"This is really hard!" - Every Entrepreneur

It's hard building a profitable business.

When you had that first spark of inspiration and decided to turn your idea into a business, you probably didn't expect that a whole bunch of things would happen:

• People tell you your idea is bad (!)
  
• People tell you your product is bad
  
• People send you personal, angry emails / phone calls because a feature doesn't work
  
• You can't sleep well anymore
  
• You're often full of self-doubt and frustration bordering on depression
  
• You become *obsessed* with your product / business
  
• You're constantly financially & emotionally broke
  
• In retrospect… you made a lot of dumb decisions
  
• You wonder why someone didn't tell you all this would happen!
  

You've gone through an amazing experience and learned a lot about yourself, what motivates you, what demotivates you, and how you perform under pressure. You've gained a lot of new skills, met some amazing people, and created something that didn't exist before.

So... are you successful now?

One of the greatest lessons I've learned as an entrepreneur is that the words "success" and "failure" are relative, not definitive. One end of the spectrum is Zuckerberg-like success with a massively popular and valuable product; the other end is complete emotional and financial ruin. Chances are that you're somewhere in between. Do you get to work on a project every day that you're passionate about? That's success. Is there not enough money in the bank to cover your expenses (all the time)? That's probably failure.

When you catch yourself wondering if you're successful or not, keep these two things in mind:

1. Success and failure are defined retrospectively

These terms aren't finite. It's how you will describe your business looking back on it, not in its current state. One lucky break could "make" your business, just as one catastrophic event could kill it. So don't worry about whether you're successful today - keep building and hope that you'll look back and describe it as a success.

2. Keep the terms "success" and "failure" about your business, not you.

"Remember that failure is an event, not a person." - Zig Ziglar.

Internalize and remember this quote.

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