Life-Changing Lessons I've Learnt As An Entrepreneur
Humans tend to go through their lives in phases.
All of us have gone through that phase in our life when you're feeling tired all day, you're relaxing a bit too much and you just can't seem to find any real motivation to get out of bed.
The kind of phase when you know you're not giving it your all.
It was really hard for me to get up in the morning on such days.
I couldn't help but just lay in bed thinking “What harm will just a few more minutes in bed do? It won't matter that much anyway”.
Looking back, I now realise that it mattered more than I was ready to accept at the time.
We Often Fail To Consider The Second, Third & Fourth Order Consequences.
Unlike money, once time is gone we never get it back.
Time is finite — and that makes it sacred. But I never did respect this.
Until one day I realised that waking up late and getting frustrated (because I woke up late) became a daily routine.
An hour extra in bed today, means I was building up the habit of staying in bed late.
And by the definition of a habit, that means I was very likely to do the exact same thing tomorrow… and the day after that, and the day after that.
An hour in bed today is actually many hours wasted in the future.
Spending an hour extra in bed is an hour less spent working, and that single hour may be the difference between achieving your goals or not achieving them.
How you do ANYTHING is how you do EVERYTHING.
Have you noticed how easy is it to get up in the morning when you know you are giving life your all, when you're doing the best you can, when you're anxious to get going and when you're making great progress towards your dreams?
The attitude I approached one task with always spills over into the attitude with which I approach all other tasks.
So, if I half heartedly approached getting out of bed, I would have that same approach with every other thing that I did in my day — work, relationships and fitness to name just a few.
It feels great to relax for the sake of replenishing your energy, instead of relaxing to avoid work which ends up making you feel guilty.
It's a completely different feeling, one that I had only begun to discover.
And I was immediately hooked onto that feeling — one where you're all psyched up and excited for life, excited for what you've planned to accomplish for the day.
Once I started embracing this sort of a “Growth Mindset”, I found myself waking up before the alarm clock would even begin to startle me awake, I went through my day protected from negative events simply because of my mindset, I started exuding confidence, abundance and presence.
But most importantly, when I was focused on growing, I started seeing small wins flourish in places I never expected.
The client praises you for an increase in energy and output, your partner notices your changes and sincere “I love you's” are shared for the first time in months, you start journaling everyday, meditating everyday, exercising everyday… You reach your goals everyday…You work intensely every single day.
These small wins slowly started to fuel my ambition. They gave me the extra energy to pave the way for more successes.
It's the snowball effect — you've heard people talk about it.
With one success you're excited to meet another and another and another.
And pretty soon, you'll be achieving your goals, reaching your potential and feeling better than you've ever felt.
After a couple of months, the disciplines that were so difficult in the beginning are now a part of your identity:
- You ARE the person with big dreams.
- You ARE the person with a burning desire to change the world.
- You ARE the person who sets goals far bigger than all of your peers, then crushes them one by one.
And with time everyone will be calling you successful.
But how do you know for your self when you're successful? Do you have to be a millionaire? No.
All anyone can ask of you is that you earn all that you possibly can. If you earn $10,000 a year, and that's the best you could possibly do, then that's enough.
God as well as powers unknown to me, will make sure that you're okay.
The key is to just do the best you can.
If that's ten thousand a year, wonderful. If that's one hundred thousand a year, wonderful. And if that's a million a year, wonderful .
It doesn't matter as long as you've done everything that you could. Earned the most you possibly could. Become the most developed person that you could.
In my experience, this kind of a mindset also paves way for higher levels of satisfaction, despite how much I achieved “on paper”.
All that mattered is how much effort I put into my day, how much I was learning and growing both professionally and personally.
The essence of life is NOT Success, it's Growth — to do the best you possibly can.
As a baby becomes a child, he matures. And as a child becomes an adult, he matures again.
But for many people, that is when the maturation stops.
But why?
It is within our DNA to feel fulfilment from growing, so why do we stop growing after formal education?
Growth is a human NEED.
If you want to be happy, you have to be growing.
And here's what's interesting about that — humans are the only thing alive that will do less than they possibly can.
They're the only thing alive that will ever settle for less.
Every other life form except from humans will always strive to their maximum capacity.
How hard will a bee work? As hard as it possibly can.
How tall will a tree grow? As tall as it possibly can.
You've never heard of a tree growing half as tall as it possibly could. No, trees don't grow half…
Trees send their roots down as deep as possible, stretching their limbs out as high as possible, producing every leaf possible and every fruit possible.
As a matter of fact, you've never heard of a human physically growing half as tall as it could. We keep growing until we're done.
It' s genetically coded in our DNA. We can't control that — and that' s probably why we keep growing until we're done.
It is the rest of our “growing” that we can control.
The growing of our mind. The maturation of our identity.
That is completely within our control. Yet that's what tends to get away from us.
The Honour Of Choice
Now, why wouldn't human beings strive to achieve their maximum potential?
Here's why: because we've been given the honour of choice.
“Choice” makes us different than alligators and trees and birds.
It makes us different from all other life forms.
And here's the choice that I was given:
To achieve just a small part of what I can achieve (just enough to get by) or to become ALL that I can be.
If I could only give you one piece of advice, it would be to choose the “ALL”.
Earn ALL you can.
Make ALL the friends you can.
See ALL the countries you can.
Read ALL the books you can.
Develop ALL the skills you can.
Do ALL the things you can.
Make ALL the fortunes possible. Give as much of it away as possible.
There's no kind of life like that kind. And once you get on track you'll never look back.
The two primary benefits of striving for ambitious goals are firstly to build good habits, and secondly to create more energy to fuel those ambitions.
Most entrepreneurs make the mistake of just trying to get through the day, never keeping track of their progress along the way, never really knowing if they are doing all they can to reach their goals, to drive their ambition.
But entrepreneurs with a Growth Mindset learn to take all they can from the day. They are great at self reflection.
They don't let a day end without picking up some valuable experience, some emotional content, some idea that may positively affect their future.
Since adopting this kind of an attitude to life, I have seen huge improvements in my output as an entrepreneur:
- I've been my most productive, most confident and most stress-free version.
- People around me have started noticing the many positive changes.
- My colleagues have started appreciating me for my work ethic.
I'm starting to see wins in most areas of work, personal life and so on — you'll just have to take my word for it.
“ Habits, are the secret to growth… and Growth, in my eyes, is the secret to Life. “
~ The Author
Do not underestimate the influence of a growth mindset, it might just be the thing that leads you to your next big success, and the one after that, and the one after that…
Thanks for reading!
If you liked this article, feel free to checkout Seeking Within— a weekly newsletter covering a wide range of topics exploring the belief that Most Answers We Seek Lie Within Us.
Want to connect with me? Shoot me a message via Email, LinkedIn, or Twitter!