oney doesn’t get a mention. If the motivations are not monetary what would be the hidden costs of starting a business? Isolation The first cost of starting a business is isolation from the herd. Noam Shpancer Ph.D. in Psychology Today is quoted as saying, “Human beings are herd animals. We survive only in highly coordinated groups. Individually, we are designed to pick up social cues and coordinate and align our behaviour with those around us. Recent research has shown that social disapproval provokes the brain\’s danger circuits. Conformity soothes.” Breaking with conformity provokes the brain\’s danger circuits. There goes the trust and community recognition that has taken years to build. Your fellow herd members at the golf club, work peers and the dreaded relations all regard you as a problem. You will now be the one picking up the cues about the dangers of start up businesses. The questions will all be about you.   Self doubt Battling the demon of self doubt, is not exclusive to entrepreneurs. But when your future is tied to the success of your start up, there is nowhere to hide. Employees can always bury self doubt. For entrepreneurs, you will be faced with this hidden cost every single day. Ego Self worth will be the first thing to be battered by events. All your own making. The need to prove something to yourself. Poor boy/girl needs to make good. Cloaked in works about good works this need is a drive that feels no pain. All will be risked in pursuit of this goal. Family, friends, relationships and money. Nothing will satisfy this need other than success in business.  Freedom Working for a boss is easy when compared to working for a maniac who claims to be an entrepreneur. Every client is now supreme in your new world of startup land. No issue too small to not matter. Oh the memories of the freedom of clocking off and going home. Lying in bed in the dark wide awake. Office meetings are replaced with 3am reviews of the previous day. Followed promptly by the fears of what can go wrong tomorrow.  An entrepreneur is a prisoner waiting for the great escape that success will bring.  Cash flow It was not about the money but every single person you meet in startup land wants cash up front. They can smell the risk of a stressed startup entrepreneur. Cash up front followed by slow payers. Why is everyone obsessed with money when you are all about building something great?  The ability to see success This skill is lost in the fog of the war in startup land. Self driven and driving others with the capacity to retain endless details obsessively learning and doing more and more. There is a risk that you may expire before you realise that you have planted so many trees you now have the forest that you dreamed of. Work-life balance It is a cost but also known as a curse in startup land. This fool idea denies opportunities from being pursued. Work is life and life is work. That’s what a startup entrepreneur calls work-life balance.    Having paid these hidden costs the start up entrepreneur that succeeds will have to be brave enough to set themselves free. Only they can decide when they have paid enough in pursuit of their own selfish dream. Interestingly that point can often be when they have more money than they ever imagined in fact more than they could imagine spending.  If they are lucky they will have someone to share their life and wealth with.