Taxes, Laws and Politicians Aren’t Hurting Your Business. Stop Making Excuses.

It feels like the whole world has gone insane.  At least during an election year…

Congress has a lower approval rating than ticks.  Kids get more work done after school than the Senate.

Truth be told, 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…

And making matters worse, 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.

“We have too many employees, so we had to start paying COBRA 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.”

You get the point.

Excuses & Complaining.  That’s all they do.

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 entrepreneur spirit and determination that your Instagram feed says you do, then stop complaining.

None of these things are 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.

Entrepreneurs don’t make excuses, we find solutions.  We don’t complain, we make things better.

Payroll tax isn’t letting you grow?  Bullshit.  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?  Bullshit.  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.  Again with those Buck knives that everyones hunter or fisherman I know raves about.  All doing great despite the global market 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.

Here’s what it boils down to:  Being an entrepreneur is fucking hard.  Running a business is fucking hard.  Building an app that makes money is fucking 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.

It doesn’t matter who the president is.  It doesn’t matter who wins this or any election.  It doesn’t matter what congress or the senate does.  If you are a true entrepreneur, you’ll make it work no matter what.  You’ll make it your life’s mission to rise above it all, kicking all sorts of ass along the way.