Many people love to eat sausage because it tastes so good.
But, if you ever witnessed how sausage was made and the ingredients that went into it, it would turn your stomach.
Many people who desire success, do so because of the lifestyle it offers – mansions, yachts, exotic vacations, private jets, expensive cars, jewelry, house on the beach.
But if you really knew what goes into becoming a successful entrepreneur, it would turn your stomach.
The Ingredients of Success
- Long Work Hours – The Dreamer/Entrepreneurs in my Rich Habits Study worked an average of 61 hours a week, for twelve years. Weekend and vacations were almost non-existent. Those long work hours impacted everyone in the Dreamer’s immediate orbit. Family and friends are hit the hardest by their absence. Often one spouse must take up the slack and raise their children, almost as if they were a single parent. Close friendships whither on the vine, due to those long work hours.
- Financial Stress – Until the Dream begins to pay off, making ends meet can cause almost intolerable stress. Only the strong can survive that stress and that includes the spouses. In the early going, getting a steady paycheck is near impossible. Weak marriages will almost certainly fall apart, due to this stress.
- High Risk – Dreamers have to put everything they own on the line. Their homes, retirement plans, and savings become the assets that breathes life into their Dream. When a Dreamer runs out of assets, they have no choice but to turn to debt in order to continue to finance their Dream. The lucky ones are eventually able to secure Lines of Credit to keep them afloat. The unlucky ones are forced to rely on credit cards or loans from family and friends to survive until they thrive. If they thrive. Pursuing a Dream is a gamble. There’s absolutely no guarantee that the Dream will every pay off. Many fail. In fact, 27% in my Rich Habits Study failed at least once. Failure can mean bankruptcy. Sometimes that bankruptcy is followed by divorce.
- Growth Habits – Successful people forge daily habits which help them grow, improve and become the best at what they do. But, forging good habits, in the beginning, is hard work. You need discipline and a strong reserve of willpower. It’s particularly not easy to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to engage in the growth habits that create success:
- Daily Reading to Learn – Reading helps you to increase your knowledgebase, making you more valuable to everyone you serve. But it’s not easy devoting hours every day to reading to learn.
- Daily Practice – Practicing three or more hours every day to maintain and improve your skills, isn’t easy.
- Daily Exercise – Exercise not only keeps your body healthy, it helps strengthen and improve brain cells. Daily exercise helps extend the life of all cells in the body by keeping telomeres healthy and long. Daily exercise feeds the body with oxygen, which helps boost cognitive ability. Daily exercise increases the ability of the mitochondria (fuel plants inside every cell) to convert glucose/ketones into ATP (fuel). Daily exercise helps your blood and lungs sweep away waste, bacteria and virus-infected cells. It’s not easy to exercise 30 minutes or more every day.
- Daily Relationship Building – It’s hard work to build and maintain relationships with Influencers who can help fast track success.
What entrepreneurs have to go through in order to succeed is very much a walk-through hell. For that reason, I have come to realize that entrepreneurs are superhuman. They are real-life superheroes.
Tom Corley is an accountant, financial planner, public speaker, and author of the books “Effort-Less Wealth: Smart Money Habits At Every Stage of Your Life” and “RichKids: How to Raise Our Children to Be Happy and Successful in Life“. Corley’s work has appeared on CNN, USA Today, The Huffington Post, SUCCESS Magazine, and many other media outlets and podcasts in the U.S. and 27 other countries. Tom is a frequent contributor to Business Insider and CNBC.
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