Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

MONEY? ... Well yes, that is the mantra of this age ... but does it really satisfy the need for success that is inherent in many entrepreneurs? Could it be that entrepreneurs gauge success by a completely different scale and only see money as an outcome, a servant and accompaniment to this desire to succeed? It is my view that focusing too much on the money robs us of the real fulfillment that is the wonderful possibility for the entrepreneurial life. Here are my complete views on what really constitutes entrepreneurial success Entrepreneurial success - What is it?

Kathy and I were talking about a topic on another forum, where people wondered if entrepreneurs are perhaps antisocial. :-) Wouldn`t they have to be, in order to strike out on their own, walk away from the consensus, pioneer new business ideas, and survive being alone in the marketplace?

If you suppose that might be true, then perhaps entrepreneurial success is simply a matter of being accepted for who they are by the rest of society (the market). Maybe?

Thanks for sharing the article - always good to read other points of view. I believe that entrepreneurial success is based solely on the person who sets their goals and meets or surpasses them - it varies for each person.

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Take each day, mold it and make it yours.......

http://www.solutionshealthnwellness.com

This belief can cause a great deal of aggravation for anyone starting a business. It`s like saying that "a good car varies for each person who wants a car."

Modern thinking now includes under the word "car" anything anyone wants to say is a car. So someone might say that "a good car is a hang-glider that gets me to the bottom of a mountain."

The problem is that it avoids the analysis necessary for an exist strategy to the business, as well as the overall purpose of starting the business at all. Success must have a definition. If the measures of success vary, then the parameters of success must still hold.

We can shift the word "success" to the word "goal," but that still requires a definition of goals. Without a definition, the way our thinking would go would be that "something is when we reach and surpass something else." Since that could mean anything, it also means nothing.

We can`t say that "success for me is being shot in the head during a burglary." I might say it, but that doesn`t at all make it real. I might also say that "success for me is to finally eliminate all material goods in my life," but that doesn`t refer to the actual word.

I would argue that the reason 9 out of 10 startups fail is that they have no idea what success means. They feel that it`s a word that can`t be defined, that it`s a personal vision of some sort, and so they have no way to measure any progress at all. And so they end up bankrupt.

That was wonderful I truly loved it.  Thank you for sharing that.

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SedonaSky2012

I think  entrepreneurial success is more about growth, not necessarily about money.  I think it`s more about what we do, and  how we make it successful.  And that there is a purpose, if it`s to strive to be a millionaire or whatever but that there is such a joy about it, to succeed in what you`re striving for.

Thank you CraigL for your lengthy reply. I think the best part of it was your joke at the end about binary numbers. It made me laugh.

 

However, I think you have missed the point of my post and I guess being a busy cyber space writer you probably have not had the time to read my complete views on entrepreneurial success via the link provided.

 

Your reply speaks to me of a very narrow definition of entrepreneurial success. You end your argument by saying that “they end up bankrupt” - as if that is the worst thing that can happen to an entrepreneur. Well, if they did end up bankrupt, they would join illustrious failures like Henry Ford,  Charles Goodyear, Milton Hershey, Rembrant, Oscar Wilde, Kim Basinger, Donald Trump, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Walt Disney who though bankrupted have tasted success that you or I could only ever dream of. For whilst they have each been broke but they were never poor in spirit.

 

Your points are valid if entrepreneurial success only means financial success. The article I have written in support of this post goes to great lengths to argue against this very narrow definition of entrepreneurial success. For me, financial success is only a small part of what it means to be an entrepreneurial success.

 

I understand where you are coming from but I wish to defend rather than attack what “besthealth” was trying to express and contribute to the debate. I agree that entrepreneurs must build financially sound enterprises that follow strict business principles to generate trading net profit but my article was more about the loftier, more noble drives that makes the entrepreneur’s contribution to our society so special.

 

Henry Ford sums my views up well when he says “A business that only makes money, is a poor kind of business”

 

Thanks again for taking the time to contribute to the debate.

NVArchitect,
I understand where you`re coming from, I scanned the article, and you`ve made your position clear in the just-previous post. If I understand you correctly, you`re essentially saying that success is defined by terms more broad than only money. We agree.

My first career was as a professional musician, and I did that for 20 years. Money was a driver, but it wasn`t at all the measure of my success. I left the business realizing that I didn`t have the creative portfolio in music to be what I considered as a success.

The argument with BestHealth`s proposition is that regardless of anyone`s idea of success, it must be specific. It can`t be so vague that it provides no "map," or direction toward that success. To say that success is having goals and reaching them is the semantic and formal definition, but it doesn`t have a practical application without those goals.

So the underlying question is, "What specific goals do you have that, when you attain them, you`ll judge yourself to be successful?

BestHealth`s point was that success is based soley on the person who sets their goals. Okay fine, but that doesn`t explain what success actually is.

"Bankrupt" can be literal, or it can be metaphorical. We`ve (most of us) heard the expressions morally bankrupt or spiritually bankrupt. The easier point to make tends to be financially bankrupt, but it`s all part of the same thing---reaching an end point.

Perhaps it`s better to say that financial success is one "aspect" of success. Happiness is a dynamic involving five or six particular "channels" of life. So too, success is a dynamic measure. It moves along, changing as we grow and develop.

Going deeper than that, my passion in life is to defend the philosophy of idealism and to structure a philosophy of individualism. My chosen pathway is through semantics. Modern western culture, under the influences of deconstructionism, has reduced people`s capacity to reason by saying that "anything can mean anything."

Concepts, high-level abstractions, and such things as "success" or "failure" do indeed have a specific definition. That isn`t a "narrow" definition, it`s simply the definition. The problems happen when people get upset by the constraints of a rational definition and try to change or bend the definition to fit whatever happens to feel good for them at the moment.

Your article points out that success is not only measured by financial gain, and I agree (as I said). I`m saying that success does have a narrow and clear definition, and that it`s a measure, not an entity or attribute. An "inch" has a very narrow definition, but the way we use inches is entirely up to each of us, depending on our particular needs.

To use that inch in relation to your article: When we want to know how long something is, we can, if we choose, use inches as a measure. Modern society tells us that we only can use inches, but that fails to account for feet, yards, miles, meters, centimeters, furlongs, light years, and other varied forms of measure.

The analogue is that money is to inches as success is to length. :-) That`s my main point.