Was I a Good Entrepreneur? A Gonzo Exploration of My Capitalist Crimes

The great American hustle. The sacred, unholy grind. The sleepless nights fueled by stale coffee and anxiety-ridden Google searches: "How to generate leads without selling your soul." If success is a drug, then entrepreneurship is the dealer lurking outside your window at 3 AM, whispering: Did you optimize your LinkedIn profile today, champ?

I tried. God, I tried. I woke up at ungodly hours, choked down the recommended ten pages of self-help vomit, and watched pixelated YouTube prophets tell me that my failure was my fault—because I wasn't hustling hard enough. Hustle, grind, pivot. Run in circles. Pivot again. More circles.

Was I a good entrepreneur? Hell no.

I didn't wake up before dawn to scream affirmations into my bathroom mirror. I didn't strong-arm unsuspecting victims into signing up for overpriced "exclusive" packages filled with advice I ripped from an $8 book at Barnes & Noble. I didn't cold-call strangers with the enthusiasm of a door-to-door cult recruiter. In the eyes of the grindset gods, I was a heretic.

But I was good at one thing: being honest.

I cared about people, which in the modern entrepreneurial hellscape, is like showing up to a knife fight with a handful of daisies. I wanted my clients to walk away better than they started, not just poorer and buried under a stack of useless PDFs. I refused to see humans as leads, sales targets, or some grotesque conversion metric. And you know what? That made me terrible at the game.

Great entrepreneurs scale. They optimize. They synergize. They automate their empathy and slap it into an email funnel. I could never do that. I didn’t want to. And that’s why I lost.

Or did I?

Maybe, just maybe, success isn’t about drowning in the filth of your own manufactured grind. Maybe it’s about knowing you didn’t have to sell your soul for a buck and a pat on the head from a guy who calls himself a "Thought Leader."

So, was I a good entrepreneur? No. But I slept well at night. And in a world built on smoke, mirrors, and high-ticket courses that promise salvation, that might just be a win.

But let’s be honest, nobody wants to hear that. There’s no TED Talk slot for the guy who didn’t hack his morning routine to maximize productivity. No best-selling book deal for the entrepreneur who dares to say that networking events feel like the seventh circle of hell, where desperate people in ill-fitting blazers shove business cards into your palm like they’re dealing drugs.

No, the system doesn’t reward honesty. It rewards the loudest, the slickest, the most aggressive. It rewards the one who turns their LinkedIn feed into an unhinged shrine to self-congratulation and inflated success stories. "Crushed it today! Closed six figures before lunch! Manifested my dreams while sipping organic mushroom coffee!" They pump out this corporate self-help sludge and expect the rest of us to lap it up like starving dogs.

The truth? Most of these so-called gurus are just the business world’s version of a street magician. Sleight of hand, smoke, illusions. They’ll teach you how to "scale your business," but only if you buy their $2,000 webinar first. They’ll promise you can "work from the beach," but fail to mention that you’ll be staring at your laptop screen the whole time, missing the ocean entirely.

Meanwhile, the real entrepreneurs—the ones who work with integrity, the ones who genuinely try to provide value—get left behind, crushed under the weight of algorithms, ads, and sales funnels optimized to exploit human psychology like a Vegas casino. It’s not about being the best. It’s about being the most manipulative.

And if that’s the game, then no, I wasn’t a good entrepreneur. I never wanted to be. I’d rather be broke with a conscience than rich with a trail of exploited suckers behind me.

So here’s my final piece of business advice: If someone promises you a shortcut to success, run. If they tell you that all you need is a grindset mentality and an optimized morning routine, laugh. And if they offer you a "free webinar" that conveniently leads to a $5,000 coaching package, block their number and go touch some grass.

Because real success isn’t found in a sales funnel. And it sure as hell isn’t hidden in an overpriced e-course taught by a guy who rents a Ferrari for Instagram photos. Real success? That’s for you to define. Just don’t let some internet conman sell you a prepackaged version of it.

But if you really want to learn how the system works—the actual mechanics of power, influence, and why the real winners aren’t in those self-help courses but sitting comfortably behind loopholes—then grab a copy of Immunity: How the Elite Stay Untouchable Through Weakness. No hustle porn, no “crushing it” nonsense. Just the real, unfiltered truth of how the world works and why the game was never meant for you to win.

Because the only real entrepreneurial skill you need? Knowing when to stop playing by their rules.