However, when it comes to the world of entrepreneurship, I am an optimist — and, more importantly, I think that entrepreneurs innately inclined towards optimism. Even more than that, however: I think that optimism is at the heart of entrepreneurial power and success.

Just think about it for a moment. In order to be an entrepreneur, the following is (almost always) true:

• You believe you can defy the odds.
• You beieve that you have something special to offer.
• You believe that you are capable.
• You believe that the hard work and sacrifice is worthwhile.
• You believe that your product or service provides a value to your customers.

No matter how you slice it, those are all extremely optimistic notions. And though a bad day may make an entrepreneur question one or two of those premises, part of being an entrepreneur is coming back again the next day, and starting over.

I was thinking about this as I was reading Jeff Cornwall’s article on MyVenturePad called, “Seeing Things “Half Full” is More Important Than Ever!” He talks about a technique I routinely employ (originally inspired by Tim Ferriss’ book, “The 4-Hour Work Week” and his advocacy of a ‘low information diet’): refusing to be taken in by the bad news, and going out of our way to look at good news.

In his book, Be The Solution, author Michael Strong also points out that with all of the media’s tendancy to focus on the negative, it’s easy to forget that society can and does actually make promising, positive progress on solving problems more than many of us realize.

One of the reasons I go out of my way to surround myself with entrepreneurs is for this reason: I need that energy and optimism, particularly on frustrating days or during complicated projects. As social animals, we are subject to the emotional tides of those around us. And, as an entrepreneur, I can’t afford the luxury of being brought down by endlessly bad news that I can’t do anything about. Instead, I make a choice to be optimistic, and that often means putting a filter on constantly negative news.

In a business seminar last year, a facilitator recounted a story of a fishing trip with his best friend, a wealthy real estate investor. In response to the endless news coverage about the recession, the man said: “Recession! Ha! I chose not to participate!”

Scoff away, but there is something defiantly optimistic in that sentiment — and it helped carry me through 2009. So chin up, and remember: entrepreneurs lead the way, and the best way to do that is to remember that we have plenty of reasons to stay optimistic.

Admittedly, this is a challenge in my life: I am, at my core, a workaholic. I am a product of an entrepreneurial family with a career in tech startups, where working 60+ hours per week (at least) was a badge of honor; I am compulsive enough by nature that it plays directly into both my work style and my ego; and I am a volunteer junkie who is the first in line to take on difficult new challenges that no one knows how to accomplish.

My husband and business partner is the opposite. While he can and has worked insane hours during various points of his professional life, it is not what he enjoys and it is not what he wants. And, for him, my over-and-above hours of work detract from our time together, which is not the trade-off he signed up for.

The VentureBeat article, titled “You work 60-hour weeks. Should your employees?” is probably made even more noteworthy by the comments left by readers. As is often the case, comments fall heavily into two camps:

The What Kind of Slacker Only Works 60 Hour Weeks? Camp — which is the modern equivelant to your grandfather’s old saying, “Back in my days, we had to walk to school a mile in the snow both ways…” It’s a sign of geek and/or entrepreneurial bravado to be the Michael Jordan of work hours, and demonstrate that you can push yourself longer and harder than those around you.

The Work Is Never Going to Love You Back Camp — who are the advocates of “work-life balance” and who are acutely aware of the fact that no one lies on their deathbed saying, “I wish I’d had just one more meeting…” It’s a sign of idiocy to this group that one would ever do anything as foolish as risk their health or personal relationships by refusing simply turn off the computer and leave work at a decent hour.

The thing that is most interesting, though, is that — as always happens in this debate — people over-look a simple, basic fact: different people need different things for different reasons.

In all the politically correct talk about “work-life balance,” there is something important that is often missed: some of us need to work long hours for reasons that have little or nothing to do with anything or anyone else. And, when we find ourselves in a work environment that does not place that demand on us, we will find a way to create it. Consider this:

Work People

• Get their energy from work.
• Derive their motivation from work-based accomplishment.
• Experience their strongest social connections to other people through work.
• Use the inertia of long hours to build momentum for accomplishing their goals.
• Find an intellectual stimulation and satisfaction in work that they don’t find anywhere else.

