Home...not so sweet home

Entrepsychologist is a blog made for entertainment purposes only. This is not intended to dispense psychological advice. If you need help, please seek the services of a licensed professional.

So recently I made the journey back to my hometown. I had a dream last night that I was flying, which usually is correlated with one feeling happy in their life. Despite the symbolism of this dream, I must say that it is very difficult to be an entrepreneur at home. In fact, I would be willing to venture that most entrepreneurs have made the move away from the original hometowns.

Besides the fact that I am going out to eat with relatives and friends at a rate of one meal/ every three seconds, and don't have time to put towards my companies...I am once again back in the comfort zone. If my businesses go completely belly up- I still have the safety net of knowing a roof will always be over my head.

On top of all of this- being an entrepreneur doesn't exactly lend itself to smooth conversations with family. While in graduate school, "what are you up to now?" was always a welcomed question. I enjoyed telling them whatever year I was, how many more years I had to go, and the job I was doing at that time.

Now, the question is a dreaded conversation. Within eight seconds of telling them about my various companies and what they are for, there eyes have already glazed over. This can be very disconcerting for a person who has spent the majority of their life in a structured environment such as academia. I can see now, why many people choose the normalcy of a "regular" job- it affords understandable conversations with others.

Success is a funny thing. You usually need to have an extraordinary amount of confidence in yourself to reach it, yet it's a difficult persona to maintain until you have achieved it. As rookie entrepreneurs we all have to maintain a brave and tenacious facade, with an underlying faith that we will eventually make it. Yet no one makes it easy for us along the way, sometimes not even those from where we came.

The Dark Side of Success

After hearing the news about the deaths of actress Jennifer Hudson's family and news anchor Anne Pressly over the weekend, I felt I should write a follow up to the "Entrepre-hater" blog. These events are tragic and relevant to the last blog in that they are extreme examples of how one's success can attract such hatred from others.

These women were guilty of nothing but achievement. Jennifer Hudson was a talented singer, discovered through American Idol and later burst into the Hollywood scene due to her enormous talent as both a singer and actress. Anchorwoman Anne Pressly, was a rising star herself in Little Rock, AK and recently nabbed a role in Oliver Stone's latest movie W.

However, the jealousy and envy that these women attracted caused horrific events to take place. Ms. Hudson's mother and brother were found murdered in their Chicago home and Anne Pressly was beaten so badly that she remained in intensive care for four days and later died.

I must say that it is quite sad that we live in a world where one's family can be at risk, or worse- your own life, just because you have acquired some success. While most people who have jealousy or envy will resort to scare tactics or insults, there are those few that are so miserable that they are willing to take that person's life- to remove them from existence, just out of hatred and spite. The irony is that if they only used a portion of the energy that was wasted on coveting someone else's life, they might have found some success in their own lives.

Entrepsychologist is a blog made for entertainment purposes only. This is not intended to dispense psychological advice. If you need help, please seek the services of a licensed professional.

TGIF

Entrepsychologist is a blog made for entertainment purposes only. This is not intended to dispense psychological advice. If you need help, please seek the services of a licensed professional.

This morning the lady on the news started her monologue with "TGIF folks, we are this close the weekend." This made me realize how many people actually still have this TGIF mentality, living for the weekends and becoming unconscious during the weekdays.

This is a horrible existence. I know this from personal experience. I used to be one of those people. I used to work 30 hours a week, attend graduate school full time, and work a practicum 8-10 hours a week. Somewhere in there, I fitted in studying and a social life. Although I have a degree to show for all that work, it was a wasted existence. I wasn't fully conscious in life.

In today's age, there are more and more people that are beginning to seek the path of entrepreneur. In the rise of computers and technology, we no longer need to be in a cubicle forty hours a week. We can fax from computers, have conferences through webcams, and send official documents through email. With all that extra time we are now afforded the luxury to figure out what we really want to do.

Being an entrepreneur usually means doing something no one else has done before. This entails understanding the market inside and out and knowing where its headed tomorrow. If you can do this (with a modicum of intelligence and a significant amount of drive), you no longer have to wait until Friday to live your life.

