I’ve learned a lot in my time as an entrepreneur. It’s been more of a journey than expected and my life experience has brought me here with a different perspective than many. Coming from a mainly academic background and being more of an analytical mind, I believed you examine the data, put in enough to get the goal and you quickly reach it.
Funny enough, I think it’s why I mastered every video game and how to get an A in graduate school level class with very little effort beyond what I knew was required. Entrepreneurship is nothing like that, and just what you think is enough work and a sure thing most likely isn’t.
The point of this is not to drive you into apathy and tell you not to be an entrepreneur, but rather it’s to show how to actually reach the summit instead of spending all your time in the basecamp. Success isn’t always necessarily about approach or level of self-development. It’s not to say that all those things are not important, but they are not the defining characteristic of what separates someone like Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone from someone that will never achieve; the defining element is tenacity, its drive, its obsession.
“Whether you’re 9 or 90, stop trying to fix the things you’re bad at, and focus on the things you’re good at.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
I’ve noticed that when I am in action, things don’t seem to bother me as much and even more seems to go right. You may call that momentum of all the collected activities, but I call it operating on another level. It’s when I stop taking as much action, not working towards my goal that the depressed feeling tends to get me. You know exactly what I mean you may have had 10 great experiences that day taking yourself and your business forward, but one that did not go right, and it may not be that bad, but you dwell on it, then you’re left feeling unsuccessful.
Less than a year ago, I started a podcast called Create Your Own Life, that took off like wildfire, created high-level press coverage and helped me to meet many of the people I admired most. I’ve noticed an interesting point along that journey, and it relates to the level of action I took and when I took it. I worked really hard on getting high-level entrepreneurs and had great success at it, but I learned a different viewpoint along the way about what success really looks like.
I read a book a number of years ago by Darren Hardy called “The Entrepreneur Rollercoaster,” and I think it’s the best way to describe the journey that I and many of my colleagues have been on over the years. At first, I learned that you can not always manage events but you can always manage your reaction to them, later I learned that was not even fully true.
I worked hard for certain opportunities to promote my show and certain guests I thought would be my big break, the single thing that would get me to greatness. I realized that single moment and the “overnight success” does not actually exist, and for every Justin Bieber that is discovered on YouTube there are millions of people betting everything they have on success that will never happen.
“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.” – Darren Hardy
I learned that big breaks don’t happen to you, but they happen because of you. Full-responsibility is the only way that will ever happen, having the tenacity to want the success of my mission as bad as breathing that’s when success happens. Previously, I learned that my greatest error was every time I thought the big break was coming, I didn’t just ease off the accelerator, I let it go completely.
Not only did the big break not happen, but I was further away than when I started; most likely taking even more time to reach my current destination.
Real success actually comes from hard, consistent work and keeping the accelerator pushed to the floor. As for those events that you think will be you big break; grab as many of them as you can, because it’s from consistently shooting for the stars that you reach the moon.
Do you want to be successful? Don’t stop when you think you made it, push even harder; that drive is what separates real entrepreneurs from the mere mortals.