Success Is Not Guaranteed!
The reason I shared the above collage of posts is because most hardworking business people acknowledge that it’s important to approach your goals with ferocity and no hesitation. However, there is silence when it comes to the idea that you must embrace the possibility of failure and come to terms with the uncertainty of success. Some entrepreneurial virtues can drive someone over mountains of obstacles and put them on the path of profitability. The downside is that some of these virtues can become vices if unchecked, and lead them to overlook failure.
When Entrepreneurial Virtues Become Personal Vices
Entitlement
I believe that entitlement is something that many entrepreneurs struggle with considering that it often leads to intermingling with individuals that have had years of wealth and privilege, allowing them to afford so many opportunities that they subconsciously believe that some things are simply entitled to them. The belief that you have the full right to success, even given that you work your fingers to the bone is something that cannot be reconciled with being mentally balanced as an entrepreneur. The practicality should be at the forefront, and this practicality entails that if you have the foundation a solid business plan, a product that fulfills the needs of it’s customers and a fully committed team that will deliver the product. The business does not work if you just throw money at it, but if it has the fundamentals, it may fare much better.
Entitlement remains a virtue if it has been earned. If there’s a product that is measured on real metrics, (not vanity ones), is gaining traction, and generating revenue, then your entitlement should be proportional to what solid proof potential success is. Making things personal won’t help here.
Pride
The entrepreneur often identifies with the product they’re building on a very deep level, causing it to be sewn into their identity. This is not at all a stretch because some individuals make a business out of their own personality. As I wrote in a prior story, a separation between personal identity and their professional persona is very important. The frightening part of identifying yourself with your business on a personal level is that the business itself becomes part of you as a person. This means it must be safe guarded and defended, allowing you to put your shields up to friendly criticism, objective realities that don’t go your way and even personal doubts. It takes a very string willed person to be able to separate their identify and their business to be able to clearly assess a situation without making it personal.
A business must be durable to survive, but it’s almost as if when you and the business become one, the entrepreneur’s personality can become a reflection of their product. Being proud of your product at pitch events and objectively knowing your product more than anyone on the market is good. One must do the work to prove why should be proud of your product in the first place and that will get you what you need, not the other way around.
Commitment
Being young is ideal because in general, as people age, they gain more financial and interpersonal commitments that require stability and security. Committing that goes very deep in a business venture and proverbially “putting all your eggs in one basket”, can be a cause of desperation and. I, along with many others have been desperate at some point in their lives.
The only thing worse than being very desperate, is being desperate for a reason that actually justifies it. Most likely, you’re not in a situation such as that, and can build other options and opportunities that weren’t initially conceived.
As the collage at the top exemplifies, sometimes mentally enlarging the potential success of a situation so big, that all other options pail in comparison can make the goal so attractive that every other options or opportunity is null and void when compared to the maximum success a goal may grant you. The key is coming back to the realization that nothing is guaranteed to be a success, just empirically look at steps and processes that can get you to the level you want to reach, and pursue it with a sound mind.
Get the notes I got from the silicon valley sent to you:
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Over 50 Docs of Notes! (How to Market, Pitch and More in 50+documents)
Author: Natu Myers (Website: Natumyers.com)
Natu is a cryptocurrency investor and software engineer who is experienced in building large scale applications. He built Innovator.Supply, an HR recruiting software for VR, AR, and chatbot enthusiasts. This was followed his other service, Hypetroop Market. He has a fitness page on Instagram. Stemming from his time at Queen’s, he was a defensive lineman on the Queen’s Gaels football team. Being a multipotentialite, he finished a business incubator program after graduating, launched his own album on iTunes, and he stays up to date industry-penetrating software startups and crytocurrency investment methods while gaining IT experience.
