Ah yes, we’ve all seen them on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat. These people who want you to earn the kind of money that will give you the kind of lifestyle you want. All you have to do is follow them or join their crypto-trading clubs. These people flash pictures of wads of money that don’t belong to them, with people who aren’t them stand in front of $300,000 cars which aren’t theirs. I think they have one part of being an Entrepreneur right, which is that you have to visualize yourself where you want to be ultimately, but they have this delusion (in my mind) that being an entrepreneur is about private planes and stupid expensive cars.

The reality of being an Entrepreneur

The reality of being an entrepreneur is much different than just snapping a few photos. In fact, the reality of being an entrepreneur is often like a cold splash of water. Starting with Instant noodle cups and 16 hour days, shifting to days where you feel like you need the help of a mental professional because you’re not sure if you’re going insane with the massive daily swings of personality like Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde. Sit down and talk to any entrepreneur who has been one for more than 10 years and they’ll tell you success in business often is like a roller coaster ride where the downs get slightly less frequent and the ups can’t be bigger over time. I’ve learned you have to be careful who you listen to for advice. It’s tempting to just want to join any mastermind with someone who has all of the problems to solve for you, but has never had boots on the ground running all aspects of a business. My point it, it takes time to be a proficient entrepreneur, where you can “see around the corner”, make decent educated guesses for your business, grow as a leader and of course improve how much money you make. The fatal mistake though is thinking it’s instant. Even some of the people you see who are now billionaires weren’t overnight successes. This reminds me of a story I heard about Pablo Picasso (not sure completely of that it’s entirely true, but it’s a good lesson anyway). Picasso is sitting in a Parisian cafe when a fan approaches him and ask him to draw her something. Picasso obliges the woman and sketches something on a napkin. When he’s finished he says to the woman that, that will be $30,000. She responds surprisingly: “but you did that in 30 seconds”, Picasso replies: “It took me 40 years to draw that in 30 seconds”. The point? The reality of getting to the level that these social media picture mongers claim, takes years, effort, skill, patience, failure and learning.

Why aren’t you a successful entrepreneur right now?

It’s hard to answer in a broad way to everyone but there are a few basic principles I believe that every entrepreneur must possess in order to be successful. Here they are:

1. Visionary
2. Voracious Learner
3. Must be observant
4. Must be able to recognize patterns and be able to order up a solution to a problem
5. Can NOT be a procrastinator
6. Can NOT be a perfectionist
7. Must be coachable
8. Can NOT be sensitive
9. Have to love what you do
10. Must have a high level of adversity resistance

Reality Strikes

Often times the excitement of being an entrepreneur over takes the reality of being an entrepreneur and when that happens it some times anesthetizes what it really will take to accomplish your goals. Bottom line: be excited, but understand that if you take your time, stick to your plan, seek advice and work smartly you will be a success that you can be proud of. Otherwise, there’s always instagram 🙂

All the best,

Micah