Creating a business and losing weight.
Two things that most folks have in common.
Why is it that so many of us struggle to succeed at these seemingly basic goals?
I have a hypothesis.
Our society (at least the one I'm in) is great at romanticising these ideas, but terrible at supporting them.
Look at losing weight.
How many books and diet fads are out there that teach you the one simple trick to it all?
Yet when you walk in to a restaurant, you're faced with "healthy" options that turn out to be less diet-friendly than a half-pound cheeseburger.
I mean, Chick-fil-a's "unhealthy" Chicken Sandwich turns out to have half the calories as a their "healthy" Cobb Salad. It has "salad" in the name; shouldn't it be the right choice?
Coming to terms with this, it's completely unsurprising to me that I and so many of my friends struggle to even just maintain a healthy weight. The fabric of my society just doesn't support it.
And the same goes for entrepreneurs. Full-time jobs are the "healthy" junk food of our society. They're comfortable, easy to digest, and readily available.
As an American, the following is provided to me when I have a full-time job: my health insurance, my retirement, half my tax load, and a number of other stupid benefits that I let outweigh the freedom of earning my own income.
It's so easy to be drawn in to the comfort of a salaried job, even when that comfort is really just a false sense of security.
Education is geared towards "earning" a full-time job. High-school teaches you nothing of entrepreneurship, focusing on more "important" things, like passing standardized tests and college acceptance rates.
When being educated, you're taught how to get a normal job; and in a job, you're taught to get a promotion. Nowhere along the line is the idea of self-employment considered.
So it should be unsurprising that so many of my friends don't even think about going out on their own. The fabric of my society just doesn't support it.
Again, we have many books on self-employment, but little real support for it.
That's why I'm so thankful to have a friend or two who's trying it; To have communities like Indie Hackers to talk about this stuff.
Trying to start a business goes right up against the grain of society.
So it should be expected that a spouse or peer or boss gets concerned when you talk about your unconventional ideas. There's a lot of "normality" to overcome.
Thankfully you're here.
You help provide the support needed to try unconventional ideas. To realize diets that don't suck, if you have the right plan.
To turn "I want to" into "I did".