Searching for Common Threads for Mega Achievement
There’s a certain idealistic notion about “Being your own boss” and running your own business; a business where you call the shots - and can’t be fired by some douchebag boss!
Most importantly, you can earn a living doing something you love!!
However, achieving entrepreneurial success is very different than becoming successful by climbing the corporate ladder. Either way, attaining success working for someone else or yourself is time-consuming, cumbersome, and requires massive amounts of sacrifice.
Delusion Springs Eternal
Quite frankly, success requires more sacrifices than 99 out of 100 people are willing to make. Sadly, these timid souls remain content existing on the sidelines, just living out their career fantasies in their daydreams - while waiting for their buffering screens to load at their boring day jobs. Or, simply smoking blunts with other trepidatious souls, who also are afraid to death of failure!
Let's be real here, achieving success demands sacrifices that 99 out of 100 folks won't touch with a ten-foot pole. It's a pity that these timid souls are perfectly fine lounging on the sidelines, fantasying about their dream jobs - while numbly watching their discount Lenovo ThinkPad screens at their snooze-worthy nine-to-fives.
Or, you know, they're out there puffing on blunts with their equally “all talk, no action” buddies who are also scared sh*tless of failing - but pretend it’s a “fear of success”. Can't blame them for seeking comfort in the clouds, so “puff, puff, pass”!
Ironically, those trepidatious souls are doomed to failure by never giving themselves a chance to make their dreams a reality! Can’t We Just Ask Siri for the Blueprint on How to Be Successful?
We cook sumptuous dishes by following time-tested recipes we find on Google. We can harness nature for our consumption needs via farming, irrigating, and gardening through the wisdom of our collective ancestors. We even mold steel, concrete, and wood into marvelous skyscrapers from meticulous blueprints handed down from enterprising generations of yesteryear.
Yet, why is there no “Idiot’s Guide to Finding Success” or “Success for Dummies”?
My Strategy - Studying Others Success Stories To Decode Their Secret Sauce
I figured, “If I crave financial independence by utilizing my alleged creative gifts, let me research successful entrepreneurs who paved the way. How did they do it?”
I reasoned I could mimic the effective strategies of successful entrepreneurs - while learning from their mistakes vicariously (and more importantly without experiencing the firsthand pain of tedious trial-and-error) - and I should be “making it rain” in no time! Move over, Jeff Bezos. I got the champagne room booked at Wiggles tonight.
It seemed like a totally logical theory. Why reinvent the wheel, when I can read the recipes of success, and co-opt them for my ventures? I Found What I Was Looking For, But Not What I Expected
I love reading about where successful people were discovered or how they received their big break. When I read a biographical article of a titan of industry or even a celebrity autobiography, I am not reading for mere amusement or fandom. I am looking for an erudite insight, an overlooked gem, or some time-tested maxim that this prominent figure unearthed, that I can apply to my career to make it a lucrative, influential, and resounding success.
Moreover, I was looking for the secret to their success. I wanted a cogent “A-to-B-to-C”, step-by-step blueprint I could brainlessly follow to bring myself riches, glory, and financial freedom. If there was a proven path to prestige and prosperity that yielded guaranteed results from a dedicated checklist, I would find the secret sauce in the success recipe, dammit!
What I discovered was disappointing, yet liberating simultaneously.
No such concrete yellow brick road to my - our your - Emerald City exists...or ever existed!
What About Hard Work, Talent, and Perseverance?
There’s way more to entrepreneurial success than the usual boring and routine success advice that any hack Pollyanna career adviser - or Tony Robbins - spews. There are thousands of talented, smart, and dedicated self-help gurus on YouTube who spend just as much time - if not more - on their business than Tony Robbins does. (BTW, nothing against Tony Robbins. I respect what he has built. You can substitute Robbins for any prominent figure in any industry. The principle remains. Why them? Why are THEY anointed? Are they just better?)
Yet, those other talented and dedicated individuals who are toiling away in a cyber vacuum, are only attracting viewers who are related to them. Why?
Yes, tried-and-true tropes of hard work, talent, perseverance, and discovering a product or service that fills a void, demand, or need in the marketplace, are still essential and indispensable in business achievement. They always will be.
Still, such general rote advice never considers other important considerations one needs to achieve entrepreneurial nirvana.
* What about the Pareto Principle when it comes to market share?
* What about the existing market penetration your competitors possess - before you even launch a business?
* What about the early adopter advantage of your competitors using technology you didn’t know existed, much less can afford?
* What starting capital do you possess?
* How will you balance the other demands and priorities in your life? Little Luna, your cute-as-a-button daughter, still has a demanding habit of eating 3 times per day. The nerve!
* Who will help you - because no ever became successful on their own -bootstraps be damned?
At first, there was no obvious single “X-factor” strategy, tactic, or process that I could pinpoint as the prime common ingredient in the recipe of success stories.
* Some successful people religiously get up before most barnyard animals and work 20-hour days. Others swear they never sleep less than 8 hours in a given day and don’t start working until 2 pm.
* Some advocate being total control freaks, while others insist on delegating as much work as possible.
* Scariest of all, some people stumble into kismet with no effort, as if it was pre-ordained. Most of us, toil away - uncertain if we will ever arrive at our promise land.
It turns out I was looking for a Holy Grail that never existed!
Cliffhanger Thank you for reading part 1 of this 2 part piece. Since this article is a comprehensive and lengthy read rivaling The Bill of Rights, I didn't want important nuggets to blend into the background. To read part 2 and the conclusion of this think piece, click here.
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