The reality of being a millionaire entrepreneur at 26 years old

Everyone wants to see the highlight reel. The Lamborghinis, the designer bags, the first class flights, the I made six figures in my sleep post. But what they don't show you is what happens after the cameras start rolling. What happens when you're alone at 3am questioning everything you've built. What happens when your success feels more like a prison than freedom. Today I'm gonna tell you the truth about entrepreneurship that no one talks about. The dark side that they don't put on Instagram stories or in motivational quotes. Because if you're thinking about this path, if you're already on it, or if you're wondering why success doesn't feel the way you thought it would, you need to hear this. This isn't about discouraging you, it's about preparing you for the reality that no one else will tell you. Because the truth is entrepreneurship will expose every weakness you have. It will break you down completely and force you to build yourself from scratch. And if you're not ready for that, you're not ready for this life. Let me start with the biggest lie they tell you about success. They tell you when you make your first million it's gonna be the best feeling you've ever encountered in your life. And I was looking forward to that time. I was looking forward to that point. And until I hit it and felt like nothing in my life really changed. I had the freedom, but my confidence was still the same. My anxiety was still the same. My unfaced traumas were still the same. My healing was still the same. Everything that have made me suffer in my life is still the same. I just added an extra million dollars to it in my bank. And the crazier part is because you have a lot of money now, you have even more time. You're not clocking in and clocking out out of a job every single day. So you're not busy. Your friends are working. Your family is busy. But you are not as busy because now you want the freedom. Now you got the freedom. So you have more time that will force you to deal with everything life has ever put you through. You start overthinking your past, your relationships, your friendships, your success. And that will put you in a huge loop that honestly only successful people go through because they have the time to go through. I know when I was working two, three jobs, going to university, when I was stressed out about money. The last thing I want to think about is how I feel, how this person made me feel, why I reacted this way, why am I a certain way? That was not on my agenda. What I was focused on was making money and grinding. And there was so many distractions. But when I made the money, the distractions got so quiet and it was just me and everything that I've ever went through that I haven't faced yet. And then on top of that, because now you've made it to your parents, to your family, to society. Now there is all these expectations, especially as a woman, for you to act a certain way, to dress a certain way, to spend a certain way, to shop at certain places, to give people money because you have it. And why are you greedy and why are you so cheap to spend on some people maybe that don't deserve you spending on them? And that just all comes with a lot of expectations and pressure that I was not prepared to actually face because I was the same girl just with more money. And in reality, because I made that money, it also comes with pressure of, oh my God, now I upgraded my bank account. I don't want to downgrade. So I need to keep working hard. I need to keep building my business and I need to work 10 times harder to make sure I keep the success and make more as I go. Because if I don't, then what's the point of even celebrating this milestone and then going back to the life that I used to live before? So that all comes with pressure. Did I deserve this? Was it luck? Did I earn it? How am I going to make my next million? What's my next steps? Giving family money, giving friends money, making sure I represent the millionaire that I am, live in places that are nice because now I'm a millionaire and people only will believe it when they see it, not when they hear it. So all these things, honestly, it just adds more pressure to, first of all, we already have pressure as women. I already have pressure because I'm an immigrant. I already have pressure because I'm Middle Eastern. I already have pressure because of family, because of my business. Now I have this cultural society pressure to live a certain way because I've made a certain number of money. It was a lot. So that was the first problem that I faced is I realized that money does not solve internal problems. It's going to solve all the external problems. And then you're left with all this time to make sure you deal with the internal problems because now they're even magnified even more. But feeling empty was just the beginning. What comes after was actually harder. You get into the isolation season, losing friends who couldn't relate to your new reality, losing friends that didn't support you along the journey. And then finally you arrive somewhere and then you're like, where are my real friends? Who wants me for really me versus being with me because I've made it or being with me for the money? That is also true for women as well, not only for men. You get, you know, the lonely of being the only one that made it in your circle and the only one that gets it. So I've had my friends look at me a different type of way because I've, to them, I've