How to keep your motivation up after staggering setbacks

Before I was a business owner, I was a boxer. Albeit, not a fabulous boxer, but I liked the blood and the grit - nothing can give you more satisfaction than seeing your opponent bleed as a result of you. I've noticed that both boxing and business have something in common: Whether you’re growing a company or taking punches to the face, you need to learn how to shake blows off quickly.

When you start a new business,  you encounter so many hurdles that you never dreamed of, along with countless sleepless nights. One day you will answer the phone or get an email with some really bad news, and it will feel like someone just did a right, left combo to the nose then to the jaw. First it stings like you just snorted wasabi paste, then your eyes will water, and you may even blackout for a second. If you don’t shake it off immediately when he comes in for another jab left hook you’ll be laying face down ass up on the floor. You’ll be out of the ring and your motivation to win is gone.

Early in your startup you can have ten serious setbacks before you finally have any big win. That is why it is crucial to stay motivated. Mark Cuban, a billionaire entrepreneur and regular “shark” on ABC’s Shark Tank admits he has failed to close several key sales deals which resulted in having to shut down a powdered milk business. He was on trial twice for Insider Trading, once his case was dismissed and the second time he was cleared of all charges. Cuban’s first big win was to start Broadcast.com and sell it to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in stock in 1999.  He has said, “What I do isn’t rocket science. It just requires an unrelenting effort.” Cuban now owns the Dallas Mavericks and is the Chairman of AXS TV. Cuban had the determination and motivation. He shook off every punch to the face. When others would have thrown in the towel, he kept going.

Here’s my advice, first redefine what you think is “bad news”. Understand it is you who is defining the information that is being delivered to you and it is you who is defining it as bad. It is actually just information, you label it as you’d like. If you define it as “bad”, then you’ll have to shake off the bad news, get up and keep fighting. Your motivation will vanish if you allow setbacks to shape your vision.

Many high powered entrepreneurs have experienced devastating setbacks and retained their motivation to win. Elon Musk, the billionaire who once co-founded Paypal and now sits as CEO at Tesla and Space X, said that he financed Space X with half of his money from the sale of Paypal to cover its first three satellite launches.

Each of those three launches failed.

The other half of the money from his Paypal sale went to founding Tesla. He admitted to borrowing money from friends to keep Tesla from going bankrupt in 2008. He almost lost both businesses in the same year but he didn’t allow these setbacks to change his vision. He could have shut one down to save the other, instead he persevered on both fronts. Musk said in a 2005 interview, "You don't learn when everything goes smoothly, and if you aren't learning, you can't adapt to the changes or the future.” Today, Space X is now profitable boasting several NASA contracts, and Tesla expects to be profitable by the end of 2016.

Mark Cuban and Elon Musk persevered time and time again and you will too, as long as you are able to shake off every setback and keep fighting for the big win. To paraphrase Henry Ford, "Whether you believe it is possible, or it is not, either way you are correct."

Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work. – Seth Godin

The Lucky Entrepreneur

The Lucky Entrepreneur

If you ask me if there is such a thing as a lucky entrepreneur, I would without hesitation declare that many entrepreneurs are lucky.  That is because I define luck as preparedness meeting opportunity.  Or as Oprah would say “I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity”. Most of the population operates under the illusion that luck happens to some people while it eludes almost everyone else.

The smart entrepreneur understands that an open eye and an open mind are key to finding the success that others are unable to grasp and command.  The open eye is required to see when an opportunity is before them. 

“An open mind is necessary to be able to see opportunities where most other people see problems or obstacles”

An open mind is also the ability to place your ego and pride aside and have a very open mind to other ideas that people bring to the table.

Our brains become magnetized with the dominating thoughts which we hold in our minds, these magnets attract to us the forces the people the circumstances of life which harmonized with the nature of our dominating thoughts. If your dominating thoughts are those of success and opportunity, your life will attract those very things to you. For those entrepreneurs who are open and receptive, luck and opportunity will be ahead of them.  

“As an entrepreneur you always have to maintain a spirit of open-mindedness”

I’ve tried to live my life as an explorer, discovering and taking advantage of opportunities others may not have because of the fear of being wrong, I’ve come to realize that there is nothing wrong about being wrong. Eloise Ristad said

“When we give ourselves permission to fail, we, at the same time give ourselves permission to excess”

As an entrepreneur there is one thing for certain, you will be wrong many, many times but “luck” shines upon those who take a risk, fail, get up and persist again.

The smartest thing I ever did was to hire my weakness.

– Sara Blakely

You manage things; you lead people. – Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

Colin Powell on Leadership

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.

– Colin Powell

EVERY PERSON IS BETTER THAN YOU IN SOME WAY 

If you ever see me walking along the sidewalks of downtown or line at Starbucks and you see me with someone. Know that that person you see me with is better than me at something, or a lot of things

I’ve learned that people have rich gifts to give this world, whether they are homeless and destitute or a thriving CEO. Each person brings color and richness to this world in some remarkable ways.

