The Biggest Downsides of Entrepreneurship (James Dooley Chats With Craig Campbell)

James Dooley: Disadvantages of entrepreneurship. Today I'm joined with Craig Campbell, and we're going to talk about the negatives of being an entrepreneur.

Craig Campbell, let's jump straight in. What is the downside to being an entrepreneur?

Craig Campbell: Earlier in my journey, I could not switch off. That was one of the big things for me.

When I was starting out, I could not switch off. You will have been in a similar position. When I was on holiday, I was in the hotel reception trying to get Wi-Fi. This was years ago, when you did not have Wi-Fi in your hotel room. You had to go to reception, do your emails and get people doing different bits and bobs throughout the day. I could never really take holidays or switch off at the start. I was doing 14, 15 or 16-hour days and never switching off. I was on the phone during holidays and all that kind of stuff. That was one major disadvantage. It also meant I could not switch off at night. I had to go and see a doctor, a hypnotherapist and everything else. I would wake up at three in the morning with ideas and start buying domain names. Then I would have another dream the next night and buy three more domains. I was not even doing anything with them. I just had this crazy thing going on. Some small tips I got from people I trust helped me. I do not have emails on my phone anymore. When I want to answer emails, I go on my laptop and do it. If I see an email at 11 o’clock on a Sunday night from a client complaining, that would fire me up and I would reply straight away. Then I could not sleep. Even thoughts getting into your head can be disruptive. Someone told me to keep a notepad beside the bed. If something is in your head and you are worried you will forget it, write it down. I still do not have emails on my phone to this day. I check emails three or four times a day. That is it. Those things made me burn out. I had anxiety and ended up on anti-anxiety medication, even though I am not naturally an anxious person. I remember going to the doctor and he asked if I had marriage trouble. I said no. He asked if I had financial trouble. I said no, I was doing okay. Then he asked what my day-to-day looked like. He basically told me I was heading for a heart attack because I had been doing years of 17-hour days. Something had to give. That was a massive disadvantage. When you are starting out, the job from there is to delegate, build processes and even have people reading emails for you if needed. That was one big disadvantage for me. I found it stressful and ended up with anxiety.

James Dooley: I think the poor work-life balance is a huge disadvantage of entrepreneurship.

Honestly, I think entrepreneurship is a mental illness. I think I am right in it. I am addicted to what I do. You were saying delegation helps, and it does. I have had great mentors and coaches over the years who taught me to let go. So I get the staff in, delegate, and then things run really well and efficiently. Then I get bored because that business starts running itself. So I bring in a CEO or CFO, let the team run it, and then I start something else. When everything is set up and I have achieved the work-life balance, I should be able to follow something like The 4-Hour Workweek. But then I start something new because I need that drive, innovation and dopamine from the little wins. I honestly think it is an addiction. That is the downside. Because I love what I do, it naturally affects work-life balance. The bad part is wanting to continuously grow when you do not need to work another day in your life, but you still choose to take more on.

Craig Campbell: My wife would kick me out if I stopped working.

If I sat around the house all day, she would go mad. When I tell her I am coming down here, she is happy. She asks when I am back, and if I say Wednesday, she is probably thinking, “Stay longer if you need to.” I do not get tears at the door anymore. If I stopped working, I would drive her crazy. You are probably the same. You came up to Scotland a few months back when you were not well, and I still cannot imagine you lying around doing nothing for two or three days. We even got kicked out of the hotel this morning because you were being too loud, shouting, screaming and swearing. If you were sat sunbathing for a couple of days, someone’s ear would be getting chewed off by the pool. It is a mental illness. But if you enjoy it, you enjoy it. I see guys like Dan Peña in their 80s still working. Some people will work until they drop. I probably see myself being one of them too. If I sold everything and had £100 million in the bank, I would still need to invest in a football club or do something just to get out of the house. Otherwise, I would drive myself crazy.

James Dooley: Another huge disadvantage of entrepreneurship is that the buck stops with you.

A lot of entrepreneurs deal with serious stress because everything lands on them. The best leaders do not take the praise when things go well. They shine the light on the staff. But when things go badly, everything points back to the leader. You often get none of the applause and all of the blame. That can be tiring.

Craig Campbell: Definitely.

It can affect people mentally. You see it more and more in this industry. It depends how you react to it, who you speak to and how you relieve that stress. I found my way through therapy, hypnotherapy and trying to sort myself out. But it is a massive downside and it is not for everyone. Some people would rather be employed and not deal with all that pressure. For people like you and me, I cannot think of anything worse than being told what to do and being forced to do things someone else’s way when you know it is wrong. Entrepreneurship suits some people and not others. You need to choose wisely and take mental health seriously. There were times when I thought about throwing the towel in, but I have too much fight in me for that.

James Dooley: Another huge one is the high risk of failure.

Entrepreneurs are risk-takers. They push boundaries and create things that might not work because nobody has done them before. On the face of it, that is a big disadvantage. But in a weird way, I now use failure as fuel. Sometimes I actually like failing because it keeps me grounded and becomes a stepping stone to success. If I pull an elastic band and it never snaps, I do not know how far it can actually go. When it snaps, I know the limit, and then I can push it as far as possible next time. What are your thoughts on that?

Craig Campbell: I have failed miserably with lots of businesses for different reasons, but I do not see it as a negative.

