Success- Follow Your Passion

You know you must challenge the way you think to achieve success as an entrepreneur, so let’s examine the second challenge you must accept. This is to find your own personal challenge, based on your own vision of business success.

This may sound a bit esoteric at first, but let me bring it into practical terms. Finding your personal challenge is the main challenge you have to meet. It is the source of the motivation and drive you’ll need, if you want to claim your success. Remember, Challenge will give you the motivation to keep you going on your Journey of Success. Every time your business or your life gets a little rough, your challenge is the one thing that will keep you going. Your challenge is your passion.

It is easy to find your personal challenge. As my friend and colleague, Dr. Denis Waitley, is fond of saying,

“Chase your passion, not your pension.” Simply ask yourself why you want to become an entrepreneur and how you define success. Remember that this is your personal challenge, so be sure to base the answers to these questions on you and not on anyone else.

Meditate about why you want to start a business and how you define success until you have an answer. Some people define success by comparing themselves to other people. That is a success that won’t happen. Remember, you have to base your challenge and your success on yourself.

Perhaps the best way to explain this is by using some examples. My reason for being in the real estate investment business or any business for that matter is because I wanted to be home-based, happy, wealthy and free and, since 1981, that is where I’ve been. Now, I’ve had quite a few years to refine that, but that’s what it has become for me.

Let’s look at other people’s reasons for getting started as an entrepreneur, reasons that have come from real people I’ve met, mostly who have attended my seminars. Most people say they want to be independent, to be their own boss. Others want to get off the clock, stop measuring out the hours and their wages. In fact, one attorney I know said he wanted to stop relying on the linear productivity of his time his way of saying that he wants to make more money than he can make when he bills for his time.

A man once told me that he wanted to show his two kids how to have a better life than he did. Another said he wanted to support his wife in a manner to which she was unaccustomed. Another man told me that he wanted to prove to himself that he has worth, by helping other people and also helping himself.

A woman once told me that she and her husband wanted to help people improve their lives, in terms of health, money, and relationships. They wanted to share what they had learned and to help people take responsibility for their lives.

A single mother told me she was going to school, wanted to get her degree, and also wanted to have a business that allowed her to be with her daughter. Another woman said that going into business was the first thing her husband let her try on her own in 33 years of marriage. Her challenge was to find her own identity. For her, success came from defining herself, finding herself.

Each of these people, in giving their reason for becoming an entrepreneur, is defining what success means to them personally and is revealing their passion that is, the passion that will carry them to success as an entrepreneur for the rest of their lives. To find your challenge, think about what your passion is, what you really want out of life.

No matter what your reasons once you identify the reason for wanting to start a business you have taken the first step to identifying your personal challenge. Once you have identified your personal challenge, you must write it down because your whole Journey of Success starts with this challenge. Write it down, turn it into a poster, tape it to your bathroom mirror and keep it in front of you so that you will always return to it when you need it.

Once you know your challenge, you must begin to feel it. Simply stating your challenge and writing it down is not enough. An unfelt challenge will not give you the motivation you need to claim your success.

Challenge is something that transforms you. It transforms you into someone who desires to achieve all of your wants. If you cannot begin to feel the challenge of being an entrepreneur, then perhaps you have not identified your true challenge and need to rethink the business you have chosen. If you do not feel passionately enough about the business challenge of being an entrepreneur to stay motivated, then rethink your challenge.