It is the entrepreneur's cliché cash-out: idling away lazy afternoons on a white-sand, tropical beach. Success certainly affords, among other things, an excuse to relax and enjoy the fruits of one's labor.
But as many dyed-in-the-wool entrepreneurs have discovered, there is only so much time you can spend fly fishing or lounging in a hammock before the urge to do something new starts gnawing deep down. Soon enough, everything around you suggests a new or overlooked opportunity. Every cocktail napkin becomes a sketchpad or whiteboard. Or that great idea, long stowed away, keeps you awake late at night.
Indeed, success also provides resources, credibility, experience and—most of all—the confidence to attempt things. The only thing harder for an entrepreneur to pass up than a good idea is that same idea coupled with the knowledge that "I'm good at doing this sort of thing."
Entrepreneurs therefore need no prodding or motivation to get up and try something new. It just happens. They can't help it.
What is not so automatic is the notion of attempting something ambitious. By that, we mean ambitious relative to what you've already accomplished. In short, if you're attempting something that doesn't make you feel at least a bit uncomfortable, then you probably aren't growing. You may be successful at completing an unamibitious project, but it will be a hollow victory, as anticlimactic as an author's second book that breaks no new ground. Worst of all, you will fall far short of your own potential.
No Pain, No Gain
Pain, discomfort, stress, anxiety—we are designed to avoid these. But "no pain, no gain" is more than just the testosterone-induced war cry of frenzied linebackers crunching helmets together. "No pain, no gain" is a universal truth. The body's natural response to stress is to toughen up. Bones only grow when subject to Earth's gravity. Muscles grow in response to resistance. The soles of your feet thicken from walking barefoot. As Nietzsche said, "that which does not kill me only serves to make me stronger."
In this regard, the mind and nervous system are no different from bone and flesh. It is through desensitization and adaptation that a new job can be stressful on the first day but utterly boring three months later.
Or think back to the first time you made a major purchase. Do you remember how stressed you were, say, signing to buy your first home? In reality, buying the house was not inherently stressful; the stress was entirely determined by how your nervous system responded to the situation. In contrast, imagine how a professional real estate investor would respond. Do you think someone who's bought and sold dozens of homes would blink an eye when buying yet another? Of course not. It's a total breeze, nothing new, and entirely within his or her comfort zone.
Operating within your comfort zone is just that: comfortable. And there's nothing wrong with being comfortable sometimes, or even most of the time. But beware, when you are comfortable, you are not growing as quickly as you could be. Assuming you wish to continue growing during this lifetime, in whatever capacity you choose—skills, experiences, wealth, sophistication, etc.—then you must continuously push yourself, exposing yourself to things that force you to adapt. Whether it's soloing in an aircraft, learning a new language, or speaking in public, you must occasionally do something that is unfamiliar, difficult, or even scary.
To the entrepreneur, this might mean moving into unfamiliar markets or expanding overseas. Or it might mean staying within a familiar realm but launching a new venture that's an order of magnitude larger in scale than anything you've done previously.
Serious Goal-Setting
If you've found this article, you probably need no explanation of the power of setting goals. What is not so well-known is that a few of your goals should deliberately be very difficult.
That's right, difficult. Just plain hard; in fact, as hard as they can be, so long as you still believe that the goal is possible. In numerous studies, research has demonstrated that effort and performance are directly proportional to the goal's difficulty level, up to the point where the goal becomes no longer believable (at which point effort tends to cease altogether).
But here's the clincher: Performance is maximized even when the goal is not achieved!
How is this possible? If you look closely, most things that people attempt are not truly binary, meaning they're not measured as all-or-none, pure success vs. pure failure. Most outcomes are a matter of degree and incremental gains are key. A marathon runner may not finish her first race but she might run further than she's ever run before. A smoker might fail to quit smoking altogether but might cut his nicotine consumption in half. A salesperson might reach only 90% of a large sales target. In all of these cases, the goal was not reached, but performance was improved.
The research thus overwhelmingly suggests a new approach to goal-setting: Set very difficult goals for yourself and then recognize and reward partial success. It's better to earn 80% of a $1 million income goal than to earn 100% of a $500,0000 goal.
This can be hard to get used to for highly aggressive, old-school goal-setters who writhe in pain at the thought of failing to meet a goal by its deadline. Fear not. The research also shows that failure to reach the goal (regardless of whatever gains were accomplished) is still highly motivating to people, especially when you missed your goal by a narrow margin. Reaching 80% of your goal stimulates you to try that much harder next time and reinforces your overall belief in the goal's attainability.
True, there are bigger risks when attempting bigger things. But that's the whole point. Working to minimize risk is what it's all about. After all, it's the fear that creates the stress, and it's the stress that forces the mind to adapt, coming up with ever better approaches and solutions that minimize the risk. The very act of eliminating risk is what raises us to the next level.
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