I follow a person on social media that I met through a past blogging job. She was always pleasant, but never warm. We were merely acquaintances, but I still follow her on social media, mostly for the eye rolls her posts give me.

I couldn’t figure out what was bugging me about her posts. But sure enough, ever time I read them, I found myself irritated. She just joined a MLM – multilevel marketing company – and of course, it’s changed her life. But when I thought about it, that didn’t bug me – why would I care if she wanted to hock products to people and make money off of it? I didn’t buy her stuff and if other people wanted to, more power to them. So what was it??

It finally hit me – she is NEVER busy. In fact, her entire sales pitch is how positively unbusy she is. How much time she has and yet can still make SO much money. She’s able to be with her kids – and make money! She’s making money while she sleeps! She’s making money at Starbucks! She reads books – and makes money!

[insert vomit emogie]

Maybe it’s all true and that’s awesome for her. More power to her and what she does to earn a living. BUT, as a small business owner, I find her posts to be disingenuous and frankly, a little dangerous. The impression given is that she is doing something so right by running a business with little to no work and a plethora of free time. And for budding small business owners, what could be more discouraging than seeing someone “make it” with little to no effort?

Owning a small business is work. And why wouldn’t it be? If you’re building something from the ground up – that takes effort. And grit. And stick-to-it-ness. And that makes you busy. Like in bed at midnight, up at 5am, scrambling to come up with dinner and get to practice, hustling for new clients, networking, organizing a schedule, verge of pulling your hair out busy. But that busy isn’t bad – it’s the work that will make you proud when you get that first check. And next client. And new idea….

Tom Hanks said in A League of their Own, “the hard is what makes it good. If it was easy, everyone would do it”. If you’re a small business owner that is discouraged by posts like that – unfriend, delete, unfollow. This is a tough job. You will be busy. And that means you’re doing it right.