The life of an entrepreneur is an unpredictable road, with many failures, especially at the beginning. 

Below is a story of one particular entrepreneur which has many great learnings. Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn

Reid, a motivated young entrepreneur was sure he would find success after graduating university. He jumped into his own tech start-up, tried tirelessly to make it work, exhausted every route possible, then packed it in and took up a job at PayPal. 

Hoffman didn’t strike success until 35 when he cofounded LinkedIn. His first successful venture, he then went on to become one of silicone valleys top and most successful angel investors. And then an early crypto investor/enthusiast. 

Take aways:

• Lots of failed ventures early in life, which came with a lot of hard work and study.

• When Reid found success around age 35, he had plenty of experience and knowledge to draw on to continue to succeed at many more ventures.

Dealing with Failures

The first step to dealing with failures, is truly believing that they are only obstacles on your road to success, no matter how big or small, you can get through them. Some tips to cop with failures and get back up as quick as possible:

• Study entrepreneurs and their stories, when you know successful people have dealt with many obstacles and got through them, it can give you great confidence that you too will be able to overcome them.

• Make a list of what you have learnt from each specific failure, that way you can know exactly why you have got there, and what not to do next time.

• Step out of your comfort zone. The more you face your fears, the easier it will be to handle your failures.

My experience with failures:

One thing I have noticed on my journey, from trying many businesses and failing many times, is that each time I failed it took me less time to get back on horse.

 I remember the first business I failed at was an MLM business, I was so devastated and embarrassed that it took me so long to take the next leap. I thought business wasn’t for me, I talked myself out of many opportunities, slowed down my road to success a hell of a lot. 

Now, When I have a business failure, losing $30k to a dodgy client, I’m down for 5 minutes. Then back to work harder than ever ready for whatever comes my way. People often say it, but trust me, be prepared to fail as often as you need to, you will thank yourself later.

Delayed gratification How to delay gratification like a master

Some tips to help you with this skill:

• Again, when it comes to this topic, one of the greatest ways I have found to aid me, is studying stories of successful entrepreneurs and investors. Seeing how well this basic yet very hard to master trait has helped many people reach insane levels of success, is one sure way to give you confidence that it can do the same for you. 

• Set realistic goals and deadlines, if you set yourself unrealistic timelines, you will not reach them. Then the next time you need to delay gratification you will have less confidence in your ability to achieve the goal, that will make it even harder to stay disciplined. 

• Break up your goals into smaller more achievable goals. When you tick off smaller goals and reach smaller targets, this will help you build momentum. You don’t want to set one huge goal that will take years to reach, you will only make your journey harder.

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Self-belief

To succeed as an entrepreneur, you will need to develop unbreakable self-belief. Without it, you will not have the courage to follow your dreams when you are faced with obstacles. A strong self belief will also help you in many other aspects of your life, when you are dealing with stressful times, it will give you the skills to deal with this situation and your emotions better than the average person.

Some tips to help with this skill:

• Treat yourself as you would your friend. Pretty much this means to talk to yourself in a nice and reassuring way, when you are to hard on yourself you are focused solely on the negatives. Don’t underestimate how much speaking to yourself in a nice way will have flood your mind with positive thoughts

• Focus only on what you can change. A sure way to get stuck and miserable is to focus on things you can’t change, don’t give them anymore thought, replace them with new thoughts of what you can change and MOVE ON!

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Never quitting or giving up

Any one choosing the life on an entrepreneur is getting themselves on a rollercoaster ride that is not for everyone. Which is completely fair enough, if you get started and find yourself miserable, there is no shame in moving on and trying something else, you never know until you try, But if you know for sure that this is something that you whole heartedly want. Never ever give up. This is the one way that you can be sure of at least some level of success, by persisting and never giving up. There is a great quote by Calvin Coolidge:

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

There are plenty of people that have achieved amazing levels of success from this one trait. They may not be the smartest, they may even be quite naïve and unintelligent, but if you are persistent and never give up, you can achieve almost anything you want in life.