Although I was working on one of my websites around 10:30 last night, I was also surfing at 9 am on Monday morning. Determining your own career means determining your own life- every day. Here's to doing what you love, when you want. Happy trailblazing!

Entrepre-haters

Entrepsychologist is a blog made for entertainment purposes only. This is not intended to dispense psychological advice. If you need help, please seek the services of a licensed professional.


It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt

"The Man In The Arena"
Speech at the Sorbonne
Paris, France
April 23, 1910

The above speech is by far one of my favorite speeches in history. An excerpt from this was painted on my bedroom wall at home and it is quickly becoming the directive for my life.

This blog is intended simply to be a diary of the ups and downs that come along with being an entrepreneur, from someone who holds a doctorate degree in clinical psychology. Possibly, this blog will offer someone inspiration along the way of their own entrepreneurial pursuits. Yesterday, I was contacted by a former colleague from graduate school who asked me to take down the term "entrepsychologist" from this site, because she was "concerned" that this might confuse those in the community.

Now usually, I don't tend to spend much time beyond a simple "get a life" response, but I think this event has some definite relevance for the purposes of this blog.

During the course of one's entrepreneurial pursuits, it is likely that you will encounter a few of these "entrepre-haters." This term refers to individuals who are dissatisfied with the monotony and normalcy of being a working stiff and seek a false sense of purpose and meaning by attacking those that had the courage to think outside the box.

This can be quite disconcerting and even upsetting if you are a beginning entrepreneur just starting out. Part of the entrepreneur's psychology is that they are emotionally vulnerable to outside attack. Until you are successful- you have a sense of vulnerability. You, yourself are in doubt of your chosen path, and when others try to bring you down, this can feel like a punch to the gut. However, do not be deterred. Let me say this again DO NOT BE DETERRED. This is one of the hardest lessons learned by most entrepreneurs. They have acquired a thick skin that is impermeable to outside attacks. They understand that there will always be criticism if they put themselves "in the arena."

Throughout graduate school I was the decided victim of one of the clinical faculty. For whatever reason, she decided that she would make my life a little more difficult than the rest. While I was doing a supplemental practicum (to earn extra money while in school), she wrote an email informing me that because a year had passed, she was afraid I would have to become licensed if I wanted to continue working. Determined to keep my employment, I did exactly that. I took three months to study for the EPPP and paid thousands in registration and study materials.

A year later, she called numerous meetings to talk to me about my lack of respect for her and how she felt a "push" in one of my emails. A few months later, when I made a mistake at a practicum, she jumped on this like a blood thirsty shark and told me that "out of professional integrity" she felt she needed to place me on academic probation and contact all of the internship sites I had secured an interview with (this was after thousands had been spent to fly to these interviews for my pre-doctoral residency). I did not match with the rest of my classmates because of her actions. Undeterred, I contacted non accredited sites and found a site willing to take me on for about $3.60/hour. I said yes immediately, and I was off to San diego!

A year and a half later, I am now Dr. Long and these emotional scars have started the foundation for a thicker skin. They say the best lessons learned are often the hardest lessons earned. That was certainly true in my case. I hope that during your pursuits you never have to encounter people of this "entrepre-hater" magnitude, but I can guarantee you will encounter opposition. Take it as a pat on the back that you are now an officially an entrepreneur, and leave the entrepre-haters to bother someone else.

Why Socialites seek Prozac

Entrepsychologist is a blog made for entertainment purposes only. This is not intended to dispense psychological advice. If you need help, please seek the services of a licensed professional.

So, I was thumbing through my W fashion magazine and saw pictures of various socialites. I have never before heard these womens' names but apparently they were famous for simply being rich. I decided to look into this further and google them. Many of these women appeared to be privileged only out of sheer luck, the product of extraordinarily wealthy aristocrats...As Jason and I talked this over, we wondered why so many of them ended up addicted to some kind of illegal drug, or in a psychiatrists office being prescribed prozac. We came to the conclusion that they have nothing to strive for (see the third factor "learning" www.drcolleenlong.com). These socialites have nothing much to get up for other than the next party, with the same people. It is up to them to create some type of meaningful existence. The sad part is that they are usually too asleep in their drug of choice to come to this realization.

