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Why Cashflow isn't the Only Lifeline of Your Business A lack of hope and not having something to aspire towards can make life very mundane

By Jonathan Michael

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I think one of the biggest challenges for any entrepreneur is to stay 100% motivated every single day. Correction: I think one of the biggest challenges for any Entrepreneur is to stay 200% motivated every day. Because if you're going to build something from the ground-up, your level of passion and enthusiasm as the founder has to be double of an already motivated employee.

You Need to Exude Confidence At all Times

Now, here is why I believe that no CEO or Founder can afford the luxury of walking into their offices or workplaces without this sense of excitement, passion and enthusiasm - it's because your number one job as CEO or Founder is to inspire those around you towards action. You need to be motivated and inspired everyday. And the challenge is that not too many people are going to be around you to help you do that. Your challenge as an entrepreneur is to be inspired everyday all by yourself and to do whatever it takes to get there. You cannot take your bad attitude to work, you cannot afford to sit back and say I'm going to just belt out some orders from here today and watch you all passionately build my business while I work on my motivation issues.

Feed Optimism to Your Employees

The company feeds off your passion and enthusiasm. The staff need to feed off your passionate vision and dream for the company or who else is going to feed them? They are not going to intentionally stay inspired all by themselves so they can build your company, they need your inspiring leadership. If you're not going to be pumped up every single day then chances are your staff won't feel the same way too. And here's a suggestion: Don't even go to the office until you find the motivation and inspiration to run your business. Your motivation and inspiration is like the lifeblood of the business apart from your cash flow, your flow of enthusiasm, inspiration and motivation is what will eventually drive your company to a great success and not just your cash flow alone. Work hard on yourself, feed yourself everything and anything that can inspire but do not under any circumstance choose to be less than inspired for your work-day. Take more time at home if you need to but to do the hard work of reviving your interior passion for your life purpose and for your business. (Your life purpose should connect with your business) As Captain of the ship, you are called to exhibit persistence.

Finding out Time to Recollect and Rejuvenate

Take a time-out, refuel, re-energize and find your inspiration. Do whatever it takes but keep yourself hungry and efficient. Here are the ways to stay inspired as an Entrepreneur every day:

  1. Write a letter to yourself about why you are doing what you are doing and read it to yourself on those mornings you feel less-than-inspired.
  2. Re-call customer testimonials and remind yourself of how your product or service is impacting their lives
  3. Look at your vision board and find inspiration for your long-term goals. A lack of hope and not having something to aspire towards can make life very mundane so feed off the vision for your business.
  4. Listen to tapes. This is so empowering. Simon Sinek, Les Brown, Tony Robbins, Robin Sharma, The EntreLeadership Podcasts are all great audio materials than you can listen to. The content in these podcasts can give you a lot of perspective.
  5. Find a book that has inspiring content. I would suggest reading some of Simon Sinek's work. His mission is to inspire people to do what inspires them, his content is definitely aligned with his mission.
Jonathan Michael

Founder, JM School

Jonathan runs a fashion school in downtown Bangalore which I founded along with my partner in October of 2014. We are trying to disrupt traditional teaching methodologies with a more practical approach to learning. He writes on Leadership and Entrepreneurship for a startup magazine based out of Vienna, Austria.

 

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