In this week's blog, Brad and Aubrie take us through a day in the life of being entrepreneurs and give us insight into what it takes to own your own business. They advise on personal experiences that they have gone through, the problems that arise, and how to solve them.

Do You Have What It Takes?

The video begins with Brad, "So I heard you want to become an entrepreneur, but the real question is...Do you have what it takes?" 

Aubrie starts off answering this question. The truth is that not everybody has what it takes, that's just the reality of it. I can't say with full confidence that I (a full entrepreneur) run my own business alone. So that's why having a teammate like Brad who is a driven, confident person when it comes to this area. That's why it has worked and that's why we work together.

If you are sitting at home with this great idea, you have some plans, and you have a dream. You may want to do something similar to, let's say, what we do. All it takes is one moment of execution, one moment of bravery. Not everything is going to be perfectly planned out and that's something that I wanted, originally, when we started Fat & Weird.

I wanted to have this perfect plan and if it wasn't perfect then I didn't want to start at all. But Brad was the opposite, he's like, "ok we have A, B, and C that's good enough, let's just start!"

Just do it!

And honestly, looking back, that IS what it takes. Being ok with not having a perfect plan and just starting something. If you have watched from the very beginning of our Youtube channel, we had 9 to 5 jobs and we were working for the man, right?

I don't think I had personal plans of owning my own business one day, but Brad did. So when he decided that starting Fat & Weird was something that he wanted us to do, I was very supportive and we quit our jobs. We sold our house, we bought a camper, and went on a road trip, it was just this whole big adventure!

Take the risk

But what a lot of what people don't see is the work that we did up to that point, we were working our 9 to 5 jobs AND side jobs like Youtube and social media. We came to the fork in the road where we were like we have to decide between the 2 and we decided to take that risk and have that moment of bravery. The worst that could happen was to just go back to our 9 to 5 job which was a great life.

When you decide to take that risk, there will be people in your life who will think you are crazy. Basically, everyone we knew thought we were insane and our risk was stupid. Just be prepared for that issue when it does show up. The only person that is getting in your way, is YOU. If you have a dream and there is something that you want to do, DO IT.

Pros and Cons

There are pros and cons to being an entrepreneur. Going to Brad now, "One major pro to being an entrepreneur or owning your own business is that you do have a more flexible schedule. For me, that means I can go to the gym in the middle of the day when it's less crowded. But a major con is sometimes you only have 30 minutes to work out.

Another con is that your 30-minute workout becomes a 25-minute workout because you have to leave and go handle some business! The majority of your time as an entrepreneur, just in my experience, is like learning how to problem solve, critically think, and how to pivot.

It is a good thing to learn how to be under pressure because people are going to look to you for the answer. So as you get more and more employees as your company grows you will have to bring in people that can help you with that.

The bigger your company gets the more problems to come about and you'll have trust in those people to fix those issues. But, at times it is still going to fall back on you to fix.

Balance

Something we had to work hard at was creating a good work-life balance and that takes time. It has taken us 3 years to achieve a better point and we are still not perfect with it! In the first 2 years, we had a really bad time with this.

We essentially would carry our work with us 24/7, you are constantly thinking about it because it is what you are doing day in and day out. So keep that in mind if this is something that you want to do!

One thing that has absolutely helped us is achieving some clear rules, communicating inside work hours, and then when those work hours end we don't talk about it anymore. Find something in your life to do that is not related to your work life at all.

For us, it is working out, hanging out with friends, and not talking about business at all. But if you don't have that outlet then you will go crazy. Speaking of going crazy and having an outlet, Brad's is playing video games. My outlet is watching Netflix shows!

In Conclusion

Aubrie asks Brad, "So what is your favorite and least favorite part of being an entrepreneur? "My favorite part is creating something that people enjoy. My least favorite part is definitely when people talk crap about the things I create, it is like you take everything more personally." 

Aubrie concludes with, "My favorite part is creating my schedule and having more flexibility being a mom. My least favorite is that aspect of carrying the weight of the business with you all the time. But I hope you found this video helpful and share it with someone interested in being an entrepreneur or starting their own business!"

Don't forget to follow Brad and Aubrie on their Youtube channel.