Source: Inc.com
Most people won’t agree with me on this, but every successful entrepreneur will accept the fact that one will lose a lot of good friends in the journey of entrepreneurship.
It is strange yet true that your close friends/siblings/partners won’t understand what you are doing and they will start calling you a sociopath. Some will even call you a dickhead.
I am a very young entrepreneur. At the age of 18 when you lose your close ones and become a loner, well, that breaks you. But why does that happen? Why do we lose people? Is this like a disease that every entrepreneur suffers from? Or is it just a paradox?
Well, it is all true. Yes, we have a life in which we suffer from the paranoia of failure and the enthusiasm of getting successful. The paranoia is actually much more than the enthusiasm and this, sometimes create feelings like insecurity, narcissism, selfishness, impulsiveness, and anger. People close to us are unable to deal with that behaviour and most of them quit.
So what are some of the traits which one tends to develop during the process of becoming an entrepreneur and, people leave them for that? By the way, these are the traits of some of the most successful entrepreneurs!
• Entrepreneurs are blunt: Believe me or not, but after you pursue entrepreneurship, you start talking to the point. You develop that trait such that people around you sometimes get hurt by your true opinions. Well, truth be told, humanity does not like direct or frank talks and being an entrepreneur, you just cannot resist that.
• Entrepreneurs are insecure: If your mom calls other kids beta, you start getting insecure. Yeah, it’s a fact. The paranoia of failure takes over you in such a massive way that you start getting insecure of everything around you. And if you have a girlfriend/boyfriend, well they are going to have a life full of nightmares.
If your co-founder is in a relationship and has other engagements, you become insecure about whether or not they would be able to give you time.
Fact: Entrepreneurship = Insecurity.
• Entrepreneurs are selfish and self-centered: Actually people consider us selfish and self-centered, we, in reality are not. We are no where near that. Yes, I’d say we are rather obsessed about our startup and product but, these are the products which we are making to change millions of lives around the globe. And keeping that in mind, we are no where self centered.
If you still feel that an entrepreneur is self centered, see yourself and what you actually have done with your life. 🙂
• The biggest enjoyment is work: This is the reason why we lose most of our close ones. As we are so obsessed with our product, we get so high on working that we stop spending time with our close ones. Well you know what happens next.
People who have not found why they exist on the planet usually find passionate people idiotic and mad. For people, even Einstein was a mad scientist.
• They stop caring: Yes, an entrepreneur will only know about the current affairs of startup world and the finance world. Most of them don’t know about what’s happening in their colony or what’s happening in politics.
If something is neither under your control or influence or is no where related to your work, better stop caring about that.
• Entrepreneurs are impulsive: This happens when at times, you hear so many people saying no to you about your product. During these times, don’t lose faith otherwise it could hurt you badly.
• Entrepreneurs are lonely: We live a very lonely life. Even when we have a team and a co-founder, we feel very lonely. Why? Because of the thought of failure I guess.
• Entrepreneurs are short-tempered: Well, your co-founder and team will answer it.
From the next time if you feel low because your close ones are against you and everyone is leaving you, don’t lose faith. Just keep one thing in mind — you are moving towards success.
I would leave you with a poem of Les Brown which always inspired me.
“If you want a thing bad enough to go out
and
fight for it,
to work day and night for it,
to give up your time, your peace and your sleep for it…
if all that you dream and scheme is about it,
and life seems useless and worthless without it…
if you gladly sweat for it and fret for it and plan for it
and lose all your terror of the opposition for it…
if you simply go after that thing you want
with all of your capacity, strength and sagacity,
faith, hope and confidence and stern pertinacity…
if neither cold, poverty, famine, nor gout,
sickness nor pain, of body and brain,
can keep you away from the thing that you want…
if dogged and grim you beseech and beset it,
with the help of God, you will get it!”
PS: I don’t believe in god, but in an energy that keeps me moving.
Originally posted on my personal blog: hs.thetimeahead.com
Follow me on twitter @hankock007