Life People

• Get their energy from social or personal activities.
• Derive their motivation from hobbies and social interactions.
• Seek social connections that are based on non-work interests, often as part of the respite from work.
• Require the break from work in order to recharge and return productively.
• Experience a wider array of sources that can lead to satisfying intellectual, emotional or psychological stimulation.

And while debates can wage about which side of the coin is “healthier,” it really doesn’t change the fact that my husband is unlikely to ever be an 80-hour-per-week-maniac and I am unlikely to ever be happy trying to keep my work week limited to 40 hours. We’ll each do what we need to do as circumstances demand, but what is native to each of us is different and meaningful for our own reasons.

The VentureBeat article recommends focusing on great results, not the means by which specific individuals arrive at those results. I’d agree with this approach, but take it a step further: it’s not enough to have this expectation of your staff. You have to find staff who want and thrive with high expectations.  Only hire people who like that kind of pressure and motivation.

A “life person” who is asked to work 60+ hours per week by their boss may technically put in the hours, but they are likely to trading in quantity at the expense of quality. For people who need off-hours to recharge their batteries, the point of diminishing returns comes sooner, and time put in working after that threshold is always less productive (sometimes to a costly degree).

Yes, there are always going to be times when the realities of a business require additional time and work, but I think the focus of a boss should be on finding staff whose workstyles fit what you need, rather than trying to turn who you have into someone they are not. In the end, that approach is just asking for trouble, because not only will you always be frustrated — frustrated at having to ask, frustrated by feelings of disappointment and frustrated by the results you get out of people — but you’ll also be setting your team up for failure by creating a situation that runs counter to their individual needs.

Ultimately, you can’t change a person. And asking someone to behave in a way that is fundamentally counter to their nature is never a long-term solution. So my advice is to focus on the fit first. Jim Collins refers to this as ‘getting the right people on the bus.’ If you are a workaholic who likes achieving the impossible at the drop of a hat, then an employee who rolls into the office at 10:00 and rolls out right at 6:00 is probably going to drive you crazy — no matter how much amazing work he gets accomplished in that eight hours.

This comment reminded of Jonathan Fields’ article from a few weeks ago, “The Delusions of Entrepreneurs,” in which he explored what made so many of the trappings of entrepreneurship a bit more myth than reality — including notion of freedom, control, money and passion.

Jonathan’s points were all valid: starting your own business can put just as many shackles on you (or even more) as working for someone else, they are just different. And I think this is the point that really matters, and which the senior Adler was making about his son: if you are not good at following rules, then it’s very hard to get ahead in someone else’s business.

Now, to be fair, there is a certain amount of rule following that we all need to do to be successful in life: if I make a habit of driving on the left side of the road (in the US), odds are good that my professional success is going to be hampered by turning myself into road pizza before I can launch my product.

However, if my aversion to rules is more subtle — take, for instance, a compulsive need to be more direct and honest than is politically correct (which happens to be true) — then it’s easy to see how having my own business probably has better odds of success than me trying to work for someone else. There will always be people who consider my directness to be uncomfortable or impolite, but if they are clients or colleagues rather than a boss, then we can go our separate ways agreeing to disagree, instead of miserably trying to stay in a professional marriage that doesn’t meet our needs.

Another reason that I think John Adler’s point is valid — and one of the things I think Jonathan Fields missed in his reasoning — is that when you have your own business, you get to determine what “success” means to you. If you are working in someone else’s business (especially a large enterprise), what constitutes success is often prescribed by someone who came before you. If you have your own business, then you get to draw the map. Sure, you could find yourself stranded on a ledge somewhere, but that’s equally true when you work for someone else.

• Is your definition of success making a ridiculously large income?
• Is your definition of success being able to sleep in until 10:00 a.m. every day?
• Is your definition of success being able to sell your company and retire?
• Is your definition of success having 50 employees? 100? None?
• Is your definition of success revolutionizing your industry?
• Is your definition of success being a leader in your community?
• Is your definition of success having the time to do volunteer work?
• Is your definition of success being location independent?
• Is your definition of success being able to take your dog to work?
• Is your definition of success getting to work with your family/friends?
• Is your definition of success having the flexibility to go to your kids’ school events in the middle of the day?

