Making Excuses Hurts Your Business More Than Taxes and Politicians The less you complain about what you can't change, the more focus you have for what you can do something about.
By Steve Eakin Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
We live in some pretty crazy times.
We've been stuck with the lowest-public-approval Congress of all time and a Senate that can't seem to do anything.
In fact, the entire political landscape is more or less insane right now. Clinton vs. Trump, Democrat vs. Republican, Liberal vs. Conservative and all of the polarizations that come with this (or any) election. Bernie and the disenfranchised vs. the establishment. Libertarians vs. the world. You get the picture.
On top of that, we have tons of specific taxes, rules, regulations, trade agreements and laws that help some and hurt others. So much so, that it sits pretty high in the list of excuses when I ask people why their startup isn't doing so well.
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"We have too many employees, so we had to start paying for health insurance and it's killing our cash flow."
"Paying for my employees healthcare is hurting our bottom line and preventing growth."
"If I start earning too much, the government is going to take almost half of it."
Things of that nature. Honestly, there are too many to list. Unfortunately, there are always going to be people who have it easier than others in the world of business. That's the way its always been and probably the way it will always be.
And it doesn't matter one bit about what the government, society or anyone else imposes on you. If you're serious about your business and if you truly have the entrepreneurial spirit and determination that your Instagram feed says you do, then stop complaining.
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None of these things is crushing your business. You are crushing it with your limiting beliefs. You are using them as a crutch instead of figuring out a way to push to the top. It's called a "scarcity mindset," and it's ugly.
Payroll tax isn't letting you grow? That's bull. Jet, Palantir, Periscope, SnapChat, Stripe, AirBnB and many more either started or saw incredible growth when the payroll taxes went up in 2015.
Chinese manufacturing is driving pricing down too far? More bull. Aerobie's Aeropress is doing great with a bunch of competition made in China, for what I assume is pennies on the dollar. Same goes for those K'NEX that your kid is playing with. Same with those Buck knives that every hunter or fisher I know raves about. All doing great despite the global competition driving manufacturing prices down.
This applies to every single "limiting" law, tax and regulation. If what you're trying to accomplish matters, you'll find a way to succeed.
Right now, Uber and Lyft are being forced to pay a tax to bail out the taxi industry in Massachusetts. That isn't fair or just in a free market, but it happened. Seeing how the two new taxi giants handle setbacks, I'm confident they'll be fine. The traditional taxi industry complaining about all this unfair innovation? I'm not so sure.
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It boils down to this: Being an entrepreneur is hard. Running a business is hard. Building an app that makes money is hard. Deal with it without complaining about the things you can't control and things become easier. Once you do that, you're left with only two options: Give up, or succeed in spite of these factors you can't control.
If you're a true entrepreneur, you'll make it work no matter who the president is or will be, and no matter what Congress does. You won't let anything get in the way of making your app succeed.
