On my desk, I have a small book of quotations that I look at from time to time for inspiration. The one that I refer to regularly as I run and build my business: “Great Faith. Great Doubt. Great Effort.”
Great faith. Great doubt. Great effort. It takes all three to bring anything meaningful to fruition, and it’s good to keep those in mind if you’re trying to start or grow your own company.
Great Faith: To build a business — or start anything new — you have to believe in yourself and your ideas. You can envision something that others cannot. You think up a new business, process, design or technology that hasn’t existed before.
It is not only the quality of your ideas, but the strength of your faith in your ideas that will help you succeed. Moreover, it is your faith in yourself that attracts others to work with you, invest in your vision and support you as you pursue your dreams.
Great faith is exhilarating. But it is also exhausting. It’s impossible to stay on an emotional high, even if things continually go well. And the reality is they will not always go well. When your business encounters the inevitable pitfalls, detours and slowdowns, you will be the one others will look to for reassurance.
That’s when you have to have great faith. You will then have to call on the reserves of your own faith in your project to bring back the momentum and reassure others. Your vision and dedication have to be strong enough to withstand the doubts of others and your own doubts as well.
When others believe that you are drowning, you have to be the one who can still see the shore.
Great Doubt: Even the best-laid plans and the best-planned businesses can fail. You have to allow yourself to clearly see and anticipate potential problems. If you do not bring a healthy and respectful appreciation of the challenges you’ll face when building a new business, you’ll be unable to withstand the difficult times.
I have met many would-be entrepreneurs who have “foolproof” ideas for businesses or inventions who will never succeed, because they do not have a sufficient level of doubt. Nothing is “foolproof.”
If you believe you cannot fail, then you won’t be emotionally prepared to deal with the inevitable setbacks. Instead, you have to recognize that there will be great difficulties, and you need to be able to adapt, regroup and re-energize.
Moreover, you must challenge yourself. You must be willing to take a clear-headed look at your plans, your abilities and the strength of your competition so you can respond accordingly.
Great doubt is part of the process of building a success, not necessarily an indication of failure. I remind myself of that every time I find myself sleepless at 3 a.m., daunted by all the things we have to do to make our business a success.
Great Effort: Nothing succeeds without hard work. I’ve seen hundreds of people with great ideas who have never made a dime.
Thoreau was wrong. If you build a better mousetrap, the world will not beat a path to your door. No, you’ve got to work hard to make your mousetrap a success. You’ve got to find financing for your mousetrap company; produce, market, and ship those mousetraps; deal with the personality conflict between your marketing manager and CFO; fight with the patent office over your patent. Then, you have to figure out how to respond when a competitor brings in cheaper foreign imitations. Some days you’ll wish you had never thought up a better mousetrap!
No great businesses are built on ideas alone — they take perseverance and long, hard work. Late-night infomercials and e-mail spam may offer “get rich quick” schemes, but don’t be misled. One of Rhonda’s Rules is “The way to be an overnight success is to work at it for years.”
Great faith. Great doubt. Great effort. It takes all three. Others will challenge your ideas and question your chances of success. Without great faith, you’ll be shaken. Without great doubt, you won’t listen. Without great effort, they’ll be right.
Rhonda Abrams is the author of “Six-Week Start-Up” and “What Business Should I Start?”
