I Spoke to 100+ Entrepreneurs, Founders, and Builders — Here’s What They All Have In Common
It’s probably something you expect, but hate hearing about it.
I was prompted by an email from a journalist this morning to write this post. She was asking me about success and it got me thinking.
Talking to killers.
As part of my work on Crypto Fireside, a blog about crypto (that I started right here on Medium), I get to speak to a bunch of cool and interesting people about what it is they do and the things they make in the world of crypto.
These folks are entrepreneurs, founders, developers, artists, and just, generally speaking, doers and makers. They’re badasses in my view.
These are the kinds of people that you see tinkering away in their garage or their garden, regardless of whether they have to or not. Regardless of whether someone is paying them or not.
Many times, not always, I interview these people and ask them about productivity, motivation, and success. I ask about their habits, how they start their day, I ask them about their mistakes and misgivings or sometimes I just let them tell me what they want to tell me and I listen (or read).
I publish some of those interviews here. I say some because many never make the cutting room floor. Some are currently still in development and some will never see the light of day.
It's interesting for me to think about the differences between the ones that never make the cut because I know the ones that do and I know the ones that don't. And I know why they do and why they don’t. I’ll use some of that knowledge right here in this short story.
Forewarning though. You might not like what I have to say.
After spending time with these doers, and having spoken to them, shared emails, and text messages, and even made friends with some of them, over weeks and even months, hours and hours spent going back and forth, editing their words, asking them to clarify things, getting to know their daily habits and at times getting to know their business partners and significant others, the thing that they all share and have in common is this.
They all have an action bias.
Action bias? What's that?
It means that they all have this in-built urge and need to be productive and they put it to use.
They just do it.
It’s like the Nike slogan.
These people got the message.
From Wikipedia:
Action bias is the psychological phenomenon where people tend to favor action over inaction, even when there is no indication that doing so would point towards a better result. It is an automatic response, similar to a reflex or an impulse and is not based on rational thinking. One of the first appearances of the term “action bias” in scientific journals was in a 2000 paper by Patt and Zechenhauser titled “Action Bias and Environmental Decisions”, where its relevance in politics was expounded.
They get off their ass.
Their productivity is high, they are self-motivated and as we say here in Australia, they just get on with it. There is no over-analyzing or waiting to be motivated by an external force.
These people are not getting their inspiration and courage from someone riding alongside them coaching them, telling them that they can do it. Or that they must do it. They just f*cking do it. And they keep doing it.
I just published an interview with David Irvine the founder of Maidsafe and its core project the Safe Network. David just up and decided one day he would build this thing and not stop until it was done.
He’s been at it for over 16 years and still going strong! And believe me, he's had chances to stop and to just give up. Many other people would have by now.
Or Abbas Husain an illustrator and NFT artist from Michigan that went from rags to riches. He’d been drawing his whole life until one day as an adult he just decided to put himself out there and try selling his art online and boom it all just changed in a flash.
But it wasn’t the flash, it was the daily work he’d put in since he was a kid. It was the daily actions he’d taken for decades that got him to that point.
What else is it that is common among these people?
For a while there I thought, oh, I know what it is that they all share, they all have enthusiasm, but lots of people have that. The real key, the real difference with these special people is that they use it.
They use the enthusiasm that they have.
Enthusiasm unused is just that.
Put it to work and it becomes something else, something big, something cool.
Change the word to inspiration if you like, same thing.
All of those things. Time, money, and energy included. Just by having something does not mean you take action and make things happen.
There is a difference.
Wait, Andrei, are you saying if I don't have an action bias, I am doomed?
I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not a scientist. I’m just a guy.
I told you. I told you in the beginning that you might not like what I have to say. Maybe you are doomed if you can’t be bothered doing something about it.
I truly hope that you can build an action bias in the same way that you teach a child to brush their teeth when they get up in the morning and again right before they go to bed at night and usually it sticks, for life.
Habits right?
