The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word, Entrepreneur, as someone who organizes, manages, and assumes the risk of a business or enterprise.
Successful entrepreneurs bring commitment, passion, and a single-mindedness to their work that enables them put up with challenges and to delay gratifications because their vision of what success will look and feel like. In addition, they are always alert to ideas that they can modify and implement to grow their businesses.
In fact, Lori Greiner, very successful entrepreneur and one of the “sharks” on the popular reality show, Shark Tank, has stated that, “Entrepreneurs are willing to work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week”.
While most of us may be working for somebody else, there is no job that we do that is more important than the job of being the best person that we can be. Yet, how many of us consciously devote a serious amount of time to that job. I’m not talking about 80 hours a week – but how about an hour a day? And how about never shutting off that button that can alert you to ideas that you can use for self-growth and improvement?
I’ve known people who work more than the required number of hours at a job that they hate for a boss they dislike, and then come home too zonked to enjoy themselves or to make plans to make their lives more fulfilling. The sacrifices that they make at work today may be worth it if it fits into a broader comprehensive personal vision for tomorrow. But research has demonstrated that unhappy poor people who advance and achieve wealth in their careers become unhappy wealthy people. Positive people who advance are better able to enjoy their improved status.
Happiness and well-being don’t just happen by following the course of events. A successful entrepreneur can passionately shape the course of events by having a vision of the future and pursuing that vision even if obstacles have to be overcome and adjustments have to be made. Similarly, we can take greater control of our individual destinies. It does, however, require thinking like an entrepreneur.
No matter who you are or how old you are or what lousy things have happened to you in the past, what are you doing to make yourself the best you can be in the future? Are you excited about the unknown and what you will be able to achieve? Are you devoting at least an hour a day to your personal growth and development – or is there no time for yourself after the hours you spend on working, meeting the needs of others, and doing survival activities such as eating and sleeping?
Think like an entrepreneur instead. Remember that every great achievement has occurred because someone believed in an idea despite what skeptics and critics were saying. Don’t let the inner-critic in you stop you from pursuing your own ability to be awesome.