Recently my friend Rob stopped in to visit me. He is also an entrepreneur and a dad so he stopped in and brought his son over who played with my daughter in the back yard. Sweetie says the house is a drop in centre/peer-support group for entrepreneurs – all you have to do is have a problem, a kid, and a happy meal and come on over.
We are both working on multiple projects at the same time and we were both sharing some of our recent frustrations. Namely getting things done. Getting all the various consultants and 3rd party contractors to meet their deadlines and push their piece of the project along.
A lot of effort and emotional energy goes into creating and finishing a project – and when other people are letting you down its demoralizing and defeating – it opens the door just enough to let doubt in. “This is taking way too long, maybe it’s a horrible idea … why did I even get started in this … how much has it cost already?” Doubt can cause you to start diverting your attention to Plan B.
PLAN B
I hate to get too metaphysical on you – but the moment you conceive of a PLAN B, you simultaneously create the reason for it. I don’t have a PLAN B. Most successful people don’t. Most successful people focus their energy on finishing rather than on thinking up PLAN B. When a failing entrepreneur is sitting around thinking about how to stop, a successful entrepreneur is thinking about how to finish.
The Last 10
They say that the last ten pushups do all the good. The first bunch are easy, you fly right through them to get yourself to the point of failure – the last 10 pushups are a struggle, your muscles are finally tearing themselves apart, the last ten pushups do all the good. All of the other effort is to get you here – to the end, to the hardest part.
In life, and entrepreneurship it’s always easier to stop before the final 10, and it’s really tempting sometimes. It’s always easier to phone it in. It’s always easier to be average. It’s always easier to keep quiet and let someone else raise an objection. It’s always easier to do it tomorrow. As a parent, its always easier to let DVDs do the child minding. Its always easy to let them watch TV, or play video games. It’s always easier to not suggest that we all get up, get on our bikes and get moving.
And its always easier to work for someone else.
The Point of Failure
To succeed as an entrepreneur you have to bring yourself to the point of failure. You have to believe in what you are doing and you have to be willing to keep pushing it through. Successful entrepreneurs don’t get defeated by 3rd party contractors who are late, they just manage them better. They make mistakes, they learn from it, they adjust and it never happens again.
How many would be entrepreneurs do you meet that have great ideas but no money to get the ideas off the ground? They will tell you that with some money they could get started and they would succeed.
No they wouldn’t.
Here is how I know – if money were the only thing standing in their way they would go get some.
They may not have any money, but I assure you getting money is the easiest part of being a successful entrepreneur. And if they can’t figure out how to do that, how to get creative, how to get someone else who has money to see that their idea has merit, then they won’t be able to figure out how to solve the more significant problems they are going to face as entrepreneurs. If they can’t figure out how to get started, they will never figure out how to finish.
Without the final ten pushups nothing can happen. There can be no new creation. There can be no new growth or development or reflection. Without the last ten pushups there is no evolution.