I take it as a positive because I learn what not to do again. Even with what we were discussing this morning about AI websites, I do not know whether your way or my way is better. We both have websites that look good and professional, but I want to figure out the best way. Then I will compare notes with you. If you are doing it faster or better, I am happy to learn from that. It is not about winning all the time for me anymore. I want to improve my knowledge and test things. Even if I lose, I am happy to hold my hands up and say someone did it better. It is not an ego thing anymore.

James Dooley: Did you have to train your brain to think that way?

When I was younger, I was a bad loser. I wanted to win every time. Now I have had to train myself to see failure as learning. You win or you learn.

Craig Campbell: I have always told myself that everything I failed at was part of the apprenticeship.

That apprenticeship has probably cost me millions of pounds. Failed businesses, money lost and companies dissolved are all part of it. At the end of the day, if I come out with more than I started with, I am winning. I have lost money. I have been shafted. I have been sold rubbish courses. But it is all part of the learning curve. When I speak at conferences, I try to give examples of failures as well as successes. I got into the e-cigarette niche and did not properly consider the legal red tape. All I saw as an SEO was the search volume. I did not think about the fact that you could not run Facebook ads or paid ads properly. I also did the women’s clothing niche and sold white knee-high boots. I did not realise how much the returns would destroy the profit. I saw search volume and jumped in. Now, when I enter a niche, I look at it more as a businessman rather than just an SEO. Before, I would see a domain with 200,000 searches a month and think it was a business. That is not a business. My job now is to have more winners than losers. Years ago, for every eight businesses I started, maybe one or two would work and the rest would be dissolved. Now, even with the AI business I am involved in, I see it as a calculated bet. I have marketing skills and a following in this industry. Another partner has AI skills. Another person is stronger at business and face-to-face meetings. The balance is there, so there is no obvious reason for it to fail. Experience makes things feel more calculated now.

James Dooley: Another disadvantage of entrepreneurship is FOMO and shiny object syndrome.

Every entrepreneur I speak to seems to suffer from both. You hear something new and immediately think, “That sounds amazing, I need to do that.” There is always a fear of missing out and a sense that the grass is greener elsewhere. How do you control that?

Craig Campbell: I absolutely have both.

With shiny object syndrome, I used to go on AppSumo every day buying tools. There came a point where I was using maybe 1% of what I bought. I had to tell myself it was a waste of money. Now I let other people test things first. If someone keeps saying something is great and shows proof that it works, then I take notice. I try not to jump into every rabbit hole because there are only so many hours in the day. Even in my mastermind, I tell people not to throw tools into the group unless they can show how it makes money. That is how I deal with it now. With AI and LLM tools, people constantly say one tool is best, then three weeks later it is redundant. You cannot go down every rabbit hole anymore. I sit on the fence a bit more now. When someone shows proof that something is working, I will implement it. FOMO is still hard, especially with AI, because you feel like you need to get in fast and learn quickly. It is a balancing act.

James Dooley: I still struggle with it.

I still suffer from work-life balance issues, shiny object syndrome and FOMO. I love what I do, so when something sounds like a great idea, I want to test it. I do not need to do it. I just want to do it. I do not really control it well. It is who I am. If it fails, I fail fast, and I am fine with that. The one thing I do not want is to be on my deathbed thinking I did not try something. If something keeps niggling in my head, I ask how long it would take to test it. I am good at delegation, so I can tell the team to run with it and bring back results. I am better now at getting through the noise and finding winners.

Craig Campbell: I have to ask you a question, and it is a bit of a criticism.

When you talk about mental illness, you are mentally ill. How many podcast websites have you got?

James Dooley: Eight.

Craig Campbell: Why test one podcast website when you can test eight, 20 or 50?

You always go all guns blazing. Nobody else does eight podcast websites at the same time just to see what works. You have to look at that and think you could be deep down a rabbit hole and none of it might work. I hope it does, but that is one criticism. I could throw you a fake knowledge bomb and you would end up testing it on 15 websites.

James Dooley: I agree with you.

Sometimes you give me a seed of an idea and I test it on 10 sites. You might ask why I do not just test it on one site. For me, it is diversification, different geos, different niches and different nuances. But yes, I agree. Last year, I wrote eight books. This year, I am doing eight podcasts. Why not one book? Why not one podcast? Part of it is that I now see myself as an entrepreneur and investor. I invest in existing businesses that are doing a couple of million plus and already have teams. When I ask a business owner to write a book, they often say they do not have time. So I wrote eight books in a year to show what can be done. Yes, I used ghostwriters, AI and people helping me, but I did eight in a year while running multiple companies. I am asking them to do one in two years. Now I am doing eight podcasts because I understand the power of podcasts and books. It is stupid in some ways because I have three kids under five and I am trying to do 2,000 episodes. But it is also a challenge. I want to prove that if I can do it while running 17 companies, owning thousands of websites and managing hundreds of staff, then they can do one episode a week or write one book. A lot of people say they do not have time, but often they are just bad at delegation. So yes, it is a stupid goal, but it is also a message. Away from that defence, you are completely right. It is a mental illness. I cannot swim, and instead of walking slowly into the water, I just run and jump into the deep end.

Craig Campbell: It works for you, and it pays off.

But at some point you have to rein it in. You cannot keep adding more and more every time a new idea comes up. There are only 24 hours in a day. That is one of the problems with entrepreneurship. There is only so much you can scale with that method.

James Dooley: For sure. It is madness.

Anyway, I hope you liked the video about the disadvantages and negatives of entrepreneurship. Make sure you check out the link in the description, where we talk about the advantages and benefits of entrepreneurship as well. Craig Campbell, it has been an absolute pleasure.

Craig Campbell: Thank you.