I was sitting in the chapel-turned-classroom at Ecole de cirque de Quebec, listening to Julie Lavergne talk about the overview of her class—how to market oneself, how to find work, how to deal with taxes—when it suddenly hit me…

I was an entrepreneur. Of course, I had known this when I started my circus-career endeavor. But I don’t think the reality of the amount of work it takes to get work actually hits you until you look the job full in the face. Honestly, the training was the easy part. The training was the part I enjoy the most. But circus is not just training. Circus is two full-time jobs: the training-performing-act creating job, and the business person, email-sending, gig-searching job. If, like me, you have to go find non-circus work to cover the bills for a few months while looking for contracts, you somehow become muddled in this mire of three-jobs, no social life, and an ever-mounting terror that you just won’t make it. Let me say this: it is perfectly normal to lock yourself in a bathroom with a cup of tea and cry for an hour. I will admit to doing it, and other post-circus school graduates have admitted to doing it, too (I won’t name names. Just trust me, y...