"If You Need Inspiring Words .... Don't Do It."

What Elon said got me thinking.

I believe it mostly applies to the entrepreneurs out there; fiercely independent, risk-taking individuals who want to achieve a specific goal or impact on the world, and leave a legacy.

If you are passionate about what you do, it will help keep the drive and motivation. Being a successful entrepreneur takes relentless drive, commitment, perseverance and a belief in what you are trying to achieve, as well as belief in yourself to deliver.

There are many types of people in the world, and we need this mix of people. We cannot all be trailblazers. Similarly, we won’t survive if we are all followers. We need socially-oriented people, driven people, people who like the slow and steady life, the reliable, dependable ones. We need carers, intellectuals, entertainers and the rich tapestry of humanity.

But it is the entrepreneurs, the trail blazers, who lead society forward: The visionaries, creators and leaders.

Those are the people who come up against the walls of negativity, the people who tear you down. Personality types who, through good or bad intentions seek to undermine you, cast self doubt, maybe fight you, ridicule you, question your abilities or ask why you are so arrogant as to think that you are special and can do the job.

Ironically, those same people later will say how they always knew that you could do it, once you have succeeded. If you fail, they will smugly feel self-assured that they were right all along.

But to kick down the doors, break through the walls of resistance, sell the vision, fight for the funding, win over the hearts and minds of your early followers, string the beads of belief in you and your project through selling not just your ideas, but you as a person and the value of what you are doing - all these things take huge personal, emotional and often physical commitment. It takes stamina and large amounts of old-fashioned determination and focus.

That’s the easy bit ....

The next bit is making it happen. Creating whatever business, environment, movement, organisation, product(s) and the myriad of other things that you need to do in order to succeed.

You will have instant competition and others stealing your ideas. Incumbents will fight you, seeking to undermine you. Funders can lose faith in you. You can have angry clients when things fail. You also need to foster your happy clients who need to be curated, guided and made to feel loved and 'part of the family.' There will be government regulations, accounting, taxes, grants, patent wars, cash flow problems, getting clients to pay ...… the list of your daily battles goes on and on. You need to either win or excel. Fail, and you’re out of the game. and you can lose everything.

It’s like running across a field back and forward every day. A field with people lined along either side with guns with real, live bullets. You have to miss each and every bullet. Get through 99 of them and get hit by the 100th and it all ends.

You also need to deal with the bad stuff: Product failures, staff problems and motivation, money expected but not arriving, malicious or justified bad press, black swan events, supplier issues, regulation changes, etc.

The bottom line is that if on top of all of that, if then you also are not particularly motivated for what you are doing, you don’t really have a passion or a vision, you are just bumbling your way through because 'I need a job' or 'I was told to do it' or even 'I just want to make money,' then you will almost certainly fail. If you don’t get hit by one of the bullets, you will simply just run out of steam. It will feel like too much effort, too much to deal with and not what you want in your life when there are other ways to live your life.

Without genuine passion and drive, it is close to impossible to take on the world, drive a revolution, motivate others, power your way to entrepreneurial success through the daily heated battle in the trenches with so much coming at you, relentlessly, all the time. It never stops. No matter if you are tired, sick, have family problems, suffering a bereavement, etc, you have to rise above all your personal issues and win every battle, make every decision 100% definitively and to a sufficient level that means you have won.

You simply will not do all of this, if your attitude to what you are doing is 'meh.' Or worse, if you need motivation to do it.

People who are 'ok,' who are just wanting to earn an income, who would prefer going down to the pub with their friends in preference to their work, who value weekends off and going on holidays above what they do for a living and who can 'leave the office behind them' at 5pm on the dot, these people are valued members of society and have valuable roles to play but they are not best suited to be entrepreneurs. They are less likely to succeed in that role. They can do very well in other roles and aspects of the economy and also be highly valued people.

It’s OK to be content in life and live a balanced 'normal' life. However, to be an entrepreneur, you need drive, commitment and passion.

When you are working on that thing that you are passionate about, it doesn’t feel like work. You’re doing what you love. So like Elon's quote, “If you need inspiration, (just) don’t do it”.