Entrepreneurship is the process by which entrepreneurs and their partners optimise and integrate the resources they have or can have through their efforts to create greater economic or social value. Entrepreneurship is an act of thinking, reasoning and judgement that requires the entrepreneur and their entrepreneurial partner to organise and manage the business, using services, technology and artefacts.
Willpower needs to be "recharged"
Willpower is not only the engine that unleashes self-control in humans, it is also a manifestation of self-efficacy. People with willpower are able to manage their thoughts, emotions and bad habits effectively, choosing to restrain momentary desires for long-term benefits. To be decisive and tenacious and to work hard to achieve one's goals, willpower is a crucial personality trait. After starting a business from scratch, an entrepreneur must have enough willpower to overcome the many obstacles in the way of starting a business.
Business tycoons, or athletes, often have a will of steel. However, willpower is not a natural ability. Many scholars specialising in self-management believe that just as athletes can develop muscles, everyone can develop this ability. Willpower is the result of good self-management, which means that you need to learn to control impulses, curb indulgences and persevere if you want to strive for rewards that may be far from being formed.
In today's world, where people are paid for what they do, which means that they can get the satisfaction of having a reward very quickly, it is not surprising that not many people are willing to take longer to get paid in this environment, because self-management is not an easy task in itself. The difficulty lies in the fact that the human mind has to be able to resist its natural tendency to "take refuge in the easy".
According to a 2000 study, the self-management process of resisting temptation, resisting provocation and overcoming fear is indeed energy-intensive. This study concluded that self-control is a limited mental resource that must be replenished regularly. Furthermore, if humans adopt one type of self-management behaviour, it is difficult to adopt another of the same type, as the former action consumes much of the energy needed for self-control.
The key is personal thought
Achievement requires effort, and effort, in fact, requires the brain to send out "relentless control" instructions to execute. In the human brain, part of the functional system that manages attention is in fact a constrained effort control mechanism, which is key to the human ability to control ourselves and resist temptation. It governs the ability to control impulses. When we are trying to complete a task, it prevents us from checking emails for distractions or helps us to make decisions to postpone seeking gratification, but then of course the effort we put in may be rewarded later.
Some researchers have also found that for the body to function, self-management is a form of brain power that actually consumes blood sugar. So, if sugar is consumed, it replenishes the self-control energy needed to perform difficult tasks. Many entrepreneurs, including Dweck, have discovered that there is another source of self-control power for humans, and that is people's belief systems and motivations that drive action. Although you have chosen a difficult path, as long as the expectations set are reasonable, beliefs will help and support you to overcome obstacles and persevere to the end.
Putting aside self-consciousness
Educators and researchers believe that there are ways to help you overcome setbacks and tough roadblocks: by setting aside a strong sense of self, resisting temptations and adopting strategies to stimulate willpower. If you set aside your strong sense of self, you can eliminate irrational emotions and allow the entrepreneur to promote his or her "baby" in a more rational way. If, like a scientist, one sees numerous failures as the way to go, the entrepreneur can maintain an objective attitude.
There is a useful tool for this, which people call executive intent. This is done by repeatedly instilling in the brain an action that one would like to carry out in the future, using a "what if" phrase. For example, repeating the phrase "If you see a chocolate cake, don't touch it." The next time you see such a cake, the brain will automatically recall the previous instruction and give the command "never touch it". Of course, you can also use this method to keep reiterating things or people that make you feel stressed. For example, "Even when money is tight, I don't panic when I'm thinking about the future, I focus on the present and explore sources of income." Or, "If I'm working on a project, I don't answer emails in the meantime."
Positive emotions such as empathy and gratitude can also be used to open up the horizons of focus and reduce intimidation. To build willpower, it's important to reduce intimidation. This is because it reduces stress and the urge to give up at every turn, and it reduces the chances of making bad decisions because of irrational emotions. If you have a few complementary, good partners, you will be able to get through the early stages of your business safely. What makes a good business partner? Three main requirements: a high sense of responsibility; successful industry experience; and a collaborative mindset.
Such people are hard to find, but easy to manage when you do find them: a shared vision to attract and equity interests to secure a partnership. But it is important to establish the partnership carefully, as any changes can be very damaging to the company. If you're going to start a business, it's best to find someone like this before you launch. During my entrepreneurial journey, each change of partner has given me the most painful experience, hurting both others and myself, and delaying the project. The projects that have successfully found a partner have gone quite well in the early stages.
Of course, in the process of growing a business, the most missing, hardest to find and hardest to stabilise are the middle-level team members (department managers and directors). The ideal mid-level team needs: responsibility: professionalism: ability to learn; mental toughness. Before the company forms a mature management mechanism, the sense of responsibility of the middle-level members is the guarantee of the team's execution: and before the company forms a mature knowledge management mechanism, the company's professionalism is all dependent on the middle managers to be able to build and train: startups have a lot of innovation in products and services, and the company's knowledge update is all dependent on the middle managers' ability to learn consciously in order to complete: and the work of startups is stressful The high pressure, intensity and uncertainty of the work in a start-up company test the mental capacity of middle managers all the time.
In fact, in all my years of entrepreneurship, I have rarely met anyone who meets these criteria. What can I do? Only relax the requirements! The essence of startup management is to use a large team of imperfect middle managers to create efficient execution results. How do you do this?
The first rule is to stick to the bottom line. Accountability is a necessity for startup managers. Startups don't have a mature system, and a manager's sense of responsibility is the best guarantee to ensure efficient execution. Those with strong professional skills and a poor sense of responsibility are precisely the ones most likely to drop the ball.
The second distinguishes between three types of people. The aggressive ones (strong learners), motivated by career and success, but prevent pride, which, once formed, can be a destabilising factor for the company and most likely to jump ship. Emotional (strong professionalism), motivate with trust, but prevent cliques from forming. These people like to be trusted, and the more they are trusted the more responsible they become. They are calm and focused and are the most stable managers in the company, and it would be very pleasing if half of the company's middle managers were like this. However, if these people stay together for a long time and form some emotional circles, they can prevent good new people from joining, especially new superiors. The interest type (strong offensive skills) use interest to motivate, but never delegate heavy responsibility. Most of these people are extremely professional and can be used to go on the offensive and be trailblazers. As long as the benefits are right, they will often achieve their goals, but the more capable these people are, the higher the returns they demand, and the stronger their personalities, the less manageable they will be, and they will tell you "the headhunter is controlling me again".
The third article to establish a learning culture.
Startups are hard to find professional middle-level members, and hard to find managers who are already very good, so they must rely on a good training system to solve the problem. A good training system is a fundamental safeguard for the talent of a startup. Training is long term, constantly repeated and has to be relentless. Although well-trained people may constantly be poached by others, constant training must be maintained. Focus your training on professional and management skills.
The fourth rule is to be a "mental coach".
In a start-up company, it is relatively easy to manage "things", but it is very difficult to manage "people". Many of the company's problems stem from the mental capacity of the employees. What is mental ability? Simply put, it is a person's "software". All human behaviour is controlled by this software, and most of us do not know how our "software" works. To put it more colloquially, a person with good mental skills can give full play to his professional skills no matter what happens, while a person with poor mental skills can always find various reasons to justify his failures.
In short, the entrepreneurial process is a vivid lesson in "people". It is important to understand what kind of people are needed and how to find them, based on the principle that the interests of the "majority of partners" are paramount. How to find these people? How to work with these people? How to deal with helplessness? Once you have done this, I believe that the road to entrepreneurship will be smoother and smoother.