Another thing to note is that all small businesses and their respective owners are not the same. I know local small business owners that love what they do and never worry about the possibility of their kids going hungry and have plenty free time. I also know people who are employees and are a slave to their job, bring the stress home with them because of great responsibility, albeit for great pay. Those are right the opposite of the spectrum that Ed and blacksheep's points of view align with.
No offense to Ed, it just seemed that his description of running a small business was a little over dramatized. Nobody's kids go hungry because their small business fails. None of the hard working people on here would even let their kids come close to going hungry if their small business fails. Ed spoke about always thinking about work, time away from family, sacrifices and mental stress, and as mentioned, the need to keep things going in the right direction to support family. My arguement is that most if not all of that does not ONLY apply to small business owners... some of the most "man they got it made" people I know are small business owners.
Example story: My old house that I'm renting out is on the verge of needing some hvac work, with a possibility of needing a full replacement. I was in a locally owned restaurant eating lunch the other day before work and spotted an older gentlemen eating that owned the most well known hvac business in our small town for many years. He retired a few years ago and one of his loyal employees bought him out and runs it now. Anyways I know the gentlemen fairly good through my dad, so I went over and chatted with him a bit. Picked his brain about the hvac thing, later he asked how I was doing because it has been a while since I have seen him, so I mentioned trying to finish school and got on the topic of when he ran the hvac business. Of course he stated that it was a lot of work, but he then said "but man I sure did take a lot of time off!". Went on to tell me about all of his travels and how frequently he and his family would just pack up and go all over the place. He damn sure made enough money to do it and made sure he had time to enjoy his life.
I also have a good friend in his late 40's that does some sort of structural drawings for clients, architect maybe? Not really sure what he calls himself. He works from home, has been making 6 figures since he was in his 20's and has a ton of free time too. He has 3 motorcycles, spends several weekends per year in the mountains of NC and other places. He told me he always tried to gear his career toward maximizing free time, and just so happened he could make killer money to boot.
Just because Ed's and Kelly's small business is apparently a borderline traumatizing undertaking, doesn't mean they all are. There's no way in hell anybody can say Matt Myrick gave up his life to get to where he is today. He BUILT his life to become what it is deserves to be proud of it.