just made their biggest dream. And that was always another pressure that I have to be always on. I always have to be inspiring. I cannot slack. I cannot say the wrong things. I cannot get angry or get mad or get upset because well, why are you angry? That's not how someone who's successful acts. Why are you calling people out? That's not what a successful person acts. And then I also on top of that could not be even upset or mad because my problems were unrelatable to everyone else. People are like, you're just ungrateful. You're just literally a delusional person because how are you upset about that when people are literally scrapping and working three, four jobs every single day to pay their bills. And meanwhile, here you're complaining about this little emotional thing that you went through in your business. Come on. So that also comes with the isolation and the loneliness that I felt during my rise up specially. It was a lot for a woman to handle all of that success, but with isolation because that's really when success comes when you isolate yourself, when you spend the most time focused on your craft, building your business and making sure it's literally the most important thing to get it to the millions of dollars in income. And now just when you think you've made it or you figured it all out, that's when the game changes. You as an entrepreneur can never really rest on your success because number one, a lot of people get successful and then they lose that success. They become irrelevant because social media is changing. Businesses change. Employees hearts change. You always got to reinvent the wheel, adapt, see what's working in other companies and other businesses. Be the first to hop on trends. And that always keeps you on edge because you don't want to lose everything that you've built. And you can lose it very quickly if you slack off or if you keep doing the same things over and over. We've seen Blockbuster, right? How they literally lost it all. And now Netflix is the new platform that has innovated, adapted to what people are looking for. Something fast, something with so many options, something with a small subscription, but they're making billions and billions of dollars. But they had to always adapt, always get better, always, you know, chase the next best thing so your competition is not going to be ahead of you. And that's how you're going to be feeling as an entrepreneur. There's always blocks along the way that you're going to have to figure out. There's always new things that we can do to grow the business even faster. And if you don't do it, if you slack, if you take a vacation or a break, you literally feel like you're missing out. You feel this. Well, I feel like this total anxiety, like, oh, my God, I am going to be so behind if I take a week off, which kind of defeats the purpose of why we even get into entrepreneurship, because we want to have the freedom. But because you get it and then you become very competitive, you, you know, want to have success and then you want to have even more success because success is never enough. You always want more. You always want the best. So now you're on this another wheel of always figuring things out and that anxiety of always like, am I going to ever become irrelevant? Because that will hurt any business owner, any entrepreneur ego when they become irrelevant after being successful. And then entrepreneurship is the most brutal personal development program you're ever going to go through because it will literally, number one, as an entrepreneur, you are faced and forced to get better and personal develop every single day or else it's going to break you. There is literally problems every single day that I am solving. You need to be the person that is such a good problem solver. Employees are going to be complaining. Customers are going to be complaining. Business problem, tech problem, money problem, bank problem, everything problem. Suddenly, especially if you are in the beginning stages of entrepreneurship, you are wearing the hat to literally solve everything in this life and you're going to have to learn quickly and you're going to have to adapt and you're going to have to solve problems without complaining too much. So it is probably the most thing in life that exposes all your insecurities. Now you're going to have to also look at your weaknesses. What are my weaknesses? I have to face my weaknesses, know them, get better at them and also hire people that can make my weaknesses way better because they're doing their job and I'm doing my job, which is my strengths. And that also takes a lot of personal development for a person to say, oh, this is what I'm not good at and I am okay with hiring someone that's going to tell me how to run this side of this business that I am not good at. Personal growth is very important. Knowing your weakness, you can't hide from it. You need to do yoga, meditate, all these things to not be anxious all the time, to be grateful. And another thing is no matter what you do, whether it's failure or success, I need to understand that you are a public figure, especially if you are on social media. So everything is 10 times more magnified. If you fail, it's a public failure. If you have success, it's a public success. So whatever you do, relationships, people saying this, it's all in the spotlight. So you got to be even way more conscious on what you're saying and what you're doing and how you're running your business every single day. And then