We all define success differently, because we are all motivated by different things. Owning your own business gives you the change to attach what motivates you to how you are going to define success, and the drive your business towards those goals. When you join someone else’s business, you are agreeing to their destination.

And, if like Trip Adler, you’re too much of a ‘free spirit’ for someone else’s rules, then starting your own business may just be the only rational choice you could make.

Author Pamela Springer advises that growing a business — particularly in the earliest stages — is best fostered by focusing on your people, your strategy and your capital. In that order.

She then goes on to discuss cultivating your team in the ways best suited to evolving your business. And while she warns that on-the-job training is expensive, she also points out that skills aren’t always everything.

I see new startups struggle with this question daily. Serial entrepreneurs with a good network that includes lots of other serial entrepreneurs tend to gravitate towards experience born of the excessive scar tissue left behind by a track record of startups.

Or they immediately jump to the other extreme and go with fresh talent, right out of school with almost no experience whatsoever. As with anything, there are pros and cons to each.

Experience Pros
The #1 advantage to experience, of course, is using hindsight to help navigate the dangerous waters of the startup world. Someone with the right experience can help predict, dodge and mitigate the landmines that someone who has not been through the perils of this world cannot possibly foresee.

Experience Cons
The biggest disadvantage I’ve seen to experience is an unspoken assumption that what worked before will work now. This is one of the most dangerous ones, and often the hardest to combat, because someone who has been successful with a particular approach in the past is usually inclined towards using it again in the future.

The second biggest disadvantage I’ve seen to a track record of experience is ego. A few successful turns in some great roles at some companies with flashy brands (or really big exits) can sometimes inflate an ego beyond reason — making the experienced person in question not only hard to work with, but also potentially inclined to take credit for past successes that they really didn’t have anything to do with.

Tactically speaking, the biggest obstacle that small businesses and startups often face trying to hire this demographic is very simple: money. Experience tends to command expensive rates, which is often beyond the reach of a new venture.

Talent Pros
The biggest pro of fresh talent is that, if you help develop it, not only will you build great loyalty, but you’ll also reap untold surprises in areas you can’t ever entirely imagine. My favorite part of working with fresh, young talent is that they are often fearless, curious and a constant source of pleasant surprises.

Talent Cons
This is a bit less of an issue since the economy collapsed than it was before, but the biggest con I typically encouter when it comes to young talent is boredom. There are plenty of things about routine, daily operations that can be tedious and boring, and if that’s all you have for your young talent to do, then be prepared for them to exit about as quickly as they arrived.

All in all, there are reasons to consider going either direction, depending on the role. But also keep in mind that, especially in small and privately owned businesses, the personality of the founder/owner has to be factored in.

There are a lot of qualities that Millenials poses, which are not always as effortless for Gen X and older. Things like collaboration, a dependency on technology, and a craving for work-life balance are all bigger factors for them than for some of us who are older. So if you’ve got a CEO who calls the shots without a lot of input or debate, then an older demographic might be better about rolling with those punches.

On the other hand, if you have a more democratic organization that likes to do a lot of brainstorming and hashing through ideas, then — speaking as one of those “older” demographics — it’s often something that Gen X and older find frustrating, and an abstacle to quick execution.

I think the important thing to remember is that building a good organization really requires pulling from both pools of resources. If you stick to only one or the other, then you run the risk of building a lot of blindspots into your business without having the 360 degree vision to recover. So pick and choose.

Personally, I will usually start by defining my needs and expectations of the role, and then break apart the list and assess if most of the qualities I am looking for require experience to be successful (e.g. auditing, project management and maintaining client relationships), or if they are more inate (like strong communciation skills) or readily teachable (most standard business technology, meeting facilitation, etc.).

Of course, the real trick is, when you find raw talent — even if you don’t have a role to be able to hire them right away — don’t let them go. Find another way to build a relationship with them. Whether you can mentor them, find an internship for them, or connect them to other people who can offer them employment, your long-term best interest is in becoming a magnet for great talent — even if it hasn’t had the chance to prove itself yet.

