5 Things Successful Entrepreneurs Don’t Waste Time On
The following is a guest post by Carmen Jacob. Her bio follows.
John, a poor man, wants to cross the border with a donkey. Two Customs officers approach and ask him some questions searching through John things. He had only a small bag of food, so the officers allowed him to cross.
A few days later, John and a donkey are again at the border. Again he had only a bag of food with him, so he was allowed to cross.
The same thing happens a few times more, and the officers became suspicious: “This guy is smuggling something across the border,” and searched John more carefully, but they haven’t found anything.
For thirty years, every other day, John crossed the border with a bag of food and a donkey, looking more and more wealthy: better dressed and groomed, golden watch, designer shoes and sunglasses. The Customs officers were baffled: “What is he smuggling?”
One day, after the officers retired, they saw John on the street and started a conversation.
“John, we were sure you were smuggling something across the border, but we didn’t find anything on you. Tell us, what was it? We are retired now so, we can’t do anything against you. Please, just tell us!”
“It was the donkey,” John said and smiled.
It happens too often in life to overlook the obvious and lose precious time and energy with unimportant and meaningless things.
Who do you look at and want to model to become a successful entrepreneur? Yes, of course, to successful entrepreneurs. Is it not?
To make sure you haven’t missed obvious things about them, here are five things successful entrepreneurs don’t waste time on:
Negative things and people
Time is one of the most precious possessions you have because it has boundaries and flies away, never coming back.
Spend your time wisely. Don’t let it pass unnoticed or on negative people or things.
Gather around yourself people that have similar interests and views; people that like, appreciated, value, and accept you as you are.
Remind yourself that, in our modern times, the fittest and the survivor is not the person with the biggest physical power. It is the individual who knows how to collaborate, the person most connected, most liked and influential.
Self-doubt
Trust yourself more and be less self-conscious and, even less concerned about what others might think of you.
Listen to your intuition and believe your instincts. Your intuition and instincts are born out of your experience through life so far. Therefore, who or what are more suited to guide you in your endeavors and success journey?
Free yourself from self-doubt and move forward. Yes, it happens to make mistakes. Who doesn’t apart from those who never try anything and stagnate in life? Trust yourself and be confident that you can deal with whatever life throws at you. Be confident because you crossed the obstacles and difficulties that life has put in front of you so far; therefore, you are able to do it in the future as well.
One past success or failure
I guess you know at least one of those people lingering and wasting their life in sorrow caused by a past big success or failure. They are stuck in the past, melancholic about those 15 minutes of fame or that day of shame from twenty years ago.
They are easy to recognize because they are telling you the same story over and over again: how they’ve conquered the world for a brief moment or lost it in five minutes.
Success is a journey and is filled with achievements and failures; there is no other way. Build on your accomplishments, learn from your failures and mistakes and move forward. Be the happy and the successful person you want to be. What is in your past, has passed a long time ago.
Imagine your bright future; aspire to it, dream it, and start moving to get what you want.
Getting stuck on one idea
One of the most valuable lessons (as a successful entrepreneur) is to know when to give up. Recognize when something is not working and try in a different way. Almost any idea that you have seems brilliant and worth pursuing at the beginning, but if you notice, in time, that you don’t get the results you want, get creative and design a new idea, design a new path.
Listen, there is no failure because life always goes on no matter what happens. Therefore, as long as you have life left in you, discover other ways of achieving your goal and remember! When something is not working, the process is the issue, not you as a person. The idea failed you, not the other way around. Life is too short to make yourself fit into what is offered to you; the offer has to fit you. Right?
Competing for the sake of vanity
Vanity has no place in business because it brings you nothing apart from a short moment of self-admiration. Plus, it can make lose trust and respect.
Now, do you believe that you can make a difference in the world through your business and who you are?
The difference is less made by legislators and governments.
Because (you see?) the difference, for each of us, is mostly made by people with a good sense of balance, respect and love for human life. Individuals that know what they want from life and how to get it in a way that both parties (themselves and their partners/collaborators – in life and business) win something at the end.
Make a difference!
Make a difference, if for no other reasons, do it because you have the power and you can!
Bio: Carmen Jacob is the creator of several self improvement guides, courses, and books, which focus on using what you already have to improve your life and the life of those around you. She is also the co-founder of self improvement.org
Image credits
