10 Success-Boosting Motivation Tips From Millionaire Entrepreneurs

Motivation is a daily struggle for entrepreneurs, so I’ve put together these motivation-boosting tips from 10 of today’s successful entrepreneurs.

1. Fear of failure.

In an article that he wrote for Bloomberg, Mark Cuban stated that he uses the fear of failure for self-motivation.

“No matter what business you’re in, you’re always at risk -- particularly in technology, where it changes so rapidly you’ve got to put in the effort to keep up,” writes the Shark Tank panel member. “There’s always the opportunity for some 18-year-old to come out of nowhere and crush you—that motivates the hell out of me.”

“Every one of my companies, whether something I started or something I invested in, is a scoreboard. How am I doing? A lot of investors or advisers play it as a numbers game.”

“If they invest in 20 companies, as long as one success covers 19 losses, they did OK. I look at every loss as a huge failure. I had an investment go bad recently. I lost $1.5 million on it. It pisses me off to no end."

Failed at something? Ask these Mark Cuban questions.

"You can also use it as motivation. What did I do wrong? Who did I trust that I shouldn’t trust? What can I learn from this situation so I can avoid it next time?”

2. Do what you’re passionate for.

This is the key. However, as Chalmers Brown, co-founder and CTO of Due writes, “We want to not only make a lot of money but enjoy what we do as well. We are willing to take on the risk of unstable pay in exchange for following our dreams.”

“Unfortunately, your dream job may not always be the best decision financially. Sometimes your hobbies are best kept as projects in your spare time for fun (which is great!). If you do want to try to turn your passion into a full-time job, these tips can help you get started the right way.”

Brown gives the tips below:

Improve something that you’re already doing.

Figuring out where market.

Sharing your passion with others.

Stay happy and motivated by assigning tasks that you’re not a fan of to someone else.

3. Keep affirmations where you can see them.

“It’s so easy as an entrepreneur to get sucked into feeling exhausted or frustrated, and often the blame is yours alone,” writes Murray Newlands, founder of online invoicing company Sighted. “But a negative mindset sucks up mental bandwidth and energy that you need to stay focused and successful.

"It is crucial to maintain an optimistic attitude in the face of setbacks. Whenever you see a quote or a picture that helps you stay positive, place it front and center so you can remember what this journey is all about.”

4. Leverage the power of rejection.

“On June 26, 2008, our friend Michael Seibel introduced us to seven prominent investors in Silicon Valley. We were attempting to raise $150,000 at a $1.5M valuation. That means for $150,000 you could have bought 10 percent of Airbnb."

"Below you will see five rejections. The other two did not reply,” writes Airbnb Co-Founder Brian Chesky on Medium. “The investors that rejected us were smart people, and I am sure we didn’t look very impressive at the time.”

Today Airbnb is valued at just under $30 billion.

5. Surround yourself with highly successful and motivated people.

"No one does it alone," said Mark Zuckerberg during a Q&A in 2016. "When you look at most big things that get done in the world, they're not done by one person, so you're going to need to build a team."

When building your All-Star team, seek out people who excel in the areas where you’re not strong or have less experience. "You're going to need people that have complementary skills," Zuckerberg emphasized. "No matter how talented you are, there are just going to be things that you don't bring to the table."

6. Never feel sorry yourself.

“All of my best successes came on the heels of a failure, so I’ve learned to look at each belly flop as the beginning of something good,” said Barbara Corcoran, founder of The Corcoran Group and Shark on Shark Tank.

“If you just hang in there, you’ll find that something is right around the corner. It’s that belief that keeps me motivated. I’ve learned not to feel sorry for myself, ever. Just five minutes of feeling sorry for yourself takes your power away and makes you unable to see the next opportunity.”

7. Look for inspiration.

Inspiration is a driving force that you can use to motivate you. Lyft Co-Founder Jordan Zimmerman said that, “Right now, my daughter is a huge inspiration. Thinking about the future of our cities, the world and what environment she’s going to grow up in.”

“Also, the driver and passenger stories we hear every day. In a past team meeting, we had a mother come in and tell the story herself. She is a Lyft driver living in New York and her daughter is in Los Angeles.

