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Three Cheers for My Fellow Industrialists – PR  101 Radio Host & Entrepreneur Erika Taylor Shares Her Reality as a Business Owner, and Knows She’s Not Alone…

I didn’t start my own public relations company, Three Girls Media & Marketing Inc., or my national radio show, PR 101 Radio, with visions of grandeur and instant riches. Although I had never been a business owner before, I anticipated plenty of hard work and long hours before I saw any real pay-off. Starting your business isn’t much different than delivering a baby, you can’t truly comprehend the labor – or entrepreneur – experience until you’ve been through it yourself. As someone who has been through both, I speak with some authority.

All mothers share an intimate understanding of those excruciatingly exhausting, painful, worry-filled, joyous and celebratory hours. Birth pains experienced by entrepreneurs are much the same. I haven’t talked to a fellow small business owner yet who hasn’t lived through crisis weeks – or months – of 20 hours days, blurred meetings and meals. I’m right in the middle of one of those myself.

So, here I sit, at 10:30pm on the living room couch, Tivo on in the background, the family fed, dogs treated and asleep, plants watered, recycling taken out, friend called, coffee poured (I freely admit to a beer earlier), and ready to embark on yet another ‘work day.’ I call it that because inevitably, despite my best efforts, I’m rarely able to knock-out much on my own To-do list during Three Girls’ regular workday. That’s when I’m responsible for my other family and child – the Three Girls’ Team and the day-to-day needs of the Company.

I know 11pm will come before I know it, and so will 1am, 3am and sometimes 4 or 5. I’m hoping to make it to bed by midnight tonight, because I’m giving a speech at 7am and would prefer to not have dark circles under my eyes be the first impression people have of me. We’ll see if I make it…. I’m not complaining about the endless ‘erase-1-thing-add-7-more’ To-do list, or routine sleep deprivation; and my family has gotten pretty used to finding me asleep on the couch with the computer on my lap and a plate of cold food on the coffee table (if the dogs haven’t snagged it first).

But sometimes, while I’m banging away at the keyboard in the wee-hours, I think of the other entrepreneurs out there whose families often likely find them snoring on the couch with drool running onto their client files. They’re just as tired, overwhelmed, worried, afraid, confident, passionate, driven and crazy as I am. When I feel like no one else in my world gets what life is really like for the owner of a small business start-up, I know they do.

So, in my pj’s, coffee and chocolate cookie standing by, I embark on another ‘work day’ and raise my glass them. I get you my fellow entrepreneurs; and it’s comforting to know you’re out there pushing thorough your ‘work day’ too. And even at 3am, it’s reassuring to know that I’m not really alone.

Feel the same way or have a story of your own to share? Post a comment and tell me about it!

Cheers,

Erika