I am pretty sure you may have heard how exciting the journey of an entrepreneur is. There are a thousand books about firing your boss and beginning your entrepreneurial journey. Almost always, that journey is painted as one where you have unlimited power, and control over your time and, of course, lots of money to boot.

As beautiful as the journey of entrepreneurship is, however, it helps to approach it from a balanced point of view. Entrepreneurship, like most everything else, has its ups and downs. So hey, just before you hand in your resignation letter or fire your boss or jump off the cliff of paid employment, here are a few things you should know.

1. You’re the Boss: Remember how you got those annoying queries from your boss, or how you were ordered to do just about anything which you do not even remember being in your JD? Well, as an entrepreneur, you can say goodbye to that! You’re the boss here. So, except you love writing queries to yourself, no more queries. And you’re in full control. If you are conscientious, this is an advantage. However, if you function better with supervision, don’t jump into the entrepreneurship boat just yet.

2. You Are Their Boss: What’s more exciting than being your own boss? That’s right! Being a boss to others as well. As an entrepreneur, if you find the need to engage smart, loyal people who report to you and who are as committed to your business as you are, that is definitely an advantage. You significantly multiply your effectiveness. The disadvantage is where you are a poor leader, and you compound a bad situation to a worse one by hiring terrible people. When you remember that you have an obligation to pay your workers what you agreed, when you agreed, reality dawns on you.

3. You Control Your Time: As an entrepreneur, you can finally get rid of that annoying alarm that reminds you a query is waiting for you if you get to work late. You can sleep as long as you want. Now, except you have a product that makes money for you while you sleep, sleeping while you should be working is a very terrible idea. You risk losing money, clients and even your health- when you have to work overtime to meet urgent deadlines. So, while having control of your time is an advantage as your own boss, consistently misusing it can be spell doom.

• 4. You Make Key Decisions: You’re the boss. Say good bye to having to write a 250-word essay to convince your boss why you need a coffee-machine in the office or why you should be given yet another day off work to bury your cat’s in-law. You make your own decisions. This is an advantage if you are smart, confident and have a great decision-making process. Critical decisions, made in the right time, can make all the difference in any situation. But if you are a poor decision-maker, being your own boss is a ticking time-bomb.5. You Determine Your Colleagues, Clients, and Customers: As an entrepreneur, you determine who you want to work with or do business with. At any point, you may decide to cut off people who rub you the wrong way. That is an advantage. But if you do not learn how to separate personal feelings from business, you may end up cutting off valuable clients or customers of your business as a result of personal differences. This is a disadvantage.6. You Can Take a Break from Everyone: Depending on your personality type and the kind of work you do- if you really are more effective when you work alone, as an entrepreneur, you can do just that. Take a break from everyone and just concentrate on what makes you happy. This is great as long as you do not feel isolated sometimes.7. You Learn Adaptability: As your own boss, one key thing you must learn quickly, is how to adapt to different situations. This affects everything. Yet, how well you adapt, often spells the difference between a healthy entrepreneur and a stressed-out, burned-out one. Dealing with too many variables and changing too many things, too quickly considerably increases the chances for errors. All of these can lead to burn out.  Burned out entrepreneurs are of little use to anyone – least of all, themselves. 

• 8.  You Determine What You Need – a Degree or a Skill Set: You may have heard of the joke where an organization seeks a fresh graduate, not older than twenty, who has 40 years’ experience.  As your own boss, trying to get a degree just so you can be more employable is not necessary any longer. You can start most businesses without a degree. That is an advantage. Despite this, however, great entrepreneurs are avid learners. If reading, researching, self-development and learning as much as you can about your career is not something that you love, then you would fare terribly as an entrepreneur.9. You Hold the Keys to Your Success: As an entrepreneur, you really have no glass ceilings. If you are strategic, and you work really hard – leveraging on valuable networks – you can grow as fast and as high as you can. But entrepreneurship comes with its own risks. Some things are out of your control really. In those moments, little mistakes can be costly – very costly.10. You Pay Yourself: As your own boss, one exciting fact is that you, more or less, have control over cash flow. What’s more, if you work really hard, you can sign your pay cheque as high as you want it or not. Now, here’s the thing, as an employee, if you have a decent boss, you can look forward to your salary at the end of an agreed period with some level of certainty. But as an entrepreneur, you would have to deal with times where your customers don’t pay when they should, or don’t even pay at all. You would have to deal with an uneven flow of orders- while having to deal with overhead costs. You may even sometimes have to turn orders away if your hands are full. If you can create a structure that adequately handles these uncertainties, all of this is an advantage. If you cannot, being an entrepreneur would be a disadvantage.

  There, you have it. Most of what looks great on the one side, almost always has their dark sides too. As an entrepreneur, if you understand this and you go into business prepared to handle all sides, you will be very successful.