Blog | Entrepreneurship

Key to Success in Business: An Entrepreneurial Spirit

When it comes to being successful, feeding your entrepreneurial spirit needs to come first.

summary

• Success starts with a strong entrepreneurial spirit and unwavering purpose

• Resilience, optimism, and purpose are key traits of lasting entrepreneurs

• Tough times aren’t setbacks—they’re fuel for success

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In December 1984, Robert and Kim Kiyosaki sold all they had and left Honolulu to begin building their business in Southern California. It didn’t take long—two months to be exact—before they had gone through all their money. They were broke and without jobs or work. They had a long way to go before being ready to launch their business. At times, the Kiyosakis were even homeless, sleeping in a beat-up Toyota Celica.

Today, they reflect on 1985 as being the worst year of their lives. But when you have an unbreakable entrepreneurial spirit — a deep desire to seek out something different rather than follow the traditional path laid out for you — it’s amazing how much adversity you’ll endure to make your dreams come true.

Hitting rock bottom

When they had nothing, Robert and Kim blamed one another and argued constantly. Resentment built up, and the stress was unbearable.

Let’s not skip over the major hit they took to their self-esteem. Before 1985, Kim would call herself an optimistic, happy, decisive, and confident woman. But when they went through this taxing period, Kim couldn’t help but to start questioning everything she knew and believed in, including her own ability to accomplish anything. She’d find herself asking, “Do I know anything at all?” What started as a few self-doubts quickly spiraled into what at the time seemed like a huge, dark hole that was impossible to climb out of. It was her lowest point.

Ignoring the naysayers

It was only because they had each other that they were able to survive that fateful year; even if they weren’t always as nice to each other as they should have been. All along, they both had friends and family saying, “Why don’t you just get a job? Take the paycheck for a while until your business is up and running.” But they knew differently.

They knew that getting jobs would be a step backward. They had come so far and couldn’t quit at that moment. Robert and Kim also knew that, if they went for the comfort of the paycheck, they might never build their business. Looking back, it was actually being in this horrible situation that was their driving force. It drove them to find a way out of the mess they were in. The way out wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t through getting a job. They were determined to build their business and honor their driving force: an entrepreneurial spirit.

Feeding the entrepreneurial spirit

Eventually, Robert and Kim came to the point where they simply had had enough of the chaos that they created. Robert came to the conclusion that no one was going to make his life better except him and that it was time for bold measures. Kim decided to stop feeling sorry for herself, and stopped blaming everyone else for her circumstances. And the two of them simply made the decision to take control of their future and to get to work. So they pulled themselves up by the bootstraps and moved forward.

Much later in life, Kim heard Michael Hewitt, a PhD, an expert in health-and-exercise physiology speak about the three traits attributed to a long life.

Those traits were:

1. Purpose

2. Optimism

3. Resiliency

These are also essential for the entrepreneurial spirit.

Purpose

Having a sense of being of value—to themselves and others.

A sense of purpose is the core reason why you want to reach whatever goals you have in mind. It is something bigger than you and bigger than the perceived outcome (which might be money, for instance). Your purpose drives you to keep going, no matter what.

Being poor and homeless was hard. But even harder was the self-doubt that crept in during that time. The Kiyosakis asked themselves: “Why did I quit my high-paying job for this?” “ Why did I move away from my home to have no home at all?” “Was it all really worth it?” But, when things were rough, they kept their purpose at the forefront of their minds. They knew their purpose was to reach financial independence and help others do the same.

So Robert and Kim kept at it, and little by little, they grew in success. Today, they are financially free with millions in investments and a thriving business. But they could just have easily quit when the going got hard.

Often, we want to avoid pain and tough times. But the problem with this avoidance is that we never really learn anything about ourselves, how strong, determined, and resourceful we can be.

We should embrace challenges and tough times for what they are — opportunities to refocus on our purpose and show our spirit to the world.

Today, if you’re going through a hard trial, dig deep, zero in on your purpose, and tap into your spirit — your invisible power that the world needs to see.

Optimism

Having a bright and positive outlook on life.

Optimistic people tend to have a strong sense of well-being and confidence. It’s been said that pessimistic people tend to be more accurate, but optimistic people live longer. That certainly was true in this centenarian study.

Take, for instance, Kim’s sister, Wendy. She came home after a week-long trip and walked into her house to see a sheet of water cascading down the wall in her living room. Where most people would become frantic—yelling and running around—she calmly assessed the situation and said, “I guess we need to call a plumber.” And then added, “That wall needed to be painted anyway.”

Another time, Wendy was visiting her daughter who works in Hanoi, Vietnam. Her first day there, she had a surprising medical emergency and was told that the Hanoi hospital was not equipped for what she needed and that she must fly to Bangkok. She and her daughter flew to Thailand and received the treatment there. It was an incredible ordeal. When she told me about it over the phone, it was clear that she never panicked but simply did what she needed to do.

How did she get through it?“Well, I figured I had never been to Bangkok before, so we checked into the Four Seasons Hotel, had a martini, and the next day we toured the city. It was wonderful!”

Resiliency

The ability to recover from a setback.

Resiliency is how quickly you can deal with, and bounce back from, adversity. Of the three traits, this might be the one that determines which people will see success instead of failure. This is the one that took the Kiyosakis from homelessness, to where they are today.

Donald Trump once said that the determinant to whether a person will succeed in business depends upon how he or she responds in tough times. Do they curl up in the fetal position, resolved to a life of failure? Or dust themselves off, smile wisely, and get back to work, smarter from the experience?

Maya Angelou, a civil-rights activist, writer, and dancer, said it quite succinctly: “I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out there and kick ass.”

Putting the entrepreneurial spirit to action

Robert and Kim knew what they were working for—financial freedom. That was their purpose and they knew it wouldn’t come from getting a “good job” and relying on a paycheck. They had to know how money worked and how to make it work for them. They had to build a business that would support them, and invest in assets that would provide passive cash flow. And so, they embraced their individual and collective entrepreneurial spirit and didn’t stop until they accomplished their goal. 

Their optimism and ability to celebrate little wins (like affording a motel room to sleep in and some KFC for dinner), is what kept them going. The bright side of every misfortune that struck them, kept their purpose alive.

Finally, their resilience made it so that they never stayed down. They couldn’t; staying committed to their purpose was simply a matter of survival.

What are you working for?

So when you start to consider giving up on your dreams, simply ask yourself, “What am I working for?” Hang on to the light your dreams give you, even when the world wants to push them down. It’s the only way to keep going.

Another way to look at this is to determine “your why” — the reason, deep down in your heart and soul, that you want to reach the goal. Once you understand why your why is so important, you’ll stay focused and motivated on getting there. And when you get to the end, all the hard work and heartache is so worth it.

Hold onto those answers and keep going no matter how many obstacles stand in your way. If you truly embody an entrepreneurial spirit and know that the status quo is not for you, you’ll never be satisfied with anything but achieving your goals. There will be stumbles and failures along the way, just like Robert and Kim experienced, so remember: it’s what you do with your failure that truly determines whether you’ll have success in entrepreneurship.