What do you really want?

Everyone becomes an entrepreneur for reasons that excite them, but most of these reasons are not powerful enough to enable someone to succeed in completing the arduous entrepreneurial journey.

It is very important to know your real reason for thinking entrepreneuring could be good for you. You can then figure out whether your reason(s) are powerful enough to believe you have the motivations to overcome the struggles inherent in becoming a successful entrepreneur.

What you really want to understand is your ultimate selfish desire – the desire that makes you both excited and scared, because you cannot be sure you can get there. Your ultimate selfish desire can be challenging to know and challenging to admit because it may not be consistent with the image you now try to project.

There is always a public explanation that people tell themselves and others about why they are doing what they are doing. And then there is almost always a private reason, a reason that is sometimes so private and emotional that we may not acknowledge or even realize it, let alone admit it to anyone else. As it is true for all of us, it is always the private reasons that drive our actions, particularly our entrepreneurial actions.

How can we figure out and know what we really want?

The process doesn’t have to be complicated. Many people can find their core motivation by just honestly answering some tough questions. A classic method is to ask yourself the question, “If I were going to die today, what would make me feel my life had been a success?” This is what Steve Jobs described in his famous 2005 Stanford commencement address as how he found his selfish reasons for wanting to be an entrepreneur. It’s a bit morbid, but it really gets to the point.

Another method for finding your core motivation is to go to a trained therapist. The process will be more in-depth and involved – it will cost money – but it can be worth getting professional help if you cannot find out on your own what it is that you really want.

I didn’t realize I had a deep selfish desire to feel needed until an executive coach I was assigned as a newly promoted VP pointed out to me. Knowing this enabled me to be a much better leader (by not trying to tear down ideas that weren’t mine) and ultimately succeed starting a business that made me one of the most needed people in the electronics world.