Most self made billionaires today were people like you one day. Then what happened? They took some decisions and reached the apex. They faced a lot of challenges during their journey. It’s their passion and determination that helped them to reach the pinnacle. They became so famous that we frequently quote them now. They gathered lots of tenets during this exciting journey. The best part is that they developed these tenets as they kept marching. I’m here to share some of the hardcore qualities that helped them reach where they are today. I would like to share it with some real life examples.
- Dare to Dream: A successful dreamer of today is a visionary of tomorrow. The law of attraction manifests the dreams into reality. Your dreams will come true, if you believe in it and work hard at it – sometimes even after you are gone. Walt Disney died in 1966, five year before Disney world opened. He was the pioneer of American animation industry. Disney world is so amazing that the whole world was mesmerized by its wonder as its doors opened in 1971. Attention to details and theme of the park were something no one had seen before. A reporter commented to Roy (Walt’s brother), “It’s too bad that Walt isn’t here to see this”. Roy replied, “He saw it first, that’s why it’s there”. That’s the power of dream.
- Tough decisions: An entrepreneur stands on a decision crossroads every day. He has to take crucial decisions very frequently. Sometimes all the choices are tough. However, a true leader will take the best decision or make best of whatever decision he takes. N R Narayana Murthy of Infosys had such a situation in 1990. Five of the seven founders had met to discuss possible sale of the company for $1 million. It was very tempting considering the business unfriendly India and so many years of hard work and toil. However, NRN was relentless and held his belief strong. He even went to the extent of offering to buy everyone’s share. They didn’t take the offer. Infosys has, since then, put India on IT map of the world.
- Crazy about knowledge: Knowledge is power. An entrepreneur must always have the edge. Often, this is achieved by having access to the right knowledge and actually investing in knowledge. Warren buffet, the most successful investor in the world reads 80% of his working day to stay ahead. He reads 500 pages daily. According to him, building knowledge is like building compound interest, the most powerful way to growth.
- Get up again: Nothing great is ever achieved without facing challenges. In your journey to greatness, you will fall multiple times. Some of these falls could give you excruciating pain. The key to success is to get up every single time and often with more power. That’s how you become great. In 1984, Steve Jobs was ousted from his own company (Apple) as the company lost millions of dollars developing Apple I, a product in which he had strong belief. He didn’t give up. He started his next venture and appropriately named it NeXT. But NeXT didn’t come close to producing the success of Apple. The same year, he also bought a struggling computer animation studio named Pixar from movie mogul George Lucas. Later, Apple bought the company for $400 million. Steve Jobs found his way back to Apple in 1997 and eventually made it the most valuable company. He never gave up by setbacks.
- Competitive advantage: Advantage always places you ahead. The most successful companies leverage their advantage to build huge empires before others catch-up. A lot of times their advantage is so big that it looks like unfair advantage. However, it exists though its like using drugs in sports. Google and Apple are two such examples. Google’s unparalleled search algorithm and Apple’s passion for user experience and ease of use has put them in a position of advantage. By the time others are able to catch up, they have already created a very big and loyal market for themselves.
- Shameless self promoter: A true entrepreneur always looks for opportunity to promote his services. So much so that sometimes people feel that he is shamelessly doing it. However, the entrepreneur knows that a lost opportunity could be very costly. Subroto Bagchi’s has quoted an interesting experience in his book “The High performance entrepreneur”. Bill Gates, the IT God was visiting India and a handful of IT entrepreneurs were specially invited to attend his session. All were very excited to hear from him. However, Mr Bagchi was deeply disappointed as Bill Gates used the opportunity to make a one hour presentation on Windows and its greatness. Later he realized that if you can’t sell your own product, who else will? The No. 1 job of an entrepreneur is to sell.
- Make mistakes: Entrepreneurs make mistakes. Their next move doesn’t come from a textbook. Some of these mistakes could be very expensive. However, if you don’t make mistake, you can’t grow to be a leader. Google has acquired over 170 companies in past 18 years. Larry Page and team would have done thorough analysis before the acquisition. Still, many of these were shut down. Still, Google the biggest name in search today. However, Page missed a massive opportunity by not joining the “social networking” revolution in time even though he could feel that it has huge potential. Google even offered $30,000,000 to buy the social networking site Friendster in 2003. However, they didn’t sell and Google didn’t build anything else as they would have thought that as a big mistake/risk. Looking back, Page says “I clearly knew that I had to do something and I failed to do it.” Had they done it, they could have created Facebook before actual Facebook.
- Fearless: An entrepreneur often explores uncharted territories. In the process, he steps on others feet, experiments and frequently bends and even breaks some rules. Albeit with the intention of solving a problem. The process makes him fearless as there is no other way to create a massive organization. Bhavish Aggarwal of Ola cabs in India faces this on a daily basis. From starting without license to surge pricing, Ola has to deal with various challenges and threats from the public as well the government. If Bhavish would have thought to keep himself within boundaries defined, he would have closed his business long back. Same is true for almost all big entrepreneurs.
- Stay Hungry: This is the next version of dreaming big. Staying hungry is the reason that the achievers achieve still more than the others. Hunger can make you do unbelievable things. It is the backbone of all creation. With so much success already to his credit, Mark Zuckerberg is thinking 10-20 years in advance. His vision of the future is beyond imagination of many. He is talking about speaking using power of minds, have computers describe images to you, being immune to diseases, using laser beams from the sky for internet, Virtual reality and Artificial intelligence. Facebook has purchased Oculus for $2.0 billion for same reasons and they don’t want to make the mistake that Larry page did.
Entrepreneurs are brave and they are crossing the new frontiers every day. Their journey is full of pain and challenges but they are the architects of tomorrow. The world needs more of them. Are you ready to be one?
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