Yahoo Finance 3 important lessons for the young entrepreneur
Starting any new career is hard, especially one that requires you to take on the financial risk of starting a business.
There is a mentality which is fueled by budding entrepreneurs and social media that promotes a jet-set lifestyle and overnight success which couldn’t be further from reality.
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Here are three lessons that will help you fast-track your journey as a young entrepreneur.
1. Fail fast
Famously Van Gogh said, “Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures.”
Whether it’s an art form, a sport, or even a startup business or brand, more likely than not, achieving success in any of these was not done by just hitting the nail on the head.
For anyone staring down the long road of a new venture, try looking at the situation from a new perspective.
Have the humility to know that the chances are you won’t succeed on the first go, but have the confidence to push forward regardless and give it your best shot.
From then on it’s just a matter of trial and error until something sticks.
2. Delusional optimism
As the quote goes by the famous American author Norman Vincent Peale, “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among the stars.”
Delusional optimism is a personality trait which is synonymous across the large majority of successful entrepreneurs irrespective of their industry.
This is where a person is so focused and dialed in on an objective that realistic outcomes and risk are blatantly disregarded.
The facade is used to create a layer of confidence that motivates you to push for extreme goals.
Whatever the outcome you focus on happening will almost subconsciously affect how much effort you actually put in.
3. Everything benefits everything
Entrepreneurship, more often than not, is a numbers game. You don’t know what brand will be your ‘big win’ so you need to diversify and give yourself more opportunities to win.
The flipside is also managing to not overwork yourself and then burn out. It’s a tricky juggling act.
A good rule to focus on if you have more than one business is that they should in some way inherently benefit each other.
For an example of this, if you run an ecommerce brand then your ancillary business hypothetically could be in advertising, product design or even social media management.
An approach to always follow is to treat your brands as if they’re pieces of a much larger puzzle where eventually everything fits together nicely.
On those days when the juggle seems all too much? Well, that’s where the delusional optimism works its magic.
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