Intrinsic motivation are your own internal motivators — a need for success, a desire to make an impact, your own craving for perfection, contribution or collaborative connection with other talented people.

Extrinsic motivation are the outside motivators — money, praise, recognition, bonuses, perks, etc.

There is a statement in the article, however, that gives me pause:

“Extrinsic motivation (namely money) is often the primary basis for our motivation. Everyone needs money, and wants as much of it as possible. That’s no secret.”

Now, if the audience of FreelanceSwitch were all cubical dwellers who hated their jobs and worshiped at the alter of Office Space, then I might be more inclined to concede some validity to that statement. But given that FreelanceSwitch’s reader-base consists of freelancers and solopreneurs, I actually disagree. I also think it’s a dangerous assumption to make.

Yes, of course we all need money. And yes, even the least material of us probably want more of it than just the bare bones basics we need to survive. But is money really the primary external motivator for most people?

I don’t actually think so.

Most people who quit a job, quit because of their direct boss. This isn’t a money reason, this is an interpersonal reason. Feelings of being unappreciated, disrespected or ignored are all extremely damaging to employee morale, and are frequently at the heart of what someone dislikes about their boss — and ultimately their job.

Conversely, how many people have ever taken a paycut because they either wanted to work for themselves (most of us who strike out on our own start off with a significant financial dip, before we ever stand a chance of recovering and making more money), or they were offered an opportunity that offered some other type of benefit that money couldn’t beat? It happens all the time.

Most importantly, though, I think for entrepreneurs, there is danger in assuming that money really is the biggest extrinsic motivator for potential staff. I think it limits your thinking and boxes you into a set of dangerous and unhelpful assumptions.

Back in November, I wrote about a local entrepreneurial event I attended. One of the most memorable moments of the night was when a young entrepreneur asked the panel of seasoned veterans, “How do I convince my successful friends to give up their $150k/year salary to join me in my startup?”

The answer he got from the panel was unanimous: “If you have to convince them, then they are not the right people.” This answer is dead-on — even if it wasn’t the one the poor guy wanted to hear.

When I think back to the different bosses I had over the years, one thing is clear: the great ones were the ones who quickly (and intuitively) understood my extrinsic motivators and then understood how to keep me motivated by giving me what I was looking for. The bosses with whom I never developed any kind of important or meaningful relationship could never figure it out.

I have a newsflash, though, my extrinsic motivator is not money. I had a six-figure job that made me so miserable that I quit with nothing else lined up; and I’ve worked 80-hours a week at another job that was paying me barely enough to live above the poverty line.  In each case, aside from my own intrinsic motivators, the extrinsic motivators of the situation were omnipresent and impossible to ignore — and they made all the difference between when I was happy to compromise versus when I was unwilling to put up with a situation that I disliked.

Entrepreneurs need to remember that there are other ways to motivate. Sure, for some people, money matters more than it does for others. And, when that’s the case, then that certainly isn’t the right person to bring onboard for your business — especially if you are just getting things started. So keep looking.

For some people extrinsic motivators could be a title, a new area of responsibility, the chance to travel, or getting to say they were part of a founding team that was doing something entirely new.

Do you want to know a secret, though? Most often, the thing that study after study says is a truly important and valuable extrinsic motivator for most of us, isn’t a title or perk, either. It’s recognition. Having our contribution respected, appreciated and then directly noted is the thing that makes the biggest difference to most of us. Sometimes that can be a public event, but more often than not, it’s private.

So if you own a business and are worried that your staff is burned out or losing motivation, ask yourself, “When was the last time I let them know how much I respect their talent and appreciate their contribution?” And then, go do it.

Back in my Enterprise IT days, this was a common site. We’d all gather, sometimes multiple times per week, to put our heads together on our enormous multi-million dollar program. The kicker, though, was that 75% of the participants in the room were consultants.

One day, out of overwhelming frustration at how many hours per week I was spending in pointless meetings when I had real work to do back at my desk, I did a little round-the-table math, based on what I knew of the rates/salaries of the people in the meeting.

