when I moved under undesirable circumstances, developed a serious health problem, lost my job, and broke up with my girlfriend in the space of 3 months, while the economy/job market was falling apart but before it started making the news (spring 2008). What was it like? Well, it ended.
If you want to start a company, don't take a job, and don't continue doing freelance. Just start something. Here's a fantastic comment by pj on the subject:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=625644
Just keep walking.
There were a couple of "dark" times where I decided to give up and get a job. But I messed up the interview each time. It's like my heart knew it wasn't right and I bombed. Maybe it gave me clarity about what I needed to be doing.
When you're stuck, it's hard to guess if a change is right. Though, if you start down a path, it might be easier to know if you are going in the right direction.
If you have to get a job to pay the bills, do so. See it as a detour to your dreams, rather than a permanent change in direction. You can always quit and start your business again. Maybe you'll meet a co-founder at your new job.
I've had several dark hours. At the time they seem like the end of everything. It's just your dreams dying that make you sad. You can have new dreams, where everthing is shinier and better. Dreams are the most renewable resource.
Go read "How to Get Rich" by Felix Dennis. Despite the rather crass title, there's a lot of great entrepreneurial nuggets in there, including one of my favorite stories of all time, where he's burning furniture for heat in his dilapidated apartment in the back of a sweatshop, trying to get his publishing company going. His girlfriend tries to get him to take one of the job offers on the table, and he almost relents b…
So, we arrived in Rhode Island on Thursday, my new job started on Monday. Tuesday, the union I'd just joined voted to strike, and by Friday I had a pink slip and lost the job that I'd moved 1000 miles for.
I smelled the pink slip coming the day I started the job, so I was hustling to find a new gig, any gig I could get my hands on.
I was actually able to scare up a job the following week. I was making twice as much money as the job I'd moved for, and for a much better company. It was a miserable couple of weeks, though. We survived on a package of spaghetti someone had sent us for a house warming gift.
We did the check cashing service because we couldn't open a bank account. We had to borrow money to pay rent. But, it worked out.
When the chips are down, you do what you have to do. If you're just not willing to get a 9-5, things probably aren't that bad for you yet. When things are bad enough, you'll do what you have to do to pay the bills. You won't have any choice.
Also, you never know what direction unexpected decisions may take you. Things may well work out better than you expected at a 9-5.