Becoming an entrepreneur isn’t an easy task, especially in the world we currently live in; it can be hard to get the right advice and guidance. Sometimes no matter how much advice we get from friends, relatives or even strangers, while it can be valuable, sometimes it’s not worthy to be listened to at all. Since, the advice often falls in two extremes, either being impossible to do or simply unhelpful. Therefore, being an entrepreneur myself, and often having difficulty trying to find my path and the key steps to take, I have taken everything I’ve learned over the past years reading, learning and interacting with entrepreneurs from around the world and devised it into these 8 principles in order to become successful.
Therefore, sit tight, grab some coffee if you like, and get ready to be enlightened because these 8 principles are going to probably be the most vital pieces of information that you will get, that you would require to keep in mind.
1.) Stay Strong
Being an entrepreneur and starting your own business is an overwhelming idea. Not only is it taxing on your body physically, but as well mentally. I’ve been through this, where I was running on 4 hours of sleep for not only days but also weeks, only to suffer a major crash one afternoon and then be sick for days, ruining the productivity in my work due to my lack of self-consciousness of my body. You see, making your new company everything is great, but not so great at the same time. Since, the biggest driver in making your business successful is YOU! So if you are not taking care of yourself, and falling sick every other week you’re not only hindering your health, but the success of your business simultaneously.
Being an entrepreneur and starting your own business is an overwhelming idea. Not only is it taxing on your body physically, but as well mentally. I’ve been through this, where I was running on 4 hours of sleep for not only days but also weeks, only to suffer a major crash one afternoon and then be sick for days, ruining the productivity in my work due to my lack of self-consciousness of my body. You see, making your new company everything is great, but not so great at the same time. Since, the biggest driver in making your business successful is YOU! So if you are not taking care of yourself, and falling sick every other week you’re not only hindering your health, but the success of your business simultaneously.
You need to take care of yourself, sleep, and exercise in order to keep your body in top-notch condition and this will reflect not only on your personality but also on your business as well. I personally ensure that I get at least an hour of a heavy workout 3-5 times a week to cool off the steam from the daily grind. If you cant take care of yourself, how on earth do you expect to believe that you can take care of an entire company.
Remember; don’t sacrifice your heath and happiness for your company. Yes, your company is important, yes your dreams are important, but there are not as important as YOU are. Take care, and remember, if you continue to neglect your health, eventually you will end up unhappy, tired and useless. Without happiness, what is there left in life?
Stay strong and take care.
2.) Learn to say no
If there is anything as being an entrepreneur, or someone working to go against the norm and live life differently that I have learned or been told, is to learn to say NO. If I could get a penny for the number of times I have been told this, I would be at least a millionaire by now. The matter is, the moment you decide to take life in your hands and go against the tides we are bombarded with a lot of difficulties. One of which is, saying no. Saying no to friends, parties, and extra stuff. Since suddenly our life takes a different path, in which our focus only lies in the path of success and bringing that vision to life.
The key is to not over load yourself by accepting new responsibilities and opportunities, but only to do so if it does not come at the cost of directing your energy to these tasks when more important issues lay astray. Something that I do is make a daily or weekly to-do list, and learn to get those tasks done first and only after those are done do I accept new ones.
Learn to say no, more forward, embrace the tide and get that success.
3.) Embrace your weak points
As a young entrepreneur, I was always over a fact that I had to be perfect, that, every successful individual out there had no such thing as a weakness and that it’s a sign of losers. I was wrong. Over time, of working on myself and meeting many entrepreneurs, I realized that embracing and knowing my weakness was rather more important than knowing my strengths’! By doing so, I was able to understand where I needed to educate myself more, areas where my company probably required more focus, since, as humans, we cannot be experts in every arena. There is a great possibility you may be great with numbers but not great with marketing. Or, you’re more of a people person and not a finance guy, vice-versa. Its okay!
We all have weaknesses, we all have weak points, However, it is through these weakness that you embrace and then hire people who can fill in these gaps in your armor, and through this you are slowly not only becoming stronger as a self, but as a company, as a team, as a family.
Embrace your weak points, believe in yourself and keep moving forward.
4.) Service is everything
One thing I realized when I started my first blog and then starting to provide service to people, was that everyone wanted my devout attention to their respective needs irrespective of my schedule. You see, your customers don’t really care about your schedule, because when they book a time with you or request service from you, they are expecting the best service possible from you and that’s it. You have to no matter what, provide the best possible service you can to your customers. Customers are what make your company grow, without customers; your company wont grow into anything at all.
