Faith - A source of empowerment

For the most part, people think of faith in the religious sense. I am not writing about that... I am writing about the kind of faith we learn and need as an entrepreneur.

Faith is a critical element for entrepreneurial success. It involves believing in something without proof and evidence. Lack of faith in the entrepreneurial world leads to stress and hopelessness. Having faith as an entrepreneur gives you strength when things are tough.

A successful entrepreneur knows that in any endeavor, you will encounter barriers. At times, it feels like these barriers or obstacles will be impossible to overcome. Successful entrepreneurs keep on exploring "how could I/we proceed?", "what could be done", "what would someone else do?"... As they continue to take appropriate action and have faith in the future, we succeed.

It is no different for large projects or projects that have never been done within an existing company or within a community you may work to support. At first, that "thing" you want to accomplish looks impossible. It takes enthusiasm to get started but as a leader, it will take faith to keep going until you accomplish what you intended in the first place.

In the beginning of my career, I started a community project that did not really go anywhere at the time. The project kept changing. I kept changing the project to accommodate the circumstances or what I thought was possible or not possible. Looking back, I can see clearly that I did not confront my lack of faith.

I can see clearly that if I kept taking action towards the target vision or intended outcome, there was no reason not to succeed. It was a bad habit to keep changing the target (modifying the project to fit what I thought was possible). By changing the intended outcome, I could not even know if I succeeded or not. It masked my stops. It will certainly mask yours too. I am glad though I am able to look back and see that the root cause of my changing the target was a result of my lack of faith - my lack of faith that eventually I would succeed.

In my entrepreneurial endeavors, there are times where things seem hopeless. At those moments, I now know, I need to step back and have faith. That renews my enthusiasm and keeps me in the game full power. It is a source of empowerment. It is actually kind of fun to keep looking at a barrier or obstacle and keep asking: how could one do it? How would Mr. or Mrs. Super Successful do it? What would Warren Buffett do here? What would Bill Gates do?

Finally, as entrepreneurs, faith also comes when your venture does not take off and you need to move on. If you read Bill Gates and Paul Allen's biographies, you will see that as did many other successful people, they failed a couple of times. They did however continue to take action in the direction of their vision. The rest is history.

What about you? Are you going to continue to refine your vision, learn from the mistakes and move on with faith?