Inside the Hardest Parts of Entrepreneurship

People often describe entrepreneurship as a magical, energizing journey where passion alone pulls you forward. They talk about freedom, creativity,

independence, and building something of your own.

They talk about the highlights. What they rarely talk about is the weight. They do not talk about the days when success feels too heavy to hold. They do not talk about the emotional load, the nonstop decisions, or the way your identity stretches faster than you ever expected.

Entrepreneurship is hard. If you feel that, you are not imagining it. I feel it too. And if your business is growing quickly or you are building something that has never existed before, the difficulty can feel even sharper.

For me, being an entrepreneur has always been more than running a company. I am building something that did not exist before. Propel Paralegal is not a copy and paste model. It is not a business I could replicate from a template. It is a specialized virtual paralegal model inside a highly regulated industry with nationwide reach during a time of massive change. Between AI disruption, nationwide mass layoffs, and widespread job loss across multiple industries, the legal landscape is not the only thing shifting. The entire world of work is changing. And here I am, building something new right in the middle of it.

There is no blueprint for that. There never has been.

Every piece of what I am building requires forging a new path. And being the first to do something is always harder than being the next person who simply follows the established route. That alone is enough to make entrepreneurship feel like climbing a mountain with no map. But that is only one layer of why this journey feels so hard.

Propel scaled over nine times in its second year. Growth like that looks exciting from the outside. And it is exciting. It is also exhausting. Fast growth means systems break as soon as you build them. Processes stop working the second you think you've finally figured them out. Your role changes overnight. You are learning new skills constantly. You are solving problems daily that you never expected to face. The pressure to maintain high quality increases with every new client. And there is almost no time to emotionally catch up on your own success.

People love to celebrate fast growth, but they rarely talk about how operationally difficult it is to keep up with that kind of momentum. They do not talk about the internal shifts that have to happen inside the leader who is holding it all together. They do not talk about how it feels when your own evolution has to happen at lightning speed.

Another layer of difficulty comes from the simple truth that I am not just Heather anymore. I am Heather, the founder. I am Heather, the CEO. I am Heather, the expert. I am Heathe,r the marketer. I am Heathe,r the public figure. I am Heather, the leader. People see me as the business. When they think of Propel, they do not think of a faceless company. They think of me.

The keynote invitations, the statewide task force roles, the national visibility, the expanding impact in the profession, all of that is incredible. It is also heavy. When you become the face of a new model inside a traditional profession, mistakes do not feel small.

Expectations do not feel small. Responsibility does not feel small. Every decision I make carries weight, not only for my team and my clients, but also for how the legal community sees this entire category of work.

And then there is the legal industry itself, which brings its own unique pressure. Law does not tolerate mistakes. Attorneys expect flawless work, fast turnaround, and deep expertise every time. That is the reality of the field. But entrepreneurship requires experimentation. You have to try things, test things, tweak things, break things, and rebuild things. The cultures of law and startups do not align. They collide inside you. One side demands perfection. The other side demands innovation. Holding both at the same time is mentally and emotionally draining.

There is also the reality that I have to be strong for everyone around me. I hold space for attorneys who are stressed and overwhelmed. I lead a team that supports clients in financial chaos. I provide stability to contractors who trust me with their livelihoods. I serve on bar committees where people look to me for leadership. And then I go home and still have to show up for my family and my own personal life.

But of all the reasons entrepreneurship feels hard, the one that has impacted me the most is this. I am growing myself as fast as the business is growing. And that is not optional. It is essential. Personal growth is not a nice-to-have for a CEO. Personal growth is the foundation of business growth. Your business will only scale as far as you are willing to expand as a leader.

In the past two years alone, I have stepped into public speaking. I have built pitch decks. I adopted AI tools before most of the legal industry had even considered them. I created online communities. I produced national-level content. I shaped statewide policy. I prepared for the keynote stages. I led a high-growth team. I became visible in ways I never expected. I stretched. I adapted. I learned. I unlearned. I grew. And I had to do it all quickly.

Every one of those steps required identity upgrades. Not small shifts. Real upgrades. The kind that push you into a different version of yourself. And identity upgrades feel like friction. They feel like discomfort. They feel like pressure. They feel like exhaustion. People do not talk about that part often enough. It is not just the business that has to grow. The entrepreneur has to grow, too. And sometimes the personal evolution is harder than the business evolution.

You cannot lead a growing company with the mindset you had when you were running a small operation. You cannot step onto big stages with the confidence you had when you were writing social media posts from your kitchen table. You cannot guide a team with the same skill set you had when you were working alone.

Every season of growth demands a new version of you. And becoming that new version takes work.

And I have been doing all of this while navigating one of the hardest years of my life. I am not building this business from a place of calm. I am building it while recovering from emotional trauma, while healing from a breakdown, and while rebuilding my own stability. I am doing heavy personal work while also doing heavy professional work. I am moving forward even when carrying a lot of emotional weight on my shoulders.

That makes the climb steeper, and there is no shame in naming that.

Here is the truth I remind myself of often. Being an entrepreneur is hard because I am carrying more than most people ever will. Not because I am weak. Not because I am behind. Not because I am doing it wrong. It is hard because I am doing something extraordinary in business while rebuilding myself emotionally, while shaping the future of my profession at the same time.

This is the part of the journey where it feels impossible because I am becoming the version of myself who can handle what I have built. Growth feels like strain right before it becomes strength. And this season, as hard as it has been, is turning me into a stronger, more grounded, more expanded version of myself. I can feel that. I know that this evolution is necessary for Propel’s next chapter.

Entrepreneurs often assume that the difficulty means something is wrong. But the difficulty is the work. The difficulty is the growth. The difficulty is the path. You are stretching into leadership while building the very thing that requires that leadership. You are learning in real time. You are evolving in real time. And that evolution is what makes success possible.

So if you are reading this and feeling overwhelmed, I want you to hear this clearly. The weight you feel does not mean you are failing. It means you are in the process of becoming. You are growing into the identity that matches your vision. You are doing work that matters. You are carrying more than people realize.

And you are not alone in feeling the strain of that.

If today feels heavy, there is a reason. And there is nothing wrong with you for feeling it.

Entrepreneurship will continue to stretch you, and it will also continue to shape you. Some seasons will feel like work. Some will feel like progress. Some will feel like transformation. And through all of it, you will keep becoming the version of yourself who can hold everything you are building.

That is the real story of entrepreneurship. Not perfection, not ease, but growth. And you are right in the middle of it, doing the best you can with a heart that refuses to quit.

You are becoming. And that is enough for today.