By the time I was done, I’d tallied that each team meeting was costing the company $2,500. Per hour. And not only did we have several of those large meetings per week, but subsets of that group would have anywhere from 5-10 additional meetings per week on top of that!

What was worse of all was the awareness that at least half of those meetings occured out of habit, and not out of an actual need to either make a decision or collaborate on the resolution to a problem. We were meeting for no better reason that so we could say that we met.

I was thinking back to his exercise when reading Barney Austen’s guest post on MyVenturePad, called “Meetings – A Total Waste of Time.” Of course, most of Barney’s points are long-standing reminders of the well-established rules of Meeting Management 101: have an agenda, make sure decision-makers are in the room, etc.

But as an entrepreneur what I am constantly struck with is the actual cost vs. value of a meeting. When someone else was paying my salary, this wasn’t something I was anywhere near as concerned with. But now, knowing that my consulting time is billed by the hour, I am acutely aware of the fact that any time I spend in a meeting is detracting from billable client work I could be doing. So that meeting time better be worth while, or I need to cancel it.

I have worked with some other consultants making the transition from employee to entrepreneur, and I’ve seen many of the struggle with the same thing: common patterns of behavior in enterprise environments are suddenly irresponsibly expensive in entrepreneurial ventures. And the new business owners who understand that are quick to adapt. But some struggle with it more, because it’s a common tool used to justify their job.

One of the best consultants I ever worked with once said to me, “I’ve been a consultant too long. If I don’t produce something tangible every day, I feel like I haven’t justified my paycheck.” As a result, she had the world’s greatest project documentation. It was always updated, it was always detailed and it was always extremely thorough. What it wasn’t was always necessary.

Bootstrapping a startup is a different animal. And finding the right people to work with is important, because the last thing a lean organization that is trying to be cash efficient needs, is unnecessary meetings burning through time and resources — especialy in the cases that those resources are paid by the hour.

A simple rule of thumb: only schedule meetings if there is a decision that needs to be made, and then only include the people needed to make the actual decision. Even more importantly, don’t let Outlook or Google Calendar’s default settings drive you to automatically scheduling it for an hour. If you think that getting a quick decision is possible, then keep it to half an hour. (Side note: new teams tend to love me, because I am the queen of the 15 minute meeting. No matter how long I schedule the meeting for, my goal is always to be done in 15. And I usually am.)

There are, of course, other types of meetings. But, as an entrepreneur, everything that I do in my business should be tied back to tangible, measureable results. So while a sales meeting, a vendor meeting or a team member feedback session could be extremely important, an entrepreneuer should always stop and do a time management inventory to make absolutely certain that the purpose of the meeting is clear, and that it can be served based on the list of confirmed attendees.

If it’s not, the answer is simple: change the meeting. Cancel it, reschedule it or just change whose coming. And if you think that seems like a waste, then I challenge you to add up how much that meeting is costing you. Then decide whether or not it’s worth it.

One of the things that many entrepreneurs enjoy about their own business is freedom from the constraints of life in a large enterprise environment. The downside, of course, is that the way large enterprise environments lure in eager, talented employees year after year, is because they make sure to offer incentives that hold more than a little bit of appeal.

I’ve written about this before, in the discussion about intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivators. For an entrepreneur getting a new venture off the ground — even before you try to piece together a “package” to offer prospective employees — you need to consider what you need for yourself. Because if you can’t stay motivated and productive, you certainly can’t expect that of employees (present or future ones).

In addition to the warning on VentureBeat about not ignoring retirement planning (vital advice, if ever there was any: no entrepreneur wants to spend years building a business, only to spend their “retirement” as a greeter in Walmart), Martin — in response to a D&B Small Business blog post — adds a few other nuggets worth keeping in mind as well.

Long-term daily job grind
Robert Kiyosaki refers to this, in his “Cashflow Quadrant” model, as being “self-employed” versus being a “business owner.” At it’s core, self-employment is a trap that many would-be entrepreneurs find themselves in, en route to their business ownership goals. The self-employed trap looks like the employment trap, only with all of the hassels of business overhead and far less stability.