"The daughter was going through a rough living situation with a roommate and had to leave and move into a new place. The mother called a Lyft for her daughter, had a quick conversation with the driver and the driver took care of her daughter in this tough situation.”

“These stories inspire us to think how we can make things more efficient and create a platform for two people to have a really positive interaction?”

8. Don’t obsess over your vision.

Yes. Think about your vision. But don’t spend too much time over it or it will bog you down. Elon Musk, for example, only spends around 30 minutes a week on his vision of SpaceX colonizing Mars. Besides those 30 minutes, Musk spends a majority of his time focused on the milestones that are the most immediate and critical.

9. Be grateful.

“Most of the time when people ask me about motivation, 80 percent of the time I attribute it to gratitude. If you want real fuel to win, be grateful,” writes Gary Vaynerchuk.

“Gratitude is what has gotten me through my toughest moments in business. Whenever I have lost a deal to a competitor, or an incredible employee, or millions of dollars in revenue, I default to gratitude. It’s impossible not to stay motivated or get too down when you’re feeling grateful.”

10. Forget about motivation.

“So many people wait to feel ‘motivated’ before they do anything. Here’s a newsflash: happy productive people do not wait for motivation, they just get on with it,'' said Marie Forleo. I suggest that you watch the entire video where Marie shares her tips for motivation. It’s spot-on.

Source: Entrepreneur India

The Difference Between Inspiration and Motivation

When it comes to getting employees to do their best work, good managers often adopt the role of a coach. They know that achieving the best results from their team members requires having someone who leads by example and provides the resources to help them do their best. As a result, many managers focus on inspiring and motivating their employees. There’s just one problem with this: Far too many assume that inspiration and motivation are essentially the same thing. Well, they aren’t. And knowing which how to leverage what makes them distinct can lead to a better chance of achieving long-term successful outcomes for your team.

Should You Master Motivation?

Motivation is consistently cited as one of the most important tools managers have for improving employee productivity. Providing external forces that encourage employees to give their best effort can make a significant difference in the workplace. Many motivating factors rely on some sort of reward. For example, a survey from Leadership Management Australia found that 79 percent of employees felt that training and career development opportunities were either “quite” or “very” important in motivating them to stay with their current company. In this case, the potential for career advancement was a powerful external motivating factor. Similarly, reward systems and recognition are often used to encourage greater productivity, while also improving retention and workplace happiness.

As Kristen Hamlin notes in a blog post for Chron, “Employers are better served to focus on rewarding employees for their actions rather than threatening punishment if they want to motivate them. Promising rewards for specific actions triggers the ‘go’ response that gets people to act. Trying to scare people into action via threats about the bad things that are going to happen if they don’t act is likely to create more fear and anxiety, which can thwart action.”

Innovation With Inspiration

While using external motivation can improve productivity and retention, quite often, these bonuses are only temporary. As soon as an employee feels they have advanced their career as far as possible within your organization, they become likelier to jump ship. To foster lasting engagement, you must do more than motivate. You must inspire.

So how does inspiration differ from motivation? A recent email conversation with Sam Taggart, founder of The D2D Experts, went a long way in clarifying the crucial differences for me. “Motivation is a push factor," he explained. "It’s an outside force that is compelling you to take action, even if you don’t necessarily want to. Inspiration, on the other hand, is more of a pull or driving force. It’s something that comes from within that gets us to proactively give our best effort. When someone is inspired, they’re with you for the long haul.”

Inspirational leadership focuses on each individual employee, while also placing great emphasis on the company’s mission and values. Inspiring managers communicate and live the company values in each interaction with an employee. They emphasize how the team’s work is making a positive impact in the world. Inspiring leaders clearly communicate expectations and pay attention to the needs of their employees. They get to know their team members on a more personal level so that their words and actions carry greater weight for those they lead. A focus on inspirational leadership helps change an employee’s internal mindset. Motivation starts to come from within as they understand how their contribution makes a difference.

Research from the American Psychological Association reveals that finding meaning in one’s work is ultimately a far greater predictor of engagement, satisfaction, career growth and decreased absenteeism than any other factor. This was even true of “undesirable” industries, such as sanitation.

Where Do Managers Need to Focus?

