Entrepreneurship Can Be Your Greatest Teacher; It Reveals the “Secret” to Success in Life
It really is the ultimate personal development journey.
I would confidently say that building a business is the ultimate personal development journey.
It requires you to evolve.
It requires you to look within yourself and surface all your insecurities, fears, bad habits, and doubts, look them in the eye and say: “I’m going to crush you.”
On September 30th, 2018 I handed over my Google badge to the security guard at the front desk of the Google Docks building on Barrow Street.
That was the moment that marked the end to an incredible chapter in my life.
Nevertheless, I was ready to flip the page and write bolder words across a more daring chapter. I needed something to light my inner flame again. I was curious about playing a game with less defined rules, and my intuition told me it was the right time to explore.
I took a break and traveled for a few months and then decided it was time to do what I’ve always wanted to do: start my own business.
So I got to work and launched an e-commerce brand to combat plastic pollution. I had no prior experience in that industry, but I was ready to learn and figure things out as I go.
And what began as a journey of entrepreneurship slowly transformed into a journey of personal growth and development.
It taught me that all great things are built by people with three qualities: an unparalleled self-belief, willpower of commitment, and an ability to really cut-back and sacrifice for greater ambition. But more than that, entrepreneurship taught me what it takes to achieve success in any area of your life:
Articulate who you want to become, define the one thing you want to achieve, understand that you’re playing the long-game, show up every single day to put in the work and be ready to “fail” (read: learn). As simple as it sounds, that really is “the secret” to success.
Here are 7 lessons I’ve learned from my entrepreneurial experience that apply to overall success in life.
1. Success is a game of stamina, patience, and consistency and a whole lot of “just keep going”.
The biggest mistake I did when I first launched my business was that I focused on winning at large in such a short period of time — and I quickly realized that this is an amateur approach to building something sustainable because short-term thinking is the enemy of growth.
I was a victim of my flawed perception that results matter more than the process. I guess it was driven by what I read in the media: the “10x growth” for startups investors preach or the “0-to-6-figures in one year” headlines.
But with time I came to realize this:
Greatness is achieved through the consistent work that’s put into the process — greatness is in the process, not the result.
We’re too fixated on playing “big” and “winning fast”. In reality, success comes from playing small, going slow and showing up every single day to put in the work for the length of the years ahead.
Think big, but start small. Go far, but be consistent.
Want to write a book? Sit for two hours every single day to put words on a page. Want to build a sustainable business? Wake up and sign one new customer every single day.
You need to play for the long-game, and it certainly won’t be a smooth ride.
There will be so many obstacles in your way: rising problems, self-doubt, outsider judgment, insecurities, irrational fear, setbacks, and sometimes, it’s plain and simple — you just won’t be in the mood to show up.
All of these are different forms of resistance and success is your ability to “just keep going” and fight through that resistance, day in, day out, for years, looking them in the eye and saying: “I’m going to crush you.”
Lesson #1: Success is a game of stamina that requires patience — how long can you keep going? Learn to be consistent and you will succeed at anything. Work in a slow, sustainable manner because big energy bursts make you very prone to burnout.
2. Success comes from chasing one rabbit.
I’ve always been an enthusiastic person and I’ve always had so many ideas I wanted to pursue — travel the world, write a book, launch an eco-conscious online brand, become a public speaker… But I’ve learned that you cannot do it all at once.
Success requires you to devote your entire energy onto one thing — and go deep in that thing — rather than scattering it across several projects.
After working on my business for a year and trying to “go big” too quickly by expanding into different product lines too prematurely, I’ve learned the second most important lesson about success: do one thing, and do it really well.
“If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.” — Russian Proverb
What’s your rabbit? Identify it. Commit to it. And then, relentlessly chase it.
Lesson #2: Start with one product line. Work on one single project. Trim the fat — it’s noise, not music. Rechannel your energy onto the single most important thing you want to excel at. If you want to do well, you need to dedicate your time, energy and resources to that one thing.
3. Success cannot be achieved alone.
When I first started my business I was doing everything — research, product sourcing, email marketing, pricing strategy, social posts, and promotions. My mind was juggling across 10 different topics on any given day.
Trying to do everything at once and all on my own led to too much pressure and self-imposed stress. I wasn’t able to build or sustain any momentum and I wasn’t able to excel in any specific field.
Lesson #3: You’re only as good as your weakest link, and whatever it is you want to achieve, you cannot succeed alone. You need a support system — a team to help you raise the level of your game for your business to compete on a new stage. So focus on what you’re good at, then build a team to outshine your weaknesses. Stay humble — you don’t know everything and you’re not expected to.
4. Sacrifice is an essential part of the equation to get to where you want — the reward is on the other side of it.
Sacrifice. That’s the summation of all the silent nights of hard work and the weekends tucked behind a desk. That’s the equivalence of the newly assumed financial risk, uncertainty and chaotic emotional struggles you must endure to build a business.