Formal training courses
My favorite thing about my corporate job was the training. I had internal training resources at my disposal with our in-house “university” program, and I had access to high quality training by external firms, as long as I got my boss’ approval.

And, unlike some people, it wasn’t a paid opportunity to play hookie: it was some of the best learning I’ve had in years, because it blended the value of a classroom setting with the motivation of hands-on, readily applicable subject matter (which I never experienced in school).

Personal wealth management
Starting a new business can be a crash course in financial management — even for those of us who’ve spend years ducking and weaving to avoid the subject as much as possible. However, there is a difference between tightening your belts (even to the point of cutting yourself in half) when things are lean, versus proactively planning for your financial future.

A new business is a great excuse to not have the “time” to take this problem on. But, conversely, it’s also the best excuse, because money is often just as scarce as time — so you might as well take the opportunity to figure out how to manage it, before you find it managing you.

Business must be more than the money
Again, this is critical. If you are going to spend day in, and day out on something, there needs to be a reason to do it beyond getting paid — because, as far as extrinsic motivators go, for most of us, it’s a pretty weak option as time marches on. (And, if you are in the minority, for whom this is enough reason, then more power to you.)

Passion is a key theme among entrepreneurs, and there is a reason: when things are hard, you have no money, your family is mad at you, your friends have stopped trying to invite you out because you’ve turned them down so frequently, and even your dog has moved on to get her daily dose of TLC from the neighbor, if you are not passionate about your venture, the easiest thing to do will be to give up.

The last item Martin includes on his list is an interesting one, but I’m not sure I agree with its importance. Martin writes:

How society perceives you. As a young entrepreneur, everyone looks up to you for running your own business. But later you find that you may be perceived by many as a person without job security, unlike your classmates or ex-colleagues, who are sought after or being placed in well-known large company or multinational positions. Even worse, you find that your business domain has developed a negative stigma through no fault of your own, as has happened to investment banks, mortgage brokers, and many nightlife businesses. It’s no fun to hide your business role rather than proudly proclaim it.

While I understand his point, I’m honestly not at all convinced that this point is really any worse for an entrepreneur than it would be for an employee — and, in fact, I imagine that if you were an employee in one of these fields, it would actually be worse.

As an entrepreneur, you’ve had to hone your other skills — ranging across the spectrum of disciplines: staffing, financial management, marketing, product development, customer service, etc. — in order to run your business. If you are an employee who is working in a suddenly tarnished sector, odds are greater that you are a one-trick pony with limited options.

What would you think is better? To be an entrepreneur whose business was a major supplier for Enron? Or to be a Director-level employee at Enron?

Personally, I think the entrepreneur is better off when it comes to personal branding and re-marketing themselves to prospects. I think the poor employee is going to spend most interviews trying to compensate.

All in all, Martin makes an exceptional point, though: a new venture must be approached as a long-haul. Big exits in a couple of years are great fantasies, but if you are approaching your business with that expectation, then not only are you likely to be making unwise business decisions (see Jason Cohen‘s story of how building a business for him to keep made it valuable enough for someone else to want to buy), but you’re also probably not bracing yourself for the long-term reality of your work.

If you approach your business as a sprint, you may get out of the gate quickly, but odds are you’ll be sitting on the grass when all the marathon runners pass you by. Pace yourself. It’s a long trip.

This presents an interesting opportunity for the crafty entrepreneur, though.  Because, while everyone else is paddling around these crowded social ponds, opportunities abound in smaller, specialized social networks that center around a more precise focus.

Niche social networks can have a lot of great value when it comes to building connections with both potential customers and with potential partners.

SmallBizBee published a great list this week: 40 Social Networking Sites Specifically for Small Business, Entrepreneurs, and Startups.

While the list covers some of the more traditional ones (starting with LinkedIn), there are also some very specialized networks on the list, targeting needs that are unique to entrepreneurs:

• PartnerUp
• Qapacity
• Ryze
• FledgeWing
• The Funded
• Cofoundr
• Perfect Business
• E.Factor
• Raise Capital

Whether you are looking for funding, for partners, for customers or for advisors, there are social networks that cover the spectrum. If you think that Twitter is too overwhelming and that Facebook is for kids, then I’d encourage every entrepreneur to read through that list, identify a few that appear applicable, and then go check them out.