In reality, your greatest leadership successes won’t come by focusing exclusively on inspiration or motivation. You will need to use both to foster a successful team environment. For example, a survey from LinkedIn identified both motivating and inspirational factors as being extremely important in creating a sense of belonging among employees. Fifty-nine percent of those surveyed wanted to be recognized for their accomplishments, while 46 percent wanted to feel like their company cared about them as an individual.

Ultimately, both motivation and inspiration will help your employees be happier and more satisfied with their work environment. A study by the Social Market Foundation and the University of Warwick’s Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy found that happy workers enjoyed productivity rates 12 to 20 percent greater than a control group.

In an economy where even single-digit percentage boosts in revenue or productivity are considered a big deal, it’s clear that creating a workplace where your employees can truly thrive will have a lasting impact on your company’s profitability. Which motivating and inspirational factors you should use will likely vary from person to person. Some people respond better to motivating factors, while others will buy in completely with inspirational leadership. You must get to know your team as individuals to effectively motivate and inspire based on their individual needs.

While motivation is a good start, the most effective way to lead your team is when motivation is combined with inspiration. When you’re able to help support internal change, your team will become more driven to give their best effort and buy into your company’s vision and mission. It’s time to start inspiring and motivating your team. 

Source: Entrepreneur India

Hard Work Isn't Enough: How to Find Your Edge

Life isn't fair, especially in the workplace. In Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage, Laura Huang offers a new strategy for uncovering and showcasing your unique value in the face of obstacles.

We’re told that the secret to success is hard work. But the truth is, hard work alone doesn’t always pay off.

After all, career advancement isn’t always neatly tied to your skills, effort, or even the quality of your work. Some people gain easier access than others to the critical ingredients of money, time, and connections that part the workplace waters—even when they don’t have the best ideas or the most talent.

“It’s a myth that hard work is enough. We’ve all had experiences where we worked hard and still ended up losing out on a new job or a key promotion,” says Harvard Business School Associate Professor Laura Huang, who studies early entrepreneurship, where failure is common. “You can take two people who work equally hard, and one person will naturally have an advantage and achieve success, while the other can’t climb the corporate ladder.”

What often gets in the way: stereotypes about gender and race or perceptions about age and class. Indeed, vast research shows that certain groups, such as women and African Americans, have a tougher time getting ahead.

Yet Huang argues that we can’t let other people’s stereotypes or their views of our faults or limitations, right or wrong, hold us back. Instead, we have to focus on finding our “edge”—the unique qualities that set us apart—and take strategic steps to make other people see our value and open the doors that will take us where we want to go.

Source: Harvard Business School 27 Jan, 2020
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Berger says no to job or salary cuts amidst COVID-19 crisis

Though job cuts are looming large over the country's industrial players on account of the COVID-19 triggered lockdown, coating major Berger Paints stated that it has no plan for salary cuts, retrenchment or involuntary furlough for its employees.

The company which has 2,920 employees on its roll also stated that there will be no impact of the crisis on new recruitment offers.

Berger Paints MD & CEO Abhijit Roy stated, “ We are like one big but closely-knit family and would fight this battle together. These are challenging times and might require small sacrifices from the entire family to sail through the crisis. However, there won't be any retrenchments or involuntary furloughs.”.

Roy added that even in the current scenario when sales in April fell own to negligible levels and May business would depend on the (duration of) lockdown, the company will pay full salaries to its employees for April and May.

The coating major has also decided against any involuntary furloughs or organizational restructuring that may lead to downsizing of headcount and consequent loss of livelihood. The company had also engaged with its service providers to ensure that the salaries of their associates are paid.

In addition, the company has onboarded a total of 21 lateral employees in management and non-management levels in April and the induction process of more than 100 campus offers is expected to begin shortly.

While many firms are resorting to job cuts, pay cuts, and delaying job offers, Berger had chosen not to tread this path and neither revoke job offers even though the lockdown will delay the joining of new hires. Much of India’s industrial and manufacturing sector is closely working with various state authorities and in this direction, Berger’s plants in Assam, Goa, Pondicherry, and Gujarat are in line to get started with a capacity of 30 percent with strict adherence to the MHA directives.

While the economic impact of the lockdown will be a major one on the Indian industry, there is still a respite in the way many firms are trying to save as many jobs as possible.

Source: People Matters 27 Apr, 2020