"If I was a superhero, I would want my superpower to be Will Power" Hila Sheleg
How To Become The Entrepreneur Of Your Life is a four-part series:
- How To Become The Entrepreneur Of Your Life
- Why Is Understanding Who I Am Critical To Entrepreneurial Success?
- How To Discover Your True Passion And Boost Clarity And Motivation
- Startup Of You: Entrepreneurial Strategy For Life Change
A Man In Need Of A Cause
A man carries a big bag up a hill. Halfway to the top, he meets a cart stuck in deep mud. The horses are tired and out of steam. The two farmers pushing the cart cannot move it a further inch. The man puts down his bag and leans against the cart. By nightfall, the cart makes it to the top of the hill. The farmers continue on their way, and the man walks back down the mountain to pick up his bag.
What a lovely kids' tale of good-heartedness and a show of human companionship. But let us leave these two morals of the story (and before we move further, I must highlight that I do believe you need to help people in need; this is just an example to help make a point) and ask ourselves a different question. Why did this good and capable man divert from his route and give his time to help the farmers push the cart up a steep and muddy mountain road?
Congratulations, you've made it to the top of the hill. But is it the right one for you?
Yes, there is the option that he's a great guy, and we should all help each other. There's another option: he was in no hurry, so why not stop and help others in need? And there's the third option - he had nothing better to do.
People who are talented and capable but don't don't have a clear agenda of what to do with their time (which links back to Who they are) will end up doing someone else's tasks. Typically, that other person has a clear view of where they want to go, like the farmers who knew they had to get to the top of the hill before nightfall. To make progress, you need to have an agenda. You need to know where you want to go and to do that; you must define your Want.
In The Woods
In a Netflix series called McGregor Forever, we get a glimpse into the life of Conor McGregor a multi-weight UFC champion. If you are unfamiliar with the UFC genre, it is a type of full-body martial art where athletes use kicking, boxing, or strangling to overcome each other in a fenced octagon ring. These fights are aggressive and violent and draw large crowds. Just for scale, McGregor earned more per minute than other famous athletes such as Tom Brady, Neymar, or Cristiano Ronaldo at the height of his career. Of course, it helped that he won battles within three minutes of the gong going off. Compared to a 90 minute football game with no goals, That is a dream ROI.
As you can imagine, to be at the top of such a demanding sport requires tremendous dedication. Here's a person who knows what he wants.
In the many interviews in the Netflix series, McGregor's coaches provide insights about his drive and character. The series covers the period in McGregor's life when injuries and a loss of interest in the sport led to losses in the octagon. In the words of one of his coaches, McGregor lost his Want. And with it went the motivation and the ability to win.
What happens when a top athlete loses his "Want?"
The benefit of finding your Want is that it gives you a sense of direction and urgency. When you find your Want, the thing you desire, then stopping by and assisting in any random task because it happens to align with your talent or abilities, will not be an option. If you clearly understand what you Want, losing the motivation to wake up early to train will not be an option. When you know what you Want, going to bed before you fix a piece of broken code will not be an option. When you know what you Want, the natural inclination is to go and get it. So, I hope you agree that after defining Who you are (covered in Part 2,) the next logical step is finding how to utilize your differentiated qualities best and identify what you Want to do with your unique capabilities.
The Want
Uncovering your Want is a lifelong journey that you need to cultivate throughout your life. What you want when you are an 18-year-old bachelor will differ from what you want when you are a 60-year-old empty nester. But in both cases, you still need to know what you Want to achieve.
If you ask a seasoned entrepreneur what they want, you will likely get a straight answer. They seek to achieve a specific goal. The goals are different, but the critical thing is that once you know your Want, the first present you get back is the urge and dedication to achieve it. As many Entrepreneurs will testify, as soon as you are out of the woods of uncertainty and clearly understand what you Want to achieve, everything you do is now rated based on how much it supports getting your Want.
Finding Your Want
And now to the one million dollar question, or in today's rates, the one billion dollar question. How do you find your Want? Because it may be that you are still in the woods. You have the urge to change your life, do things differently, or start something entirely new, but what do you Want?
I hope it will not be a letdown, but I can not paint this picture for you. But I can provide you with a few valuable pencils with which you can start sketching to find an answer.
1) One place to start looking at is the core of who you are. A person who is creative at her core, or a problem solver at his core, or whose core is rooted in empathy, meaning that is their core uniqueness and approach to life, will want to expand and excel in these qualities. Regardless of the challenge, the creative will look for an innovative solution, while the empathetic person will look to show they care. For both, an environment that allows them to excel in their core capabilities is preferable to one in which they struggle to express themselves. So go back to the definition of Who you are and identify your qualities that you want to expand.
2) This leads us to the second tool you can use: your success stories, and times in which you felt great about yourself. Look for incidents or events in which you were successful. How and why did the success come about? What motivated you to succeed? Who were the people that helped in this success story, and what was the environment? Most likely, Who you are and How you succeeded are linked, as your core capabilities served as tools in your path to success. These success stories will not spell out the specific Want but can indicate the direction of topics, activities, or behaviors you should consider.
3) The third option, which is often used by product entrepreneurs, involves examining the problem at hand. Rather than immediately seeking a solution, it is important to first have a solid understanding of the problem. This will make it easier to determine if the best solution has been found. Therefore, take a moment to examine what caused the need for change instead of jumping straight into action. Sometimes, it can be difficult to find a solution because the problem is not well-defined. However, when the problem is clearly defined, the solutions become more apparent.
Getting What You Want
Having a clear understanding of Who we are, serves as the stepping stone to helping us understand What we want. The next challenge is how you can achieve what we want, and that I will discuss next week.
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When you know Who you are and what you Want, it's down to how to get there.
