Beata Drzazga – the business mentor talks directly about how to be successful.

Why is it difficult in business without passion?

The concepts that I associate with passion are: dreams, stubbornness, commitment, ambition and discipline. All of these things are of great help to your business success. If something we do results from passion, it is much easier to get involved. However, many entrepreneurs have a big problem with the last concept, i.e. discipline. Success without discipline is possible, but as a rule it comes from luck, and business happiness lasts for a short time, especially when your competitors notice it.

On the other hand, I know examples of success that has nothing to do with happiness, and is based solely on discipline. It is achieved by entrepreneurs who, when starting out, did not have the appropriate knowledge or education, but wanted to learn and were obsessed with achieving their goals. I am glad that I participated in several such projects as a business advisor. It is true that such success is not easy in a highly competitive market, but it can always happen that a bit of luck will help. The point is, discipline is what helps most happiness. It’s a matter of simple math, if we’re stubborn we try more times, but if we try more times, the probability increases that we will eventually succeed.

We must also remember that the owner of the enterprise is responsible for fueling it with his own ideas, improving the business model, and looking for new opportunities. It is all very difficult if work is only an obligation. Passion makes it much easier to find persistence and discipline that will help us achieve our operational goals. And if, in addition, thanks to starting a business, we manage to fulfill our dreams, we receive a huge injection of positive motivation and satisfaction, without which it is very difficult to do any work in the long run.

How do you connect all of this with the second thing you talk about very often, which is courage?

Let’s start with the fact that in business, courage is not about making risky decisions quickly. It is quite the opposite. This fear is good because thanks to it we know the dangers and dangers, we can act consciously. In business, I associate courage with knowledge, skills, experience and one more feature that motivational consultants talk about quite often – leaving the so-called comfort zone.

Courage means striving to take the initiative, look for new solutions, and improve the business model. For many people, just starting a business is an act of great courage. Setting up a business often requires giving up steady, guaranteed income or engaging in savings put aside for a rainy day. Such decisions are not made without a second thought. They must be supported by skills, knowledge and analyzes, although even then we will be dealing with a high degree of uncertainty.

We should also remember that courage must be supported at all times by striving to reduce risk. At each stage of the project implementation, we should conduct as many tests and experiments as possible. Thanks to this, we will be able to quickly withdraw from potentially unprofitable projects and focus resources on prospective ventures.

This means that we have smoothly moved to the third concept we were supposed to talk about, which is responsibility.

Yes, that’s a fair point. The point is that when running our own business, we cannot count on an adult coming at some point and cleaning up our mess. When we start our own business, we become adults. We are no longer protected by labor law, consumer law, consumer bankruptcy law or the GDPR. Moreover, all these instruments very often start working against us. We must be very careful about all the documents we sign. We have to clean up the mess made by our employees, because we will bear the consequences of their actions.

For negligence towards the tax office or the Social Insurance Institution, we are threatened with quite real, unpleasant consequences. The source of big problems may also be the lack of reliability in the fulfillment of obligations. We can delegate tasks and responsibilities to our employees, but it is very difficult to delegate responsibility.

Since responsibility very often concerns quite complex functions of the company, such as finance, accounting, taxes, contracts with other entities or personnel policy, it is good to outsource such tasks to experts. In general, one of the best things an entrepreneur can do is surround himself with people smarter than himself. Many people feel a threat in such a situation, especially in large, bureaucratic institutions. However, if we run our own business, we do not have to worry that someone will deprive us of power. A loyal and competent team makes it very easy to succeed.