what nobody really prepared me for was honestly my mental health. If you've ever heard me before, I always said like, what is mental health? Just go pray, talk to God, be positive and everything's going to be fine. And that's true. I always still talk to God. I'm always very positive. But there is a huge anxiety that comes with the high stakes decisions that you have to take every single day. There's these big decisions that you as an entrepreneur are going to be taking and you're not going to know if it's the right decision or the wrong decision, but you're going to have to make a decision. And most of the time it has to be a quick decision. Are we going to go this route? Are we going to do this? Is this a good idea? Everyone in the team, in the company, they're asking you, what do you think? And you're going to have to make a decision, stand on it, no matter how anxious you are or how unsure you are. And you're just going to have to execute and sell everyone on the vision and then hope and pray that the outcome is actually what you expected, if not better. You also have imposter syndrome at every level because you're like, why are all these people like looking up to me? Like, what did I do something that is so different? Because you're with yourself every single day and you don't see your growth. You don't see your success and your achievements as big as they really are because you're literally with yourself all the time. It's like when you're with a partner and so on and so forth, along the way, you're like, they're just a regular person. You stop seeing them as this amazing person that you saw them when you first started dating them. Same thing we feel about ourselves. And then there is, of course, this responsibility and pressure of everyone that works for you or anyone that buys your product or service because now you're responsible for their livelihood. Now you're responsible for their success, for them making money or for them having a good experience, a good product that all comes with so much pressure and anxiety that can affect your mental health if you don't really look after it. And then success will change you and not everyone will be able to handle that new version of you. It goes from family members that now every single time they talk to you, they're going to mention money because you have the money and you know, they don't have money. And I'm not talking about mom, dad, siblings. I'm talking about far family that now they expect you to kind of look after them, pay some of their bills, help them out when in need. And I'm always happy to do that, but that's an extra pressure. And sometimes you feel like, is this family dynamic even real and genuine anymore? Because why am I only being talked to when money is an issue? So that's all something that we have to mention. Friends that somehow just start resenting you because you grew so much, you've made the money, you got out of the rat race. And instead of asking you how you got out of the rat race and asking for advice on how they did it because their pride and ego looks at you still as the same level as them, they start resenting you, making up lies about you, thinking you're entitled and just making up stories about you because they only saw the version that was only like them. As soon as you start surpassing them, these wrong friends, not all friends, these wrong friends will feel some type of way because you have exposed that they have not been working because you have achieved it. You guys come from the same background, same struggle before, but you did something and look where you are, but they didn't and look where they still are. And then let's talk about relationships. That's a very deep topic. As soon as a woman start making money, her dating marriage circle is gonna somehow get smaller because now you cannot be with someone that is doing less than you in life. And I'm not talking just about money. Some people can only date up. That's me. But I know a lot of successful women that got with men that make less money than them, but they are amazing at other areas in life that complete the other person. Now for me, I am just a woman that loves to be led. And my man has to, first of all, has way bigger success than mine. So I can learn from my man in business. And that of course leads to them having better finances than me. And I can feel safe with their financial judgments about so many businesses. And I can trust what they're telling me. If I'm making more money, if my businesses are successful for a very long period of time, not just a season. In my head, whatever you say about finances, it's like I respect it, but I'm gonna still follow what I have done because clearly my outcome is bigger than your outcome. And success leaves clues. And I don't ever want to feel like that toward my partner, my man that is supposed to lead me to places. I want to trust him blindly. And that for me personally comes with a smaller dating pool, but a better one. And a more elite one to the type of men that I attract. And I also plan to marry one day. So how do you make sure you actually survive this dark side? Here's what I have learned and what have worked for me. Number one, you want to build a very strong support system of people that actually understand you. There's two pathways for this. Number one, keep friends around you that family and friends that have been with you from the start that truly understand you and love you for who you are. They don't care about your success. They care about