When you own a business, you have a whole lot of joys associated with this responsibility. Unfortunately, they do not come for free. The price is often heavy, indeed. But if you can circumnavigate (And sometimes just outright ignore) the problems and the heart aches, you do have a lot to be thankful for in your ownership role. For one thing, you can be thankful that you no longer have to have “a job,” where everything you do that works will inevitably be your boss’s doing… while everything you (or those above you in the hierarchy) do wrongly will inevitably end up being entirely your fault. If that sounds negative, it’s because it was intended to imply that when you own the whole place, you can take the blame because you’re a good leader, and not because you’re somebody else’s stooge.
Of course, the bad sides of a business are very well counter balanced by the good sides. You own the place, so if something does not work, you can change it as quickly as it can be physically changed. You do not have to consult with some kind of committee, or ask for some boss’s approval (which will either be ignored, or passed up a chain of command which will ignore it). The capability to make quick, lasting changes based upon what is really happening can be a real perk.
Another thing that business owners seem to enjoy is that fact that when there are no seriously pressing issues (which can often be delegated to subordinates until the problems no longer exist), you get to relax and think about the future. While most of us can see 5 years out if we squint into binoculars (and we make a lot of assumptions about the stability of the company we work for), those who own businesses can stand atop the labors of their subordinates and look down over a decade- and make it really good.