Cut the Bullshit: How Getting All BS Out of Your Life Will Take You to the Next Level

Bullshit, synonymous with crap, gibberish, nonsense, rubbish, and malarkey, it’s something you have to confront in your life to succeed as an entrepreneur. If business success was a mountain that you are climbing, then bullshit would be the weight holding you back from reaching the summit. If you want to see the gorgeous view at the top, you have to be willing to work your ass off to get there.

 No excuses. No smoke screens. No bullshit.

 Cut out the reasons why you can’t do things, the “make it rich” schemes, and the shortcuts to success. There is no such thing as a shortcut. There’s hard work and long, arduous hours of diligent work without immediate results. These are the things that many would-be founders aren’t willing to do to succeed.

 This is the real world, where life quite often throws you gut-wrenching curve balls that send you to your knees. You’ve gotta know how to do the work it takes to make it to the top in the business world while taking the punches and rebounding quick.

 Here’s some things you need to get rid of in order to make it to the top in business:

 1- Excuses

A successful business owner never makes excuses. Instead, he or she comes with solutions. When they make mistakes, they acknowledge them and find a way to do better moving forward. A person with excuses points to external factors, like things and people around them, as to why something went wrong. Would-be leaders do not make excuses. It is always their fault, but they do not mind. They take ownership, chalk up mistakes to a part of the process, and move forward with change.

 2- The need for immediate recognition and gratification

In the social media, people like information and results fast. One huge misnomer about success in business is thinking that you can hit it big fast and in a hurry. As a business owner, at times (especially at the beginning of a business), you have to be willing to bury your head in the books, learn all you can and soak in everything like a sponge. An “everybody look at me” mentality will cost you in the long run if you don’t have all your t’s crossed and i’s dotted. Do your homework. Be the best at what you do and the likes, follows and the dollar signs will follow (in time).

 3- The “treat yo’ self” mentality

You need to put in the real work to succeed in business. This means in the early stages of business not taking holidays or taking every weekend off to rest. While sleep is important to your overall health (it is recommended that adults 26 and older get an average of seven to nine hours of sleep a day), long vacations and trips to Vegas or Miami are not necessary. There is no spring break in adulthood on the road to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Investors are not going to want to put their dollars behind a new company where the founder is jet-setting to music festivals and resorts each weekend. This attitude screams entitled, inconsistent and lazy. Do yourself a favor and get rid of the this mentality now.

 4- Surrounding yourself with the wrong crowd

There is the age old saying that you are the company you keep. If your inner circle is a bunch of lazy, indulgent, entitled (extremely cliché) millennials, do not be surprised if your business is off to a slow start. When you are trying to succeed in the business realm, you need like-minded people by your side who know business success and failure alike and can speak to your business journey. You need people who will give you the cold, hard truth and call you out when an idea or attitude you have absolutely sucks. Keep people in your circle who push you forward. Cut the dead weight.

 5- Fear of failure

Get used to losing and learn to enjoy it. This is a part of the equation of starting a business. The irony is that you got in this game of business to make a penny. However, the reality is that being an entrepreneur is hard. A true entrepreneur fails big and often, but he or she knows that what is most important is how the failure is handled. Cut out the lie that you will have instant success or that failure is a bad thing. You are going to lose at some point but how you face that loss, failure or huge bombing is the most important key to your success.

 6- Talking the talk without walking the walk

One of the worst things you can do as a business owner is to sell something or talk about something that you have no first-hand knowledge about. Don’t offer career advice services if you don’t know the first thing about succeeding in business, resume writing and job searching. A lot of people talk. Few people do. Offer what you know. Don’t create a brand or business that is not built on authenticity.