Once upon a time, there was a fluffy little bunny. We’ll call him Jon.
Jon, contrary to all the other bunnies of his age (who only cared about stealing carrots from the farmer’s land), he was a very ambitious happy little rodent.
He had big plans about one day having his own farm where he could plant and harvest all the carrots he could possibly eat and then some more.
So one day Jon decided to make his plan to work.
For months he was working like mad, days and nights and weekends. He was reading articles and books, and he was watching webinars and programs about planting carrots.
He tried dozens of approaches, but to a vain. Nothing seemed to work. All the carrot seeds he was using were wasted and gone with it was his money and time.
But passing through all this process and by making a ton of mistakes, Jon started to see some patterns. He began to realize that if he took action X that would lead him to outcome Y.
So after months of hard work and trial end error, he finally got to harvest his first crop. He was sooooo happy, he had hundreds of carrots to eat. Month after month, Jon repeated his process, and he was producing more and more carrots.
Since he could not eat all of them, he started to sell them for a hefty profit. It was a prosperous and happy bunny.
But the more successful our bunny was becoming, the more his behavior started to change…
He was becoming more arrogant, cockier and he seemed to lose his focus on the business.
He started to take things for granted, he was constantly bragging, and he even got himself into bunny drugs (holy shit).
That made him not only unfriendly to the other bunnies, but it had a negative impact on his carrot business as well.
Sales started to drop, and other bunnies didn’t want to do business with him, and that made him even sadder. Unfortunately, he was still too arrogant to admit.
Deep in his heart he knew he was in trouble, and he had to do something about it…
Success sin 1: On being humble
Success is sweet okay! I get it.
I don’t even remotely think of myself as a success. Yet from time to time, I have this feeling of superiority over others that makes me think.
This feeling could be well founded or not, but that’s not the important thing here. What I care about the most is always to get the best out of all the people I meet.
Humans have great potential to make wonderful things but most of the times they get screwed over due to bad social conditioning, lack of awareness, etc.
But what I saw observing people around me, is that if you treat everyone with respect, you’ll be able to get their full potential.
No matter if you feel the other person is below you or above you, he or she deserves to be treated with respect. Even if you have accomplished more things in life than her, there’s absolutely no reason to brag about it or throw it at her face.
If you believe so, (you’re more than welcome to) just keep it for yourself and try to help the other guy as much as you can. Everything in moderation though.
The strategy I like to follow is to throw a little bait to the other party, and wait for the reaction.
Example.
Let’s say you meet a new girl at a social event, and you’re an avid fan of capitalism (I know right). You could easily say something along these lines:
“Hey I read an article about capitalists, and it had this definition. It said that a capitalist is someone who uses money (capital) to produce value and therefore more money…blah blah blah.”
Now depending on the response you can take it from there. If you hear something like:
“What the hell you talkin’ about. Capitalists are pigs who want to drink the blood of poor people like bloodsucking leeches.”
You’ll get the point. But.
The key here is even if the other person doesn’t agree with you, even if the other person has achieved a lot less than you have, always to treat them with respect.
In his all time classic book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” Dale Carnegie profoundly explains why you shouldn’t ever disagree with other people in public. No good outcome can ever come out of this.
So your best response could be something like that:
“Yeah, I get your point, I just found this definition interesting and thought I could share. Not too serious to lose our sleep over this huh?”
You showed respect, you kept the rapport, and you stayed humble.
Triple crown baby!
Success sin 2: On being happy
I confess. Guilty as charged.
But before I admit responsibility, let me explain to you, what the second sin is all about.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever felt this before, but the more wins you score, the more eager to win you become. It’s like a drug. And it sure is very real. It’s called ambition.
But it has a downside. The more ambitious you become, the harder it is to stay happy. You always strive for more, no good is good enough.
This is both a blessing and a curse.
And I’m utterly sinful of this. No matter how much money I make, I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing.
No amount of sales is enough, not number of new clients is okay. Every day I wake up wanting more and more. I like this drive. It gives me a purpose, it makes me push harder until the “Ferrari day” and beyond.
But instead of only pushing forward, we also need to look what we have accomplished. We need short bursts of happiness to feel like we’ve accomplished something nice.
I cannot give you an exact percentage here, but I’d strongly advise you every once in a while to take a moment and think where you were and where you’re right now.
How many steps of improvement did you make? How many small fights you fought and you’ve been victorious?
After this short happiness nugget, you’ll feel more renewed to chase your ambitions with more energy and determination.
Success sin 3: On being hungry
Possibly, the hardest one to avoid, but very true nonetheless.
We people have the natural tendency to conserve power. It’s a biological thing. Mother nature decided about it, millions of years ago.
What the hell does mother nature have to do with being successful as an entrepreneur you might ask?
Well, it has all to do with it.
Like I said before, humans are hardwired with only two primitive instincts. Survival and reproduction.
People is capable of doing virtually anything to escape death, it’s our first priority, because if we die, our genes cannot pass to the next generations.
But, after our survival is secured, which for most people is, we start to become soft. We start to lose this hunger. Instead of being alerted hunters, we become fat couch potatoes.
The bigger the success, the more in danger we are of this sin. I’ve seen countless cases of people becoming soft after a few milestones. They made a few thousand dollars or even a few millions and then they relaxed.
They lost their hunger, their spark.
Remember “Rocky 3” where Stallone is settled after becoming world champ? This is where Clubber Lang (Mr. T) comes in and kicks his ass.
It’s a sin I’m afraid of like the plague. I say I’m afraid of because I consider myself still way too unsuccessful to lose my hunger.
But for all the fellow entrepreneurs out there who are making tons of progress, beware.
No matter what you do, always keep upgrading your ultimate goal. Again and again. Always make sure to have a purpose in life.
Always make sure to stay hungry.
[bctt tweet=”Always make sure to stay hungry.” username=”projectbebest”]
Remember Jon the bunny from before?
He just sent me an email, saying that he read my post and after applying all he learned in here, he’s now a lot happier, a lot more humble and a lot more hungry.
He’s not a sinful bunny anymore…
