Why is it that so many people search for success and don’t find it?
Over the years, popular culture has suggested that you find your passion … post pictures of what you want in a prominent place so you can visualize the desired end, and so on and so forth.
I believed it, too, and tried to create success using all of the best advice that’s available. It didn’t work.
That was until I interviewed twenty-one entrepreneurial millionaires to find out how and why they did what they did. Through these interviews I learned that success isn’t about planning and hoping, it’s not about reading the right book, and it’s not about mentoring with someone who has been there. It’s not about anything else you’ve probably heard is necessary to become successful.
The Real Missing Ingredient
The missing ingredient in success is the one the experts don’t talk much about which is why so many people are having trouble finding it. For part of the answer to the problem we can look at a study Guy Kawasaki quotes which found “that there was no difference between the performance of new businesses launched with or without written business plans.”
The study does indicate that “unless a would-be entrepreneur needs to raise substantial startup capital from institutional investors or business angels, there is no compelling reason to write a detailed business plan …” Most venture capitalists require a business plan as part of due diligence. This doesn’t mean they spend more than ten minutes reading the plan, and it certainly doesn’t mean that they believe it.”
I second the sentiment, since only a few of the 21 entrepreneurs I interviewed had a formal business plan when they started their ventures. Yet they became successful. Why is that?
Because they worked. They worked hard…
They didn’t get analysis paralysis, they didn’t get caught up in the fear of “what if,” they didn’t discuss the idea with their friends to get their take, and they probably didn’t even do a SWOT analysis. In most cases they didn’t even worry about working smarter. These millionaires just worked hard at whatever they were doing and that work is what made what they were doing work.
Let me make that point clear: Many of the entrepreneurs interviewed did not set a plan … or goals and they didn’t conduct studies (for the most part) to know if something would work.
However, that doesn’t mean that these millionaires had the Midas touch, and everything they tried turned to gold. Quite the contrary. But because they kept working, things worked out. Because they kept working, life rewarded them and positioned them to succeed.
Hard Work Makes the Difference
In most cases these millionaires took hold of something that at the time simply made sense to pursue and it was only in hindsight that they could look back and determine what worked and why. It was in working that unwitting opportunity little by little without looking for the home run that brought these millionaires the financial success they deserved.
If you want to be successful, employ the missing ingredient in success – hard work!
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Brandon Pipkin is the author of 21 Questions for 21 Millionaries: How Ordinary People Create Extraordinary Success. Visit www.21for21.com to read a sample chapter and learn more about the unexpected truth of what really creates success.
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