What works is passion.\u00a0 First and foremost, you have to love your idea.\u00a0 You have to love it so much that you interrupt yourself in conversations to make notes about it.\u00a0 You scribble on napkins in diners, bore all your friends to death, and make your spouse give you the look<\/i> when he or she realizes you\u2019re not really there in the room but off in dreamland. You have to love it that much.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because becoming an entrepreneur is not easy.\u00a0 It requires more time than there are hours in the day, more effort than you ever thought possible, and more money than you \u2013 gulp \u2013 realized.\u00a0 Do you want to go through all the hassle and end up doing something you don\u2019t love?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m serious, now.\u00a0 I know personally of some businessmen in my husband\u2019s social circle who have their own stores and they are miserable.\u00a0 One opened a restaurant because his older brother owns one in another city. He doesn\u2019t like to cook, he hates the odor of food in his clothes, he despises the daily hassle of dealing with the employees,\u00a0 and, oh yeah, he\u2019s not that fond of the customers either.\u00a0 Yes, he\u2019s a businessman, but is he successful?\u00a0 Define success.\u00a0 He sure isn\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n
Once you have the love thing, then you have to move on to the \u201cmaking this a reality\u201d phase, which is where most entrepreneurial ideas come to a screeching halt.\u00a0 If you really want to dump the 9 to 5 job and strike out on your own, you have to do more than pull out those scribbled-on napkins.\u00a0 You have to find out how to make your dream come true.\u00a0 Chances are, you have at least a vague idea of what you\u2019ll need \u2013 a storefront for a retail establishment, a patent for an invention, a supplier for a new product.\u00a0 Get out a paper and pencil and start writing.\u00a0 Make it a stack of paper and a bunch of pencils and a pencil sharpener.\u00a0 You could probably use some coffee, too.\u00a0 Write down every detail you can think of.\u00a0 Neatness does not\u00a0 count but it should be legible at least to you.\u00a0 What do you have to have?\u00a0 When do you need to have it?\u00a0 Do you incorporate, go sole proprietor, register a website, contact a factory in Iowa?\u00a0 Are there still factories here in the U.S.?\u00a0 Anyway, you get the idea.\u00a0 Get it down on paper in extreme detail.\u00a0 Once you\u2019ve done that, you\u2019ve gotten farther into the process than most people do.\u00a0 Now you can go on to the next step.<\/p>\n
What is the next step?\u00a0 You might think I\u2019m crazy, but the next step is to do nothing.\u00a0 Unless time is really of the essence and you know someone is breathing down your neck ready to steal your idea, you have time to let your plans percolate.\u00a0 Take those papers, put them in a drawer, and walk away.\u00a0 The notes that are all a-jumble on that legal pad are also all a-jumble in your brain; you need some time to let your synapses sort things out.\u00a0 It may be a few days, it may be a week or more, but you\u2019ll benefit from walking away from what has occupied most of your waking\u00a0 hours for the last few days \u2013 or weeks, or months.\u00a0 Go fishing, take a pottery class, watch every Planet of the Apes<\/i> movie in one sitting.\u00a0 Chances are, when you come back to your papers you\u2019ll see things you missed before and realize some of what you wrote is just plain silly,\u00a0 and something you hadn\u2019t considered previously is downright genius.\u00a0 You can attack it again, review, revise, type it up all nice and make a Powerpoint presentation.\u00a0 Keep moving forward with your idea and in time you can make that dream a reality.\u00a0 There are many more steps to go, but if you\u2019ve made it this far, well, you probably have enough sticktoitiveness to succeed while others are still lying on the couch, watching Judge Judy and daydreaming.\u00a0 Go get \u2019em, tiger! <\/p><\/div>\n This blog post was inspired by BloggersCompete.com, a site that lets Bloggers get paid and promoted through blog post contests<\/a>. The site also helps Advertisers with engaging bloggers through streamed white hat blog link building<\/a> tactics using blog post contests.<\/b><\/p>\n How-to books, videos, and seminars for budding entrepreneurs number in the thousands.\u00a0 Successful business owners share tips over coffee and sales figures.\u00a0 Hacks self-publish get rich quick schemes and late night infomercials tell you how to make millions selling on eBay or flipping properties.\u00a0 What works, and what doesn\u2019t? What works is passion.\u00a0 First and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/8276196425188955527-3638049852760976806?l=muslimahinprogress.blogspot.com\")