your well-being. They genuinely have so much love and admiration for you. And they are there to support you with all the craziness, all the delusion that you're going to be doing, whether it's right and wrong all the time. These are the people that will understand that your craziness is your vision and it's meant for you. And they're going to support it whether they see the vision or not. Number two, you want to have entrepreneurial friends. As a woman, I would say men or women that are also business owners or they are entrepreneurs that you guys can relate to. You guys are building something so powerful, going maybe through the same struggles and relating to each other so you can also have that business talk with them, with someone that truly understands because they're there in the same situation. They're going through the same emotions that you're going through. That probably have helped me so much because you feel like you're not alone. You're not going crazy because something's wrong with you. It's just part of becoming successful and making a lot of money and being someone that has just a lot of ambitions and want a lot in from their life. Now another thing that you want to also do is you want to create boundaries between your work and your personal life. I sometimes will work 24-7 if I don't truly take time to be like this is my personal time. I'm shutting my phone off and I'm taking it easy. I'm shutting my brain off. I'm not thinking about my next project. I'm not thinking about the next video I need to shoot. I'm not thinking about the client or the customer or my assistant. I'm just being present with the people I love and taking just a break. You have to be intentional with taking breaks because that's going to be the fuel for you to pour into your business. So there's work hours and then there's personal life hours and you have to schedule it because when you're a one-man show everything just seems like a part of one thing. You have to separate them to be okay at the end of the day and still be sane. Now another thing that keeps me grounded is finding hobbies. I love to work out and heavy lift. I love to go on walks. I love to just go to the beach and just tan and you know eat nice food. That's like my relaxation. I love to get a massage once a week and I also listen to podcasts, read books every single day. These are the things that keep me grounded, keep me sane but also keep me inspired. Always learning, always growing to want to achieve more and grow as an entrepreneur. So these are the practices that either keep me grounded, keep me sane or keep me inspired. Always wanting to work harder, always learning to feel like I'm never stuck. There's always a new level and there are people that have gone to that level and got to that level and I can get there too. Now after everything that I have shared you're probably like well why should I choose this path of none? Please resell me the vision because you unsold me all the vision right now. Well I know I said all the dark things about being an entrepreneur especially as a woman but if I had to go back in time I will choose this path over and over again because you truly get to be in your power as a woman and you have the freedom of time, money and location to be anywhere you want. You don't have to wait for someone else to give you the nice experiences in life. I don't have to wait to travel and see nice places, to go to nice restaurants, to buy nice things. I do these things for myself and if a person comes in my life and gives me everything then that's a bonus but I have already experienced these things. Not out here chasing people to give me these things. Now you grow so much and you feel like you truly have a purpose in life. I know you're maybe working longer hours, you're working harder but the feelings that you get when you accomplish things not just money, I'm talking about you growing. You look back at a couple years and you're like I'm a whole different human being and that is probably the most fulfilling thing about entrepreneurship. Money is great because it's resources, it's freedom but the purpose that you know that you have the power to get anything in your life because you did what most people won't do. Making millions of dollars, being an entrepreneur, going through all the emotions an entrepreneur goes through and becoming the woman that can handle really anything life throws at her. So I did not share this with you to scare you away from entrepreneurship. I shared it because I wish someone had told me the truth before I actually started. The truth so I'm not shocked when I actually get there. The highlights are real. The success, the freedom, the impact, the money, the amazing life, it's all real but so is everything that I just shared with you. Entrepreneurship will break you down and build you back up stronger. It will expose every weakness and force you to grow. It will isolate you and challenge every relationship you have. It will make you question everything that you thought you knew about yourself but if you can survive this dark side, if you can push through the isolation and the pressure and the constant need to reinvent yourself, you will become a version of yourself you never knew was possible. So the question isn't whether you can handle success. The question is whether you can handle what it takes to get there and what it takes to actually keep it. You know the pros, you know the cons, now it's up to you whether you want to become an entrepreneur or not.