I lost ten years of my life. Yes, ten years. Lost might be a harsh term, but honestly, I just didn't see it happen. Ten years had come and gone before I could stop to think about what I had done. I had lived the "average" entrepreneur's dream and now lived to tell the story. At the time, it was chaos and bliss. I laughed and cried. I made mistakes and executed a few phenomenal successes. I wouldn't trade a day of the last ten years. The nagging question I had was why did it have to be so hard? Why did I have weeks/months where I didn't get a paycheck, so I could pay everyone else? I agonized over cash flow and even changed my business strategy completely to alleviate some of the pressure. I never felt like I was a D.U.M.B. business owner, but I was only kidding myself. Here is what I realized. My "trusted advisors" just talked over my head. I didn't understand half of what they said, especially when they used words like solvency and leverage.