Every business owner has made an investment of time or money they wish they could get back.

Maybe you borrowed money to invest in an online course or a program promising the breakthrough of a lifetime.

The marketing strategy that was supposed to have new leads breaking down your door.

Joining a networking group or investing in office space hoping it’ll lead to more business and referrals.

The conference, the coach, the software subscription, the partnership, the ad campaign that looked like the missing piece.

And after thousands of dollars and weeks/months of your time you realize it wasn't the answer.

As much as those mistakes may have cost you in resources, there’s a bigger mistake I see entrepreneurs and business owners making after that — shaming themselves long after the fact.

I was thinking about this after a conversation with some fellow entrepreneurs and business owners in one of the salsa dancing communities I’m part of.

One of them shared about how they had secured space in a coworking office about an hour from where they lived with the intention of being able to network and get new business.

Now it’s easy to judge in hindsight but if I were to truly list both the dollar and time amount I’ve personally wasted on swings that ultimately lead to nothing, it would dwarf that scenario by 15-20x.

Seriously. I once invested nearly $10K into a Facebook Ads course at the height of FB ad craze, thinking it’d be an “easy” add-on to my existing marketing services. But the main people responding to my ads were other people in the course and community with me…

The things I would do differently now…

But that’s just it — I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

And I didn’t know that I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Yeah, have fun saying that three times fast…

I can cringe at that and many other examples but what would be the value in shaming myself for it?

The thing about entrepreneurship—especially when viewed by those from the outside—is that it has a way of making every wrong turn feel like a personal failure.

I’ve replayed conversations. I’ve questioned my instincts. And even after FIFTEEN YEARS, I still have the occasional thought of whether I’m actually cut out for this.

Social media doesn’t help either. It’s filled with people claiming they built six-figure businesses with one simple funnel, one perfect offer, or one secret strategy.

A large majority of that is absolute-fucking-bullshit by the way. Nobody’s posting their trip to the dollar menu or 4th night eating Ramen noodle to their Instagram highlights.

They’re whole job is to sell you on the idea that if only you had their course, followed their blueprint, you, too, could be taking pictures next to someone else’s private jet or Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS.

The reality is there is no definitive playbook.

Business schools can teach concepts and principles. Coaches can share experience. Mentors can shorten the learning curve.

But not a single one of them can eliminate uncertainty.

Every successful entrepreneur has to reach a point where they’re comfortable making decisions with incomplete information.

That’s the job.

You take a swing, you learn, you adjust, and keep moving forward.

Some lessons cost fifty dollars. Some cost five thousand. Some cost an entire year.

At some point, you have to stop treating every failed investment like evidence that you’re bad at business and start recognizing it as the price to be paid for the experiential education called entrepreneurship.

Charge it to the game.

People think the challenge is finding the perfect strategy, the perfect tool, or perfect employee, etc.

But the real challenge is surviving the lonely nights when nothing seems to be working. It’s making it through the lean months when the inbox is crickets, the pipeline is empty, and you’re wondering if everyone else figured something out that you somehow missed.

(And try dating or being in a relationship while enduring all that…)

There’s no masterclass for that.

No certificate.

No guru can teach the discipline of holding onto a vision that nobody else can see but you.

That belongs to you.

So if you’re carrying around regret for money you spent, opportunities you chased, or ideas that never became what you hoped they would be, maybe it’s time to close that mental tab.

Take the lesson.

Keep the wisdom.

Leave the shame behind.

Every entrepreneur pays for an education.

The only real waste is paying for the lesson and refusing to learn from it.

Ali J. Taylor is a NJ-based business consultant and TEDx speaker. He writes about work, identity, creativity, relationships, ambition, faith, and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what’s possible.

Some of those stories deserve to be honored, while others deserve to be rewritten.

Learn more at alijtaylor.com or his consulting framework here.

I’ve been saying some version of “work-life” balance is bullsh*t since at least 2024.

In fact, in November of that year, I made an Instagram reel titled “Why Work-Life Balance is Bullsh*t if You’re a Business Owner.” Watch here

I still don’t believe in work-life balance.

However, I do believe that if you don’t have a sense of balance between your work and your life, it’s your fault.

It’s a YOU problem.

As I expressed in that Instagram reel and other platforms, I believe in work-life presence.

When I'm working, I'm working. Fully. My attention isn't split, I'm not half-present, and my phone is often on “Do Not Disturb” DND. I'm locked in because my work deserves that version of me.

When I’m with my family, I’m with my family. Not physically there while mentally composing emails. There. Present. Engaged.

When I’m on a date, I’m on the date and she’s getting my full attention. The work will be there when I get back. I don’t work at The Pitt (currently obsessed with this show), so no one will die if I stepped away.

That’s not imbalance. That’s intentionality.

And that’s what most people who are always talking about balance, always chasing it, always worried they don't have enough of it, are missing.

In order to be intentional, you need five things. And until those five things are in place, no amount of time-blocking or boundary-setting is going to fix the real problem.

The Five Elements of Intentionality

1. Security.

Insecurity is the ooze bubbling beneath most imbalance. When you’re not secure in who you are and what you’re building, you do one of two things: you overextend in one direction, usually work, because you’re chasing approval, or you let other people’s voices get in your head and start dictating how hard you should work, what you should want, where your energy should go.

Either way, you’re not operating from a sense of self. You’re operating from fear. And no amount of “balance” fixes fear.

2. Self-Awareness.

If you don’t know yourself, you can’t regulate yourself. You drift. You don’t recognize when you’ve gone too far, or you misread what you actually need in a given season. Self-awareness is your guidance system. Without it, you’re flying blind and then wondering why you keep crashing.

3. Self-Control.

Or discipline, if that word hits harder for you. Either way, this is different from self-awareness. You can know you’ve gone too far and still not be able to pull yourself back. Self-control is the capacity to act on what you know. It’s the ability to step away from the work when the work is done, to be fully present with the people who matter, and to do it without a negotiation every single time.

4. Communication.

Most “balance” problems aren’t time problems — they’re communication problems. You haven’t told your partner what this season of work requires. You haven’t told your team what you need. You haven’t set expectations with the people around you, so they’re filling the silence with their own assumptions, and then you’re both resentful for different reasons.

Clarity is an act of respect. Tell people what’s coming, why it’s coming, and how long it will last. That conversation does more work than any color-coded schedule or bullet journal ever will.

5. Integrity.

This is the one that seals all the others. You can be self-aware, secure, and communicative — and still blow it here.

Integrity is doing what you said you would do, for as long as you said you’d do it, and the moment something changes, flagging it immediately rather than hoping no one notices.

“I’m going to be heads-down on this project for the next six weeks. Here’s the reason. Here’s the outcome I’m working toward. Here’s what I need from you during that time.”

That’s the conversation. And then you have to actually honor it or own it when you can’t.

Integrity is the foundation of it all.

What Balance Talk Is Really About

When someone won’t stop talking about balance — when it’s a recurring complaint, a repeated conversation, a pattern — what I actually hear underneath it is: I don’t know who I am well enough to trust myself. I don’t know how to tell the people around me what I need. And I haven’t built the self-control to follow through on what I say matters to me.

In other words, the problem is with your character; not your calendar.

Not trying to shame anyone. But balance won’t be found in a better morning routine. It’ll be found by addressing who you’re being with radical honesty.