{"id":134137,"date":"2024-10-19T13:03:07","date_gmt":"2024-10-19T17:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=134137"},"modified":"2024-10-25T13:12:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T17:12:17","slug":"tenacity-in-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/tenacity-in-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenacity in Business: What You Need to Endure the Long Haul"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why does building a successful business<\/a> take so much longer than most people expect? What can keep you motivated when traditional success metrics don’t show immediate results?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing a business requires patience, curiosity, and internal motivation<\/a>. In The Messy Middle<\/em>, Scott Belsky explores how entrepreneurs can maintain their tenacity through the long journey toward success, offering practical strategies to stay energized when external validation<\/a> is scarce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to discover how tenacity in business can transform your entrepreneurial journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Why Growing a Business Requires Tenacity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The highs and lows of the road to success aren\u2019t the only struggles you\u2019re going to face as you build your business. According to Belsky, the chief factor that makes growing a business so difficult is the sheer amount of time it takes. Surmounting this barrier takes determination. He discusses what tenacity in business look like, including a great deal of patience and a curious mind that can find its own rewards in the midst of the process <\/em>long before you reach the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belsky argues that short-term thinking is only natural, which makes it hard to focus<\/a> on long-term goals and strategies. That\u2019s why enduring the challenges of growing a startup requires tremendous fortitude.<\/strong> However, to sustain your momentum over the long haul, you can\u2019t rely on personal praise, good reviews, or even other people\u2019s understanding. Though it\u2019s only natural to crave those things, not getting noticed for all your hard work could easily frustrate you and cloud your judgment if that\u2019s your only motive for success. Therefore, Belsky says that, instead of relying on external validation, your motivation must come from within.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Belsky\u2019s advice to create your own motivation may sound hard to do, but in The Art of Impossible<\/em><\/a>, Steven Kotler points out that from a brain science perspective, achieving intrinsically motivated goals generates more pleasurable neurochemicals<\/a> than achieving goals tied to external motivation. The trick is to identify what your internal motivations are and align them with the goals of your business. Kotler recommends exploring your personal interests and finding ways to link them together. You should also expand your social network to include people whose goals complement yours to engage a positive feedback cycle<\/a> of social support and mutually motivated progress, whether in business or your personal life.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To endure the long stretch between beginning a project and seeing it succeed, you\u2019ll need a lot of patience.<\/strong> Belsky points out that many business success stories<\/a> ignore the need for patience, giving entrepreneurs unrealistic expectations<\/a>, when some seemingly \u201covernight\u201d successes come after years of persistence. While you may have conceived your business strategy quickly, it can only be carried out over a long time. Therefore, you need to adjust your expectations and how you measure your company\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Though your urge may be to push yourself<\/a> and your team to get results as soon as possible, the best way to cultivate the long-term patience that Belsky recommends may be for you to slow down. In The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry<\/em><\/a>, pastor John Mark Comer argues that when your life is lively<\/em>, it brims with meaningful purpose, but when you\u2019re merely busy<\/em>, the work overwhelming you is probably meaningless<\/a>, and you need to cut back and be patient with your progress. He suggests that if this is hard, you can gamify <\/em>patience<\/a>\u2014in other words, turn slowing down into a game. For instance, make a game of reducing your meaningless phone use by creating rules for when and how to use it and challenging yourself to follow them.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that traditional measures of business success, such as earnings or profits, don\u2019t leave room for patience on your quarterly income statement, so you\u2019ll have to be creative with how you measure progress<\/a>.<\/strong> Especially if your goal is far away, such as making a new type of business viable, traditional metrics such as short-term profits won\u2019t suffice. Instead, Belsky says you should determine the most appropriate way to measure the steps that bring you closer to your goal, and use those to validate yourself<\/a> and your team\u2019s progress while you patiently wait for profits that might not materialize for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: The most conventional way people use to determine success is to measure results, but to be more creative<\/a>, as Belsky suggests, you should consider tracking your efforts <\/em>instead. The authors of The 4 Disciplines of Execution<\/em><\/a> argue that past results don\u2019t give you any information on how to proceed. If you track your current efforts<\/a>\u2014or \u201clead measures,\u201d as they call them\u2014you\u2019ll find them a much more effective guide. Lead measures are predictive and influenceable<\/em>, in that a change in your efforts yields a change in results. For instance, if you\u2019re trying to save money, you can focus on working more and spending less<\/a> (efforts) instead of dwelling on how much your expenses were in the past.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belsky suggests that curiosity can keep you on track when traditional metrics such as profits aren\u2019t available.<\/strong> He argues that, when you and your team work from a position of curiosity\u2014such as whether a solution to a problem will work or if there are potential customers you haven\u2019t considered\u2014you won\u2019t think about day-to-day success the same way that traditional businesses do. You might explore partnerships that aren\u2019t obviously beneficial but lead to valuable connections in the future, or you may invest time in projects that don\u2019t provide short-term payoffs but show potential for future success. Belsky says that if you find satisfaction in the learning process, you can stay energized when the road ahead seems never-ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions to Shape Your Progress<\/strong>

If Belsky\u2019s description of curiosity seems open-ended and vague, journalist Warren Berger offers more specific guidelines in A More Beautiful Question<\/em><\/a>. Berger suggests that business leaders should always be asking fundamental questions<\/a>, such as:

\u2022 Why <\/em>do some people choose our competitors instead of us?
\u2022 Why not<\/em> try to reach a new demographic? How <\/em>could we do that?
\u2022 What if <\/em>we updated our mission statement to better reflect today\u2019s values?
\u2022 What if <\/em>a new startup disrupts our market, as Uber did to taxis?
\u2022 Why not <\/em>let our employees work from home?

Berger asserts that the most successful companies are those that encourage employees to ask questions and search for innovative answers<\/a>. To foster curiosity throughout your organization, Berger says to replace brainstorming<\/a> sessions with question-storming<\/a> sessions<\/em> in which employees are asked to come up with questions instead of ideas. Since there\u2019s no pressure to answer those questions right away, these sessions help people\u2019s thoughts flow freely, without the urge to censor themselves. In Belsky\u2019s \u201cmessy middle\u201d of company growth, these sessions would also keep workers energized and promote continued engagement.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Exercise<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Belsky describes the middle period of any business venture, whether it\u2019s an entrepreneurial startup or a project within a larger business, as a maze of setbacks and successes. The same could be said for any <\/em>project in life, such as finishing your education or mastering a new skill<\/a>. Think about a long-term project you\u2019ve engaged in, whether in your professional or personal life, and what the road was like between the start and finish. How long did it take for your initial sense of energy and excitement to wear off? Once it did, describe the feelings that replaced it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why does building a successful business take so much longer than most people expect? What can keep you motivated when traditional success metrics don’t show immediate results? Growing a business requires patience, curiosity, and internal motivation. In The Messy Middle, Scott Belsky explores how entrepreneurs can maintain their tenacity through the long journey toward success, offering practical strategies to stay energized when external validation is scarce. Keep reading to discover how tenacity in business can transform your entrepreneurial journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":134146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,79,42],"tags":[1643],"class_list":["post-134137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-entrepreneurship","category-motivation","tag-the-messy-middle","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nTenacity in Business: What You Need to Endure the Long Haul - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's hard to stay motivated when traditional success metrics don't show immediate results. 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