The Rules of Management, 4th Edition

RULE 2

Find a balance

Starting your own business is pretty all-consuming. It takes up most of your time, and when you’re not doing it, you’re thinking about it. Of course it should be enormous fun – despite the intermittent worries – so you probably won’t begrudge the time you give to it.

Oh, yes, there are worries. They go with the territory up to a point. But aside from the question of whether you’ll clinch this deal, or how the new product line will go down, there is another underlying cause for anxiety. There is a level of insecurity which goes with being an entrepreneur that is like nothing you’ve experienced as an employee. No one is paying you, there’s no pension fund unless you create it, and there’s no absolute guarantee that the work ...