The biggest regrets entrepreneurs have experienced have revolved around these 3 core actions: Starting, Sticking and Quitting. I watched Blessing Abeng and Seth Godin, 2 marketing geniuses trade thoughts for 15 minutes and these are three core tips I picked from the conversation:
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Start where you are with the smallest viable project: Do not come up with a business plan that is going to require 50 million dollars in funding that’s going to change the whole world if you’ve never started anything before. What’s the thing you can do that would help three people? What’s the thing you could do that changes 5 people. If you hear the stories of people who have become successful entrepreneurs, their first business is almost always a lemonade stand. The point is, find a small project, make a difference, and then do a bigger one. Start by acknowledging that it MIGHT fail but if you don’t start at all, you have certainly failed.
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Stick even (especially) when it gets hard: You get better by consistently doing. Go to work on a daily basis and keep your promise to your audience. Staying consistent is like brushing your teeth. You’ll miss a day, but you have to keep going. Trust is a priceless asset of our time. Trust is in really short supply. if we earn attention, then we can make a promise and we can keep it and that leads to trust. Sticking builds trust. The idea of consistency is to make a promise, one that you can keep. We want someone who is consistent. We want someone who is going to do their best even if they don’t feel like it. We want someone who is going to make a promise and keep it.
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There is no formula for quitting: If you are quitting because you are afraid or tired but you are not using the resources to go do something else, that’s not necessarily as smart as quitting everything that you can, so you have enough resources to do a great job on one thing. You just need to know that you’ve been quilting all your life and sometimes you quit at the wrong time and some times you quit the wrong things. Look back, look at other people ahead of you, what did they decide to quit or not quit and look for clues, look for symptoms.
Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_rawPNakxU It is probably the best 15 minutes you will spend today. In all, start, stick and quit responsibly, so you can live life without regrets.