I’ve been very fortunate to surround myself with people who have enriched my life, motivated me and made me stronger. So the next time you see me with someone, know that they enrich this world and make it a more colorful place for all of us. 

-Ted Stearns 

The Power of your Thoughts

The Trick of Autosuggestion:

Autosuggestion is a tactic which I use every day to implant ideas into my subconscious mind. Whatever thoughts I put into my mind, whether they are positive or negative voluntarily reaches my subconscious mind and influences the subconscious with these thoughts a skillfully plant and water.

 ”The mind is built so that we have absolute total control over the material which reaches the subconscious mind”

However that is not to say we always exercise control over what reaches our subconscious mind, most of the time most people do not exercise control; this is why there is so much poverty in the world. 

I have an exercise I follow each day, each morning when I awake I read myself my vision statement; it is a written statement of my desire for money. But, the reading of the words of my vision statement are really of no consequence, the most important factor in reading the vision statement is that

You have to emotionalize and add feeling and color into the words.

Your subconscious mind recognizes and acts only upon thoughts which you have been injected with pure emotion. This is the most important exercise in the quest for riches, to the same degree this is the main reason the majority of people who try to apply the principle of autosuggestion get no desirable results. Simple plain words do not influence the mind, you most color them and add emotion into them, you cannot just say the words, and you most feel them.

Your ability to see results using autosuggestion will depend greatly on your ability to concentrate on the given desire.You must be able to concentrate until the desire you have converts to a white hot burning obsession; a want or a wish won’t suffice.

There are a few strategies you can use to effectively increase your concentration. One of them is to fixate your mind on the amount of money you desire to acquire, close your eyes until you can actually see the physical appearance of the money to the extent that you can actually feel it in your hands, you can smell it and that you can look at the bank statement in your mind and see the balance which you desire.

Here is the most significant fact – the subconscious mind takes any orders given it in a spirit of absolute faith, and acts upon those orders, although the orders often have to be resented over and over again, through repetition, before they are interpreted by the subconscious mind.

Don’t think of the money you desire as only a want, rather, demand the money as if you must have it, that this money is already waiting your claim and that your subconscious mind must hand it over to you. Once you hand over the demand for the money you desire your mind will start to develop a plan for you to acquire the money you desire.

It is at this time when your mind will do the miraculous work. Be on the alert for a plan which you mind will deliver to you. When the plan appears in your subconscious, it will typically appear as a “flash” into your mind in the form of an “inspiration”

Be on the lookout for the “flash” of inspiration, when it comes, don’t delay, act upon it. The difference between you and someone else is that most “flashes of inspiration” are stillborn; they die upon birth, however for you, you must nurse it and give it life as soon as it comes to you.   ~ Ted Stearns 

TAKE A RISK

If you take risks, you will fail it is as simple as that

No great thing has ever been accomplished in a comfort zone, Chuck Yeager didn't break the sound barrier while in the comfort zone, Alexander the Great  didn't conquer the known world in his comfort zone, and Democracy; giving everyone the right to participate in how they are governed could never have won the battle in her comfort zone. 

Courage ~ No great accomplishment was every win without it. 

Throughout history, many lives were lost to achieve great successes; however, more than likely no lives will be lost for you to accomplish your great successes. 

 

Be what makes an entrepreneur so great is that we don't view failure is final defeat. We accept it as being one step closer to success. 

Take risks or you will live a life of regret.

Failure ~ And What to do About It.

Failure ~

One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat. 

~Napoleon Hill.

I've found that one of the greatest strengths of an entrepreneur is their persistence in the face of defeat. Defeat is never a defeat until you accept as such.

A story about Kobe Bryant as told by a professional trainer who worked with Bryant this past summer, for the Olympics:

It was about 3:30am. I lay in bed slowly fading away when I hear my cell ring. It was Kobe. I nervously picked up.

Hey uhh Rob I hope I’m not disturbing anything right now.

Uh no what's up Kobe?

Just wondering if you could just help me out with some conditioning work that's all.

I checked my clock, 4:15am. yea sure ill see yo in the facility in a bit. It took me about 20 minutes to get my gear and out of the hotel.

When I arrived and opened the room to the main practice floor I saw Kobe. Alone.

He was drenched in sweat as if he had just taken a swim. It wasn’t even 5am.

MY THOUGHTS: 

I am a firm believer that in order to be successful as an athlete or entrepreneur the talents necessary to do so are not taught in universities or schools. The attributes are deep within us; the determination and unyielding and unrelenting drive that lets nothing stand in the way of us attaining our vision for ourselves.

The principles are carved in our soul.

I know how it feels when you have been beaten down time and time again. When others truly want nothing more than to watch you fail and that giving up would put a smile on their faces.

But, I will never know what it feels like to throw in the towel.

You actions today will impact your life a week from now, a month from now and a year from now.

Make today a day your future self will be proud of.