Motivation is a daily struggle for entrepreneurs, so I’ve put together these motivation-boosting tips from 10 of today’s successful entrepreneurs.

1. Fear of failure.

In an article that he wrote for Bloomberg, Mark Cuban stated that he uses the fear of failure for self-motivation.

“No matter what business you’re in, you’re always at risk — particularly in technology, where it changes so rapidly you’ve got to put in the effort to keep up,” writes the Shark Tank panel member. “There’s always the opportunity for some 18-year-old to come out of nowhere and crush you—that motivates the hell out of me.”

“Every one of my companies, whether something I started or something I invested in, is a scoreboard. How am I doing? A lot of investors or advisers play it as a numbers game.”

“If they invest in 20 companies, as long as one success covers 19 losses, they did OK. I look at every loss as a huge failure. I had an investment go bad recently. I lost $1.5 million on it. It pisses me off to no end.”

Failed at something? Ask these Mark Cuban questions.

“You can also use it as motivation. What did I do wrong? Who did I trust that I shouldn’t trust? What can I learn from this situation so I can avoid it next time?”

2. Do what you’re passionate for.

This is the key. However, as Chalmers Brown, co-founder and CTO of Due writes, “We want to not only make a lot of money but enjoy what we do as well. We are willing to take on the risk of unstable pay in exchange for following our dreams.”

“Unfortunately, your dream job may not always be the best decision financially. Sometimes your hobbies are best kept as projects in your spare time for fun (which is great!). If you do want to try to turn your passion into a full-time job, these tips can help you get started the right way.”

Brown gives the tips below:

• Improve something that you’re already doing.
• Figuring out where market.
• Sharing your passion with others.
• Stay happy and motivated by assigning tasks that you’re not a fan of to someone else.

3. Keep affirmations where you can see them.

“It’s so easy as an entrepreneur to get sucked into feeling exhausted or frustrated, and often the blame is yours alone,” writes Murray Newlands, founder of online invoicing company Sighted. “But a negative mindset sucks up mental bandwidth and energy that you need to stay focused and successful.

“It is crucial to maintain an optimistic attitude in the face of setbacks. Whenever you see a quote or a picture that helps you stay positive, place it front and center so you can remember what this journey is all about.”

4. Leverage the power of rejection.

“On June 26, 2008, our friend Michael Seibel introduced us to seven prominent investors in Silicon Valley. We were attempting to raise $150,000 at a $1.5M valuation. That means for $150,000 you could have bought 10 percent of Airbnb.”

“Below you will see five rejections. The other two did not reply,” writes Airbnb Co-Founder Brian Chesky on Medium. “The investors that rejected us were smart people, and I am sure we didn’t look very impressive at the time.”

Today Airbnb is valued at just under $30 billion.

5. Surround yourself with highly successful and motivated people.

“No one does it alone,” said Mark Zuckerberg during a Q&A in 2016. “When you look at most big things that get done in the world, they’re not done by one person, so you’re going to need to build a team.”

When building your All-Star team, seek out people who excel in the areas where you’re not strong or have less experience. “You’re going to need people that have complementary skills,” Zuckerberg emphasized. “No matter how talented you are, there are just going to be things that you don’t bring to the table.”

6. Never feel sorry yourself.

“All of my best successes came on the heels of a failure, so I’ve learned to look at each belly flop as the beginning of something good,” said Barbara Corcoran, founder of The Corcoran Group and Shark on Shark Tank.

“If you just hang in there, you’ll find that something is right around the corner. It’s that belief that keeps me motivated. I’ve learned not to feel sorry for myself, ever. Just five minutes of feeling sorry for yourself takes your power away and makes you unable to see the next opportunity.”

7. Look for inspiration.

Inspiration is a driving force that you can use to motivate you. Lyft Co-Founder Jordan Zimmerman said that, “Right now, my daughter is a huge inspiration. Thinking about the future of our cities, the world and what environment she’s going to grow up in.”

“Also, the driver and passenger stories we hear every day. In a past team meeting, we had a mother come in and tell the story herself. She is a Lyft driver living in New York and her daughter is in Los Angeles.

