There are some sentences that never leave you.
Some that land so sharply you feel them in your ribs.
For me, it was this one:
“Well, go and get a job then.”
Said casually.
Said lightly.
Said by someone who had never once risked their entire life on a dream.
But for me, those words hit like a punch.
Back in 2021, I remortgaged our house. Every penny we had. Every ounce of stability we’d built.
All of it poured into a business I believed in with my whole chest, BabyBeats.
I wasn’t “dabbling.” I wasn’t “giving it a go.” I was all in. Completely.
And then came that month.
The month I made £0.
£0. After risking everything.
I remember telling a friend, expecting support… empathy… even a simple “that must feel tough.”
But instead they shrugged and said:
“Well… if it’s hard, go get a job.”
Not malicious.
Not dramatic.
Just casually dismissive in the way only someone who hasn’t lived this can be.
It wasn’t a BOOM that fires you up.
It was a BOOM that sinks into your stomach and sits there like wet cement.
I’m sharing this because I made myself a promise:
I will always be honest about what entrepreneurship actually looks like.
No filters.
No performative positivity.
No pretending it’s all £10k months and passive income and sipping coffees in pretty co-working spaces.
The truth?
Entrepreneurship is a dance.
Jagged.
Beautiful.
Exhausting.
Exhilarating.
Sometimes heartbreaking.
Sometimes euphoric.
The highs feel like flying.
The lows feel like free-falling.
People think corporate life is chaos and it is.
But building something of your own?
That chaos is personal.
It’s emotional.
It’s yours.
Every day I sit in this strange paradox:
I want calm.
I want slow mornings.
I want to be home.
I want gentleness and routine and a life that doesn’t feel like sprinting.
But I also want to be an example especially for my three children.
I want them to grow up knowing:
You can choose a business over a job.
You can choose autonomy over approval.
You can choose to build your own life instead of inheriting someone else’s version of it.
But God… it’s tough.
Three mornings this month I’ve been packed on trains like a sardine.
Late nights.
Early starts.
Long days.
Bigger emotions.
And in those tired moments, the whisper slips in:
“Maybe I should just sell up.”
It’s a quiet thought.
A fragile thought.
But it shows up and I’m not ashamed to say it.
Because here’s the truth no one actually says out loud:
You Don’t Escape Hard. You Choose Your Hard.
Being wedged on a train, building something you believe in?
Hard.
Working for someone else, building their dream, asking permission to live your life?
Hard.
Both are hard.
Only one is yours.
Because while I’ve been navigating my hard…
Some of our franchisees are hitting their best months.
Not by luck.
Not by chance.
Not because the stars aligned.
But because of:
Clarity.
Consistency.
Belief.
This work matters.
These programmes change lives.
And I know with absolute certainty that I am exceptional at what I do.
So no, I’m not stopping.
Motivation or no motivation.
Because 90% of this game is mindset.
It’s choosing to keep going especially on the days when giving up would be easier.
If things feel hard for you too…
Ask yourself the same question I ask myself constantly, the one that stops me spiralling, grounds me and pulls me back into why I started:
What’s the alternative?
Because there will always be an alternative.
But very rarely is it the one you want.