Following this, if you get into the position that you are hiring people for your company, remember one important lesson; A boss is one who drives his employees, whereas a leader is one who coaches his employees. Treat your employees like diamond, even if they come in rusted, treat them like diamond. By doing so, you will have your company transform into a world-class service provider in your respective field. Thus by doing so, you will have happy customers, and happy customers convert into revenue.
Now, we all know the saying “it’s easier said than done”, and that does apply to this, but that’s okay! Take your time in building yourself, your service and company. Everything will work out in due time, trust me.
5.)Be careful whom you recruit
Your team, the people who you surround yourself in your initial stages of your startup are the biggest asset in your success. Your choice of recruits reflects the success of your company. Your choice of recruits must be taken as a permanent choice, as it is possible it will be one of the most important decisions you will ever make. We all are aware of the famous fall-out between Steve Jobs of Apple and his board of directors. The people Steve hired to be part of his vision, eventually turned him out and fired him from his OWN Company!
Therefore, be picky, be weary, make sure the ones you hire and decide to take on your boat with you share the same desire and hunger for your vision as you do. If you do so, everything will be great, if not, you might end up having to deal with an imperfect fit for many years if not decades.
6.) Love Failure
Ah, one of the most talked aspect in respect to success; Failure. For some reason, the word failure has been associated for too long with being a bad thing. Why is that? I have no idea, I guess most unsuccessful people never learnt from their failures and hence blamed it as the route of their downfall. Whereas, failure is not only of the most valuable lessons of life but also contains within it the door to success! Failure is the simple reflection of someone trying. Every time you fall from failure, you are automatically one step ahead when you get up, think about it. When you are casually walking around the neighborhood and trip over something and fall, what happens when you get up? You naturally take a step forward and look back at where you fell and move forward. Why cant the same notion be applied to life where people take failure as a stepping stone to success and as a form of learning to make oneself stronger and better. Embrace failure, and be afraid of not trying.
One of my favorite analogies I give my clients in regards to failure is going back to childhood. Go back to when you were a baby learning your first steps. How did you do it? You took a step, then fell down, got back up and took another few steps and then fell down again. It was only after you kept falling and getting back up did you learn to eventually walk in full synchronization. Now, take your life in the same way, your business, your dreams, everything. All those hurdles you’ve faced or are currently facing, are merely stepping-stones, you just need to believe and have faith in yourself, your vision and keep moving forward. Eventually, if you really keep at it, you will make it, and one day be writing a book about your success.
Listen, its simple. If you want to be successful, you have to travel through the world of failure and pain. However, remember the more failure and pain you endure, the larger your success will be. Take that, embrace it, endure the pain, enjoy the grind, and it all will be worth it.
7.) Be Picky
Next time you watch a major press conference of a CEO of a leading company talking about surplus-sing their profits by X-number percent, remember behind all that glamour and success is a strong support system; The employees, the ones who were able to transform the innovative idea into reality. Truth is, the most innovative idea can die out if you don’t have the right team to create it. Therefore it is essential to be picky with you hiring, to involve yourself with the hiring system in order to ensure you hire the same hungry and passionate individuals like yourself, since it is your employees that are the generators of your business.
Take time and devout your attention in creating the best team possible, and go achieve massive success.
8.) Explore new horizons
Over the past few years, I have been able to meet a vast number of people in different areas. If there is anything I have learnt from my meetings is that every one of them had ideas, ideas of how to change the world, of how to better something, amazing ideas there were. However, the issue lies in the conversion rate of idea to reality. What is the use of an idea that may revolutionize the world if you can’t turn it into reality? I understand there are constraints, some constraints which we cannot control, but I truly believe that we all live only once on this world, so might as well give it your all and make whatever that idea is of yours into reality, and if you fail in doing so, get up and try again with another idea, at least you tried! You can choose to sit and fantasize over the Internet in your own world, or you can take the plunge and see what you can make out from this world.
Live your life with a dream, a vision, a purpose and leave your mark on this world as someone who made a difference.
"Annas an aspiring entrepreneur, speaker and writer who also runs his blog borntobenumberone.com. Annas has dedicated his life to help people reach success and share his advice and opinions on how to do it. Connect with Annas on Facebook, twitter and Instagram and see your life move forward!"
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-Annas Khan