Sacrifice is necessary throughout the journey to success. If you want to be successful, you need to ask yourself, “how much am I willing to sacrifice for it? What am I willing to trade in for it?”
If you want to write that book, you need to trade in your Friday nights and weekends to sit behind a desk and write. If you want to succeed in building financial security, you must trade-in your freedom of lavish spending.
This sacrifice doesn’t only impact you, it also impacts your family and loved ones. Be mindful of that.
Lesson #4: Sacrifice is part of the equation to get to where you want — it’s necessary. Learn to see this sacrifice as an investment in your growth and your mindset will shift.
5. If you’re afraid to fail, you will never come close to tasting success.
I now understand what Seth Godin meant when he said:
“If I fail more than you, I win.”
As kids, we are raised with an understanding that failure is something to be frowned upon. It was embarrassing to say that you failed your class or had to repeat a year in high school.
But after starting a business and struggling to grow it, I’ve learned SO much from this process. In the views of society, I might have failed to reach triple-digit monthly sales or grow at a consistent rate. I might have failed to succeed in building a self-sustaining business that offers a full-time income for myself, but the way I see it SO different.
I’ve overcome the fear of trying — and so I won.
I’ve made mistakes and I’ve learned from them — and so I am 10x more likely to succeed the next time around.
Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture said:
“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.”
Failure, in itself, is an experience. And that experience will make you more prone to success.
Lesson #5: Failure is not the enemy to success. Failure is the catalyst to it. Fail more so you can learn more and grow more. That’s the recipe for moving an inch closer to success.
6. In order to succeed, you must think and act like the person you wish to become.
When I first made the switch from employee to entrepreneur, my title changed and my lifestyle eventually followed. But there were a lot of habits from my employee days that stuck with me through the transition.
I was still wreck-less in managing finances. I made impulsive decisions without any market validation. I rarely held my self accountable and my thinking was always wired on short-term wins.
It wasn’t until I began to think like an entrepreneur that I was able to better succeed in what I was doing. I realized that I needed to shed my older self and create a new identity. I needed to take control and own up to the mental maturity and emotional growth that the journey entails.
So I began to form better habits like arranging and reviewing financial statements on a bi-weekly basis. I completely cut-off my aimless spending.
Lesson #6: Whatever you want to achieve in your life, understand that the process will require you to shed your older beliefs and habits in order to become the person you wish to be. Always identify the person you need to become to achieve what it is you want and bridge that into your identity.
7. Success is personal — set your own definition for it.
As someone who’s trying to make it as a successful entrepreneur, I’ve placed heaps of pressure on myself to “succeed” as fast as I can.
I compared myself to the present-day versions of the successful entrepreneurs and thought “I’m not working hard enough, I’m not moving fast enough, I’m not being good enough”.
But therein lies the problem.
We compare ourselves to who we want to become, to the present versions of people whose success we wish to emulate. And in doing so, we completely overlook the time, money, failures and hard work these people went through to achieve their goals and get to where they are today.
Lesson #7: Learn from the greats, but stay in your lane. Create your own definition of success — it gives you the vision to reach, a reason to do it, a timeline to work towards and a progress benchmark to compare yourself to.
How to Create Your definition of Success
In creating your definition, remember that why you choose to do something versus where you want it to take you are two different — but equally important — distinctions.
Your ‘why’ is the motivation that refuels your ambition when you’re on the verge of giving up. The ‘where’ is the compass that redirects the chaotic winds of your sails into a more focused, coherent direction that’ll keep you on course to reach your desired destination.
Ask yourself these questions and be very specific in your answers.
- Why am I doing this?
- What is it that I want to achieve?
- Who do I want to become?
- What do I need to do every day to get there?
Here’s an example:
“In five years I will have become a writer [who] with a published book [achievement] that helps people transform their lives and live it fulfilled [why]. I will begin by building an audience and publishing three articles per week for the first year [what you need to do to get there].”
Conclusion: Cultivate the right mindset
Every word in this article has been written from my personal experience of launching a business and struggling to grow it.
I really do believe that my openness to the entrepreneurial experience has made me more likely to succeed in any future endeavor in my life… because now I’ve learned what it means to build a business and, more so, what it means to succeed in life.
Yes, the road is long.
Yes, it’s bumpy and rough and emotionally draining.
And no, there’s no straight path to success.
But if you really want to achieve greatness in life, you need to understand what J.K. Rowling said so well:
“It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.”
So my advice for success is this: cultivate the right mindset to keep you going and, one day, you’ll get there.
My entrepreneurial experience exposed me to the untold truth about entrepreneurship and taught me what it takes to launch and grow an e-commerce brand.
But above all, it empowered me to look within myself and surface all my insecurities, fears, bad habits, and doubts and look them in the eye and say: “I’m going to crush you.”
I write to help you become your best self and inspire you to live a life that’s true to you — join my weekly digest to stay in touch.