“The daughter was going through a rough living situation with a roommate and had to leave and move into a new place. The mother called a Lyft for her daughter, had a quick conversation with the driver and the driver took care of her daughter in this tough situation.”

“These stories inspire us to think how we can make things more efficient and create a platform for two people to have a really positive interaction?”

8. Don’t obsess over your vision.

Yes. Think about your vision. But don’t spend too much time over it or it will bog you down. Elon Musk, for example, only spends around 30 minutes a week on his vision of SpaceX colonizing Mars. Besides those 30 minutes, Musk spends a majority of his time focused on the milestones that are the most immediate and critical.

9. Be grateful.

“Most of the time when people ask me about motivation, 80 percent of the time I attribute it to gratitude. If you want real fuel to win, be grateful,” writes Gary Vaynerchuk.

“Gratitude is what has gotten me through my toughest moments in business. Whenever I have lost a deal to a competitor, or an incredible employee, or millions of dollars in revenue, I default to gratitude. It’s impossible not to stay motivated or get too down when you’re feeling grateful.”

10. Forget about motivation.

“So many people wait to feel ‘motivated’ before they do anything. Here’s a newsflash: happy productive people do not wait for motivation, they just get on with it,” said Marie Forleo. I suggest that you watch the entire video where Marie shares her tips for motivation. It’s spot-on.

Source: entrepreneur.com ~ By: John Rampton ~ Image: pixabay

I’ve seen pretty much every size, shape and flavor of entrepreneur over the past 20 years while living and breathing all things business.  Companies come and go.  They succeed and fail.  Inevitably, the entrepreneurs that start these companies also come and go because, they too, succeed and fail.  So what motivates successful entrepreneurs? Many I see move on to their next business, others take a break to lick their wounds, and still others seem to leave startup life permanently.

The  light of failure shines brightly on those who aren’t in business for the right reasons.  When the going gets unbearably tough, and it will, these types are done.  Game over.  In fact, they were done before they started – a self fulfilling prophecy if you will.  Those that start off wrong don’t always end up that way, but they sure don’t help their cause much.

So what are the “right” and “wrong” motivations you ask?  I’d suggest the following:

– Solving a problem you are so passionate about that even if the solution doesn’t result in wealth, you are still thrilled you “solved” it.  A fun surprise? If you really do solve a big problem, wealth will almost always follow anyway.

– No real exit strategy.  The best entrepreneurs automatically attract options. Large scale success creates buyers.  Starting a business so you can sell it can certainly be in the back of your mind, but it had better stay there for awhile.  The best investors (should you have any) love entrepreneurs that think big and aren’t focused on how they can sell the business.  Focus on how you sell the product.

– Moderate to light desire to be well known or famous. Some entrepreneurs I know are more focused on their personal brand than they are on their company brand.  The best ones reverse that entirely.  If your business rocks, you will get all the notoriety you’ll need.

– They definitely aren’t doing it because it is the cool thing to do.  Many fall into this category even though they won’t admit it.  When they have their first failure they’ll see just how “cool” entrepreneurship is.  Doing something because it is cool might work as a teen, but don’t let it influence you as an adult. Dance to the beat of your own drum.

– Love, love, love people.  This doesn’t mean they are an extrovert.  They just love working with, hiring, sharing and learning with their team.  If you can’t handle the ups and downs of working with all kinds of employees, you are pretty much DOA.

I’m not saying you have to eliminate and/or add all of these things to your motives.  I’ll be the first to admit that money was often a motivator for me.  However, it was never the primary motivator.  I did not lay awake at night thinking about money.  I laid awake at night thinking about my customers, my employees, and – most importantly – how to make my product or service that much better.  I wanted everyone to try my product or service, and I wanted them to love it as I did.  That’s really what it comes down to; an almost unquenchable passion for what you are doing for others.

Being a great entrepreneur really means you delight in the service of others, I suppose.  What a pure and meaningful motivator after all.

Source: forbes.com ~ BY: Alex Lawrence ~ Image: pixabay

Each of us respond to different drives and motivations, but there are many drives we can choose from that not only make our careers more fruitful but also more enjoyable. Those people who experience the “Sunday Blues” are in careers which may provide security and certain freedoms, but they lack joy and fulfillment. Sunday comes around and many of us immediately begin dreading our work week; thereby, ruining the rest of their weekend for ourselves and those we are close with. There is no point in staying in careers that make us miserable. There is so much opportunity in the world. We have to find the correct motivations to go out and make these opportunities happen.