A Day in the Life of an Entrepsychologist..

Entrepsychologist is a blog made for entertainment purposes only. This is not intended to dispense psychological advice. If you need help, please seek the services of a licensed professional.


Ok, so I've made up an entirely new word. I feel it is only right to give as much detail about what this phenomenon actually is. Unfortunately, I am still figuring this out myself.

So, it's funny being an entrepreneur. Kind of like riding a roller coaster. No, that was just a lazy cliche. If it were actually like riding a roller coaster, it would be fun at all times, even in the down part. However, it is not fun in the down part. I repeat. It is NOT fun in the down part.

Some days, I feel like I am really doing the right thing with my life. Take yesterday for example. I just got out of a two hour meeting with my web developer and was so pumped from seeing the site. It looks so sleek, and I really think it's going to impress future clients. I checked my phone and saw an email from a customer on Jason's site (Jason is my boyfriend) wanting to purchase around $1,000 of gear. Since I had created the shop through ebay earlier in the week, it was really gratifying to see it come to fruition. The entire ride home, I was cruising down the highway singing as loud as I could, thinking "this could be it."

However, those days are currently few and far between. There have been days where we have gone to Chili's (you will likely hear about this establishment a lot as it is one of our FAVES) and shared a diet coke. Really? Yes.

I am getting ready to put forward a significant amount of money to market another project, which will run in the nov/dec issue of a psychotherapy magazine. The magazine has 55,000 loyal subscribers and 144,000 readers. If the stat on marketing is true, and I get 1% return- I will have garnered 550 new subscribers to my project. Then, that will be well worth the money.

I keep questioning myself as I do this. Some days I have to remind myself that I do actually have a doctorate and am just as capable of being a successful entrepreneur as anyone else. Yet other days, I feel like a five year old setting up a lemonade stand.

So let me just start off by telling you how many different pies I have my hands in at the moment.

Book- I have completed the majority of a book about happiness, and am waiting to hear back from the publisher. I still have to write more query letters to other publishers in case this one falls through. I also have to add my references and fully complete the book.

Website 1- I have a consulting company www.drcolleenlong.com that does everything from executive consulting to life coaching. I am needing to develop marketing material to send to corporations about my services and figure out how best to market myself. This also involves writing articles for various magazines and hoping someone publishes me so that I can plug my site.

Website 2- This site has been in the works since last year and should be ready for debugging next week. This will be the largest company I am running and is still super top secret... I have to write marketing material describing the company to doctors and lawyers, and hopefully establish relationships.

Website 3- This is the site I am most excited about. Probably because it is more related to my field. I am working on creating the ad that will run in a psychotherapy magazine and trying to scramble around enough money so there is room on my credit card for payment.

So today started with waking up, answering emails from J's ebay shop. I also got excited because we had another inquiry (which often translates to order) so that momentum was carried into me writing several high school and college field hockey coaches and telling them about our site. Next, I went to the gym for about an hour, returned home and started contacting graphic artists about my ad and seeing if someone can revamp it for me by Friday (when it is due). I also spent about an hour figuring out which credit card has enough room for this blood letting tomorrow.

Then, I set up and verified my paypal premier business account as well as my 1800 number for site number 3. Right now I am feeling very gratified that I have actually developed a full days work, but also a little stressed (but good stressed).

In other news, I received an email from a graduate student asking if she could interview me. She said the assignment was to interview one person who has reached all the goals she wants to accomplish in her career. Apparently she got me off of a psych directory. I can't believe someone wants to interview ME! I remember when I was that student (like four months ago)...it felt very good to have come full circle.

What is an Entrepsychologist?

Entrepsychologist is a blog made for entertainment purposes only. This is not intended to dispense psychological advice. If you need help, please seek the services of a licensed professional.

Entrepsychologist -en·tre·psy·cho·lo·gist /ˌɑntrəprəˈnɜr, -ˈnʊər; Fr. ɑ̃trəprəˈnɶr/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ahn-truh-si-col-o-jist] noun

1.	a person who uses their expertise in psychology to promote entrepreneuralism both in and outside of the field