In the entrepreneur world, there are some pretty interesting patterns of things that we do. If there is one thing that we have realized from startups, it is that being a business startup entrepreneur is not really a job or what you do for a living. It is more like a lifestyle. This tradition of an entrepreneur is not really what we do during the day, its more like.....the reason we wake up in the morning.
Of course, there is the love of autonomy, the love of the adventure thrill, and the love of the challenge it gives you. When you have the experience of winning in a business venture, you will never be able to go back to the simple nine-to-five job.
There are a few analogies in life that only entrepreneurs understand, and I had this epiphany at the gym, believe it or not. When someone is training for an athletic event, there are simply some questions that the trainer gets asked over and over, that he would rather not answer, and sometimes entrepreneurship is the same way. There are just some questions that only fellow startup grinders will understand.
Have a sickening work ethic
First, there is nobody outside of an entrepreneur that will understand the complete, absolute, unnerving amount of commitment to excellence and persistence that is necessary to be successful in a business, especially a startup business. Will Smith described it best in a fairly popular interview as a "sickening work ethic." I felt this description aptly characterizes exactly what entrepreneurs go through to get a business off the ground. Certainly, there are those that start a business and magically the world falls into place and takes off with the idea. But obviously, for most of us, it will take moving mountains and doing the same job over and over and over again and many other jobs, over and over and over again, to get to the promised land. The hardest part of this procedure for many people is to understand that along with the incredible amount of work, there will also be failure after failure, whether big or small. What this means is when you are down and out, you will need to keep pushing and keep grinding even when you don't want to. Even when you don't feel like it.
Okay to completely fail
Speaking of failure, every entrepreneur knows that it's okay to tank every now and again. Further, it's totally okay to completely fail. Knowing this fact and keeping this attitude in mind, helps the entrepreneur to realize that they don't need to abandon their hopes and dreams because of a small fracture or failure, and instead the entrepreneur must force themselves to look at a failure as an opportunity in disguise. Making mistakes and losing big (to you), say fifty thousand bucks in one venture, you must force yourself to understand you just got a fifty thousand dollar lesson. This then becomes a lesson that will be remembered for what it is,a valuable, expensive lesson, and you can be darn sure you won't the same mistake the next time it comes around.
Make your opportunities
If there is one single thing that entrepreneurs seem to just "get," it is that there is not going to be a golden opportunity for anything in this world. You will have to make your opportunities. All of the stars will never align to be in the perfect situation to start the company, expand the company, or get investing. The possibilities and circumstances will be up to you to make it happen. When you can get your motivation alined and in order, then things will happen. Operating at standstill is not an option, you'll put yourself in motion and keep yourself there. The world will not just magically make the solution to your startup problem appear. You need to go out and find the favorable fix. These problem solving understandings are something that every successful entrepreneur seems to knows intimately.