Self-Esteem and the Entrepreneur

April 15th, 2008

Isn’t it funny how people think that being self-employed is so cool? They think that you get to take lots of vacation time and spend all of the profits. What they don’t realize is that you put in outrageous amounts of blood, sweat, and tears to get there. They don’t know that you have to take the blame for every single thing that goes wrong. They don’t know how many times you fell flat on your face before making it work. They think that you simply come up with a cute little idea over dinner one night and within a couple of months you’re flying high living the rich man’s life. The reality of the situation is very different. Statistics consistently show that most successful entrepreneurs failed a handful of times before finally finding that winning formula. It’s during the failure years that you earn all of those future vacations and big fat salaries. Delayed gratification takes on a whole new level, doesn’t it?

One of the toughest things to learn during those failure years is the self-esteem that comes with it. Self-esteem doesn’t come from having everything come easily and effortlessly. Real self-esteem comes from having worked yourself until you’re almost in tears and then having someone tell you that you’re working too hard and ought to just quit. Real self-esteem is explaining to your folks for the umpteenth time why you’re still poor and struggling at self-employment instead of getting a ‘real job’ and making lots of money as a salesman like your baby brother does. Real self-esteem is deciding to learn from your mistakes instead of giving up and quitting. Real self-esteem is being financially bankrupt and giving it another try anyway, because you just know that this time you’re going to make it all come together.

These are the types of events that form good businessmen. Ladies, you know I’m including you in this too. Real self-esteem is when you tell your husband that you are not going to give up on your silly little dream and that it’s not just a stupid hobby, it’s your company and your career aspirations. These types of events give us the backbone it takes later to be able to make the tough business choices that make the difference between breaking even and making a profit. These types of events teach you how to stand up for yourself and what you believe in. Self-esteem is not having to justify your business decisions. You know what’s best for you and your company and you really don’t need anyone else’s blessing, approval, nor support. If you can’t do it without someone cheering you, then forget it. It’s not called other-esteem or coach-esteem or friend-esteem. It’s called self-esteem because you have to muster it up all by yourself.

You don’t have to have a lot of self-esteem when you launch into self-employment, but you’ll learn it along the way or else you’ll never make it to that luxurious lifestyle that keeps floating through your daydreams. To get started, you just have to really believe in your product. Nobody can really be 100% positive that they are going to succeed at their first attempt at self-employment. After you have had a few years of failures and some successes, you start realizing that you actually know a thing or two compared to the newbies coming into your industry behind you. There will always be someone who knows more then you and someone who could learn from your experience. Self-esteem comes from knowing that you can learn and that you will continue learning until you get it right. Don’t expect to feel perfectly confident all of the time. It’s all a big game and you have to find the rule book while trying to master the game.

I once opened up a fortune cookie while struggling with the decision of whether or not to launch my own company or not. The message inside the cookie read, “The world needs your gift as much as you need to give it.” That little fortune has since fallen apart and been thrown away, but I always have a newly typed up version of it scotch taped to my computer monitor. It has reminded me many times over, that I do this not for the money, but because it is who I am. What else would I be doing if not running this little company of mine?

Sometimes, we entrepreneurs keep going simply because it’s who we are. We are a different breed and it’s part of how we define ourselves. The way that others are musicians, or politicians, or teachers, or doctors at the very depth of their soul, we are at the depth of our soul entrepreneurs. We must play at that particular game because it’s what we do. Sometimes we have a spiritual mission behind it, or a vision of the world being better off for having purchased our environmentally safe product, or a deep belief that people can be helped and nurtured by the services offered by our company. It’s who we are, it’s what we do. Self-esteem shows up later as a result of reflecting on just how far we have come in our attempts to accomplish such an important goal.

Self-esteem isn’t knowing that you will succeed. It doesn’t come from having all of the perfect craftsman’s skills and the perfect level of education before starting your own company. It’s knowing that you can acquire whatever skills and knowledge you don’t yet possess. It’s knowing that you are capable of working hard and tenacious enough to see it through to the end. It’s knowing that as much as you appreciate the cheerleaders in your life, that you’d keep going even if nobody else believed in you. It’s knowing that you don’t know everything you need to know but that you are capable of learning more. It’s knowing that the world needs your gift as much as you need to give it.

John Samtron, is the editor for http://www.self-confidence.tv.

All the resources you will need to improve your level of self-confidence are right here on http://www.self-confidence.tv. By using these resources you will feel like a new person in no time. We offer our visitors two tools designed to help them develop better self-confidence. We offer a FREE self-confidence interactive course and Unbreakable Confidence

Tags: criticism, , , , , , , entrepreneurshipship, entrepreuneur, esteem, Goal Setting, Rejection, self confidnece

If You Are Rejected!

March 3rd, 2008

This article exemplifies the inner working of emotional intelligence. Effectively working through one tough situation at a time can build our emotional competence… dealing with rejection is one such tough situation. This article fits under Goleman’s second level EQ: Self-management (as I manage my own emotions inside of rejection) AND under Goleman’s third level EQ: Social Competence (as I use empathy to understand the rejecter.

If You Are Rejected

There are billions of people across the globe, not everyone will accept you. Accept you, yes, here I mean, accepting you, as you are what you are. All did not accept even people like Gandhi, Lincoln, and Mother Teresa, to name a few. There are thousands of people in the CTI community, not all will read this write-up, many will put this in the trash-box, some will simply reject the thought and some other will disagree with my opinion and thought process and only few will reply to me and will give constructive feedback.

There are many phases and occasions in life where you may get rejected:

1) Rejection by prospective employer- you know it, you might have faced numerous interviews to get selected in one.

2) Rejection by family- these days we are hearing many cases of disowning the parents and/or children that is why there are so many old-age homes.

3) Rejection by spouse- there are many divorce cases pending in various courts.

4) Rejection by friends-in a group of more than two people not everyone will accept you.

5) Rejection by society- if you are not following the rigid rules and customs of societythey will reject you.

Facing Rejection

When we feel the blow of major rejectionthe betrayal of a close friend, a wound from a family member, the unfaithfulness of a matewe may wonder if we’ll ever find someone who will love us again. As we try to make sense of our pain, we can be tempted to respond to rejection in destructive ways:

Self-contempt means we take the full responsibility for the failure of the relationship. We wonder, What is it about me that causes people to leave me? Is there something so repulsive that no one can love me?

Contempt for others holds others fully responsible for the downfall of the relationship. We view them as evil. We write them off with, “It’s all their fault.”

Contempt for God blames Him for our pain. We reason that if He is in control of our lives and He loves us, He should have protected us from this heartbreaking experience.

At first, contempt for ourselves, others, and God seems to work well. It helps us maintain the fa

Tags: Ego, , , , , Emotional Quotient, EQ, Rejection, Self esteem


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