Resources for entrepreneurs can be plentiful if you know where to look, but as I’ve said before, finding the right business parter can be harder than finding the right spouse. So no matter what you are looking for when it comes to building your business, the more options, the better your odds of finding what you need.

So don’t limit yourself to the most obvious choices. Branch out and see what other alternatives might just fit the bill.

This is always a fascinating topic for me, because in my tech universe, I see this all the time. The geeky geniuses who build cool things are rarely the ones who have the business and people skills to get it to market, build an organization around it, and monetize it enough so that everyone can live off of it.

Conversely, oh-so-many entrepreneurs don’t have the stomach for low level details of how a product works, or the nitty gritty trouble-shooting required to get over the hump when you hit a roadblock. These are two groups who need each other in order to get things done. But there is a lot of advice about how, if you’re going to build a tech startup, you better be able to code yourself. I think this is a problem for this precise reason.

Yes, certain things are easier if you can just bang them out yourself. I’ve spent more than a decade as tech project manager, and I can’t count the number of times I wish I had the ability to just jump in and do something myself because I was frustrated with other people’s progress. But part of managing is leading other people through that process, not cutting them off at the pass by doing it yourself.

In all of my time at startups over the past 14 years, I have worked with several hundred developers, of all levels of quality, commitment and disposition. In that time, I’ve only met a small handful who have any entrepreneurial inclinations whatsoever. Like most other parts of the employment world, most of them do not have the appetite for risk, the drive or the compulsion to tackle building a venture.

Of the half dozen or so that I’ve met who have the stomach for entrepreneurship, I’d say that maybe two or three actually have enough business and people savvy to make a real go of it. Developers (and scientists) are often introverts. There is nothing surprising about this, since these professions require the qualities that tend to come very naturally to introverted people: the ability to work alone for long stretches of time, the ability to concentrate enough to shut out the rest of the world and focus, thinking through complex obstacles in depth before slapping things together.

Yet successful entrepreneurs are typically extroverts. Again, this makes sense. Network building, relationship development, sales, partnership cultivation and generally being the public face and voice of a business are part of the job. Those are often the types of things that can often make a staunch introvert queasy.

Martin’s point is correct: these two groups need each other in order to be successful.

So, to those who say that a successful entrepreneur building a tech startup needs to be able to write his own code, I can only say this: yes, in a perfect world, that would be possible. But a passionate entrepreneur with a viable idea to take to market should never give up his dream, just because he’s not a developer.

It may take longer to get there without being able to do it yourself, but a race car driver has a mechanic for a reason. They are different skill sets, different dispositions and different roles designed to fill different needs. It’s therefore not unreasonable to expect that it should simply be a different person.

Ranging from a childhood photograph of him as a little boy, sitting on a sled holding his (terrified) cat, all the way through his 80th birthday celebration, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, the video was a very sweet tribute to a life that spanned the better part of a century.

You know what was not anywhere in any of the photographic memorial of his life? His job.

I was thinking about this as I was ready Tim Berry’s horrified response to an Entrepreneur.com article entitled, “Love Your Business More than Your Family.” Mr. Berry identifies a few of the most shocking objections he has to Mr. Cloutier’s article, but I have a few others I think are worth adding.

Cloutier says: ”By all means, make it an occasion to show your spouse, kids, loved ones that you care. Then get your behind to the office because that’s where you need to be. Your family will still be there when you get home.”

Newsflash: Taking your family for granted is the world’s most sure-fire way of losing them. For starters, any spouse who puts up with being second fiddle indefinitely needs therapy to work on self-esteem issues. To be blunt, if they are less important than your job, then they would be better off without you — no matter how much money you are bringing in.

Secondly, people do not live forever. My mother died at 39 years old. Even worse, she died 28 days after she was diagnosed with leukemia. Even if she had been able to spend that 28 days living (instead of being hooked up to machines in a hospital room), you cannot make up for decades of life in 28 days.