Maybe you can build taking action into your life just like any other habit. I don't know.
But that’s not what this story is about. It's not about how or even why.
This story is about me telling you what it is that these people have in common.
These people, in my little world anyway, have built million-dollar empires and set themselves up with multi-generational wealth.
How you get to the point that you take action is for another time.
Self-inflicted motivation.
The people that wind up being successful can take action and even before that, motivate themselves to start. They do not require external motivation, they just get it done. How, or where this comes from is anyone’s guess. The motivation I mean.
And to be honest, it does change from person to person. Some use money as a motivator, some use their family, and some use music. But as I keep saying that is not the point of this post.
It could even be genetics, psychology, nature, or nurture? Probably a mixture of all, but this is what I have seen in the real world from dozens, maybe even hundreds of hours of talking to people that have built hundreds of millions of dollars worth of value for themselves and society.
These successful people can just push through, daily, be consistent and just continue doing the thing that they need to do and do it regularly and consistently.
What about vision? What about goals?
Notwithstanding, of course, these successful people need to have a vision, a goal, or a target and have some level of intelligence, but honestly, most people have a level of intelligence and many people can create goals and targets.
This is about action.
It really does seem to be that the people that wind up becoming successful are the doers of the world.
The people are able to force themselves to get up off of their backside every day and create their own success.
You can have goals, targets, vision boards, whatever. None of it matters unless you pull the trigger. How or why they pull the trigger, as I keep saying, is another thing for another time. Point is, that they are comfortable doing it and they just do it.
Caveman was a doer too.
When I sit back and I think about why that might be, why it’s just in some people to get up out of their nice warm bed in the morning and go to the gym or start working on that side project, that no one is telling that they have to do but they do it anyway, I get a vision in my head of Cromagnon man laying in his cave, right before the sun rises, looking at his kids, wondering where their next meal is coming from.
Is it this? Is it just in us, from way back?
Science likes to tell us that Humans and life, in general, are efficient. This is just a polite way of saying lazy. And they will give us examples of ants taking the shortest route to the source of food or the monkey-see, monkey-do copying phenomena.
And that’s all true. But what about the caveman?
Sure he takes the same route to the salmon pond if he knows it's safe, it's fast and there is food there, but someone has to be the first one to do it. Someone has to take the risk, put it all on the line, be first, and take what's his.
That person is the action taker. And 9/10 in life and in business, if there is a reward to be had, these are the guys getting it by sheer virtue of the fact that they are first past the post. And they are first because they started first. They took action.
Diddle-dawdling will get you killed.
It’s like that scene in the 1986 movie Stand by Me where the boys get to the train track and all stand around trying to decide what to do. Do they take the risk and go along the tracks which are dangerous or do they waste an entire day walking around?
The overzealous Teddy Duchamp makes the case that they need to go along the train track and across the bridge to save time and instead of waiting for the others he just marches ahead with Chris Chambers in tow while Vern Tessio and Gordie Lachance linger behind being all too careful, feeling the tracks for vibrations, and then crawling across on hands and knees like scaredy-cats.
If you’ve seen it, you know what happens. If you haven’t, watch it here.
Summary.
I know what you are thinking, life is long, and don't take risks if they don't need to be taken. Sure. Those are life and death situations though. I am not talking about that. Believe me, I’ve had a few very close calls in my time.
This story and mini-analysis is about business and entrepreneurship and can also be applied to relationships, as well as health and fitness.
Take action, what have you got to lose?
The worst thing that might happen in the modern world is that the girl says no, the bank says no, or you mess up, and you lose the investor's money but you get to start all over again afresh because we have no debtors prison.
If you want to start a business, start one, the absolute worst thing that can happen is that it fails and you have to find a job again.
But what if I lose my house?
Rent, buy another one. It's not the end of the world. Stop overanalyzing, you’re paralyzing yourself by doing so.
That train is coming whether you like it or not.
Andrei R
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