1. Money

Initially, the main thing we view as the most worthy motivating force inspiring us to work hard is money. Making money is a noble and necessary motivation which directs us into our careers and motivates us to stay in them. Money is a tool we all need for survival, but earning money also provides us with feelings of status, success and achievement. Money provides us the freedoms we crave in terms of the lifestyles we want to live. The one thing money doesn’t’t bring is happiness, as we can see from the many well-known people in our society who appear to have it all, but the decisions they make clearly show us that money is far from the only motivation that drives us to work hard and to feel happy.

2. Purpose

To live a truly fulfilled life we need to have a sense of purpose. Those without purpose live with more depression and feelings of aimlessness than others. When we have purpose we feel directed and more certain about our lives and the directions in which we’re heading. Purpose brings us deeper feelings of security than money could ever offer because money comes and goes. While positions and or circumstances wax and wane creating uncomfortable uncertainties, having purpose keeps us moving forward motivated to reach our bigger picture.

3. Making a difference

There is nothing more fulfilling than knowing that what we contribute in this world makes a significant difference. There are many careers that provide us with the money we desire but that also may come along with a ton of unrewarding stress. Ultimately, we spend the majority of our time in our lives at work so we may as well find a way to make our career meaningful for ourselves and others. The greatest gift of working in careers which give back to our communities is the way it changes and impact our own lives. When we see that what we contribute makes a difference, it makes our careers and our purpose feel that much more rewarding. When we are inspired we are more motivated to get back to the grind each new day.

4. Responsibility

Our career may be stressful, but being irresponsible is even more stressful. When we are irresponsible we dig ourselves into holes that are impossible to get out of; whereas, when we have a solid career and sense of responsibility we trust we can pull ourselves out of just about anything financially. Scott Peck is his book The Road Less Traveled makes the point that there is no such thing as an irresponsible psychologically healthy person. Self-management brings personal development and self-actualization. Being responsible brings us to a sense of balance, feelings of success, motivation and self-trust.

5. Challenge

We grow the most in our motivation when we are optimally challenged. Being in careers which feel like groundhog day every day do not provide enough challenge for us to make any new efforts or changes to our behavioral patterns around working hard. In his book Resilience navy seal Eric Grietens discusses how when we are optimally challenged it is natural for us to rise to the occasion. We want to see and prove that we can leap over whatever hurdles are placed in front of us to glean the satisfaction of having a win at the end game. These wins may be tough to come by and we may fail along our road of challenge, but this is exactly how we develop the resiliency that keeps us motivated and striving for what is next.

6. Community

The work environment, no matter the field we’re in, connects us with other people. Success is never a one-man-job. Being connected individually or to a team brings us into relationships that are meaningful and also to mutually satisfying goals to strive for. As humans we are designed for connection and communication. Community brings us a sense of belonging, the satisfying purpose of our role and increased communication, problem-solving and negotiation skills.

The greatest reward of all is acknowledgment. We all need, desire and want to be acknowledged when we have performed well and/or when we haven’t. The work environment is the one place that can motivate us from deep within. Acknowledgement can come in the form of a compliment, a raise, a promotion, club trips, bonuses, or support and encouragement. Personal growth and higher visions of what we’re capable of achieving cannot come without the all important ingredient of acknowledgment. Acknowledgment gives us something meaningful to work for or towards. in my book Success Equations: A Path to Living an Emotionally Wealthy Life I explain that acknowledgement is our yardstick for success.

8. Duty

Having a sense of duty, a place to go, things to accomplish and achieve is a great motivation. Having a sense of duty is necessary for the development of a strong identity. Having a career provides us an important role to fulfill that is backed by strong values. When we live our lives motivated by strong values we are given the opportunity to build and define our character. Having a sense of duty is what motivates us to be good to ourselves, honest in our approach to relationships and to develop a positive reputation. There is nothing that will speak more highly of us than our character and what we stand for.

Source: entrepreneur.com ~ By: Sherrie Campbell ~ Image: pixabay