Finally, study after study after study shows that parental involvement is key to raising healthy, stable children to be productive members of society. It’s not the responsibility of one parent, it’s the responsibility of both. If you care about your job more, then not only are you teaching your child a horrible lesson about their own self-worth (not to mention missing out on being a positive influence during their formative years), but you’re also begging for them to find other influences. Nature abhors a vacuum, and this is rarely more vivid than watching children gravitate towards unhealthy influences in the absence of healthy ones.

Cloutier says: ”If you are not focused–if family, friends and loved ones fill up your busy weekly schedule–you are probably failing to deliver real profits for your company.”

Newsflash: Your business’ success depends on more than just how much time you spend on it. Working harder but not smarter doesn’t do you any good, and other factors — business partners, market conditions, etc. — can all impact the success of your business, regardless of how much of your time you spend.

This advice is tantamount to a choice: attempt both a business and a life with decent odds of modest success, or scrap the life and roll the dice that the business can be successful enough for you to be able to successful bribe people into pretending to be a part of your life.  Sacrificing a life on the outside chance of ridiculous success and wealth is an awful big gamble.  If the dice don’t roll in your favor, then that leaves you absolutely nothing else to show for your life.

Cloutier says: ”They’d much rather enjoy great financial security than see you struggling for the rest of your life to make money that never comes.”

Newsflash: This is the kind of self-deluded justification that someone tells himself while he is waiting to pay bail for his 16-year-old who just got arrested for stealing cars.  Being able to pay for expensive therapists and lawyers does not make you a good parent.

When you die, what are your friends and family going to remember about you? How much money you left them? Maybe, but money doesn’t last and eventually it will be gone. Your kids are going to remember you teaching them to ride a bike or how to fish or about that time it started raining during your camping trip and your sleeping bag got soaked.

Do you honestly think your spouse cares more about getting a nice piece of jewelry than about watching a sunset with you on a remote beach somewhere?  (And, if your spouse does care about the jewelry more, then what was going through your mind when you married them in the first place?)  If your spouse is supposed to be content to be married to a ghost, then what good are you doing them as a spouse?

I watched the video slide show at the funeral this weekend several times. You know what I saw? I saw a man who loved his family. I saw a man with hobbies he enjoyed, and a man who belonged to communities of people with whom he had a connection. The people who were at his funeral talked about his sense of humor and his passion for life. No one once mentioned his business.

Cloutier says: ”But in the end, the best thing you can do for them is to create the legacy of a business that is thriving and financially sound. When you’re retired, wealthy, and able to spend Valentine’s Day and other special occasions with your kids and grandkids at your winter home in Hilton Head, you’ll be glad you devoted so much of your time to your first love: your business.”

Newsflash: This is what I find to be the most dangerous advice of all. If you spend your entire life loving your business more than your family, by the time you are sitting in that winter home in Hilton Head, none of your kids or grandkids are going to bother to visit you. (Nor should they.)

Life is hard. Relationships are hard. It is only the most delusional arrogance that truly claims that business is more difficult, and therefore it’s the only thing worth spending time on and worth practicing to get better at doing successfully.

If you spend 60+ years ignoring your life, by the time you put your business aside — and, let’s face it, odds are slim that someone with those priorities ever would — whatever “life” you have waiting for you is likely to be a mess. Like anything else, we only get better at life with practice. If you wait until retirement to even start, then you’re 40+ years behind everyone else.

Everyone in your life will have become so used to living without you, that trying to fit you back in will be a bigger chore than makes sense for most of them to bother with. And, just because you’ve become exceptionally skilled at business, doesn’t mean that you’ve learned how to be good at your role within your family — odds are, if you’ve neglected that role for decades, you are probably pretty lousy at it.

If you do love your business more than anything else, then do everyone a favor and skip having a family at all.  Your business is not your only job.  If you have people in your life, then you have a responsibility to them, too.  And neglecting their emotional needs — which is time-consuming, difficult work — in favor of only meeting their financial needs means that you are not doing your job.

Business people who neglect their families for their business are no more honorable than any other type of spouse or parent who doesn’t live up to their family and social obligations. They just use making money as a justification for their behavior.