Why instant gratification is the entrepreneur’s best friend

Once upon a time
It wasn’t that long ago that crossing a continent took months. In fact, it was that way for the overwhelming majority of human history. Now it can be done while watching a movie.

Do we marvel at this amazing feat of technology? Do we sit in absolute amazement that we are thousands of feet in the air, a place that man always looked to in awe?

No. We complain because our plane took an extra 20 minutes to load.

I still remember a time when we had to get up to change the channels on our television; when we had to stand within a certain radius of the phone because the cord was only so long. Now I can schedule my TV to record a show from any computer in the world and talk on my phone while waiting for my plane to load…20 minutes late.

We live in a world of immediate, no-wait, instant gratification.

People lament this state of being often. I want to tell you how this can be your best friend.

The Infamous Dip
Seth Godin talks about “The Dip” as that point in time where you work, work, work and nothing seems to be getting better or changing. His point is to identify when it is a failed attempt and when you are at the point just before everything clicks and all that work pays off.

If you are driven only by instant gratification, you’ll never experience the dip much less the payoff that can occur after it.

While I only started my blog a short time ago, I began preparing well over a year ago. My route was to pursue a network before starting. I’m not sure that I would recommend this as I think your network grows faster with a blog, but it did allow me a unique viewpoint that I may not have had otherwise.

One of the things I saw was how many people entered the scene of their chosen market/niche with a huge bang. Like Disney’s Aladdin, they came on the scene blowing trumpets in a parade of dancing monkeys and elephants. People would stop and watch to see what the new “Prince Ali” would do.

A few months later, the parade was nothing but a distant memory and “Prince Ali” was forgotten.

The problem was that a lot of these people tasted success from their big bang entrance, but couldn’t sustain that rate of instant gratification from every movement causing a whirlwind of activity. Worse off were people who came quietly on to the scene without the parade who also sought motivation from the crowd. While I noticed fewer of their numbers, their fate was the same as their louder more dramatic counterparts.

I imagine a lot of these people are back in jobs that they hate.

How is this a benefit?
I’m all about working smarter. The movement of using VAs and outsourcing your work is smart, but people who think they can waltz into business and not have to get their hands dirty with work are in for a shock. How can you manage a VA if you don’t know what needs to be done? What work will you outsource if you haven’t created anything yet?

If you haven’t put in the work of learning a process, how can you possibly hope to automate it?

Just as there is value in working smart, there is also value in working hard; the two are not mutually exclusive terms. The major quality that I saw missing from the players who came and went was their ability to work hard and sustain that effort while getting smarter at doing so. Showing up for a short time and then getting frustrated and stopping after the initial launch means someone isn’t yet cut out to leave the template that is so catered to their lust for instant gratification. I believe they can grow to be ready, but they aren’t at that point.

This compulsion is a disease that will ruin those who can’t get it under control.

On the bright side, it causes most of your competition to eliminate themselves before you ever have to worry about them. And THAT is how it can be your best friend!

Plan to ignore the compulsion for instant gratification
The reason that I spent my first few months posting everyday was to play catch up with people who had already been doing this for some time. I needed to position myself as a worthwhile player in the market that I hoped to attract attention. If you’ve been doing this for years, then posting once a week might work for you. For me, posting everyday means that I had more content available in two months than a once-a-weeker will have in a full year.

Yes, I have decreased my posting frequency, BUT I made sure to do that ONLY after its goal had been accomplished and when it needed to balance with more profitable aspects of business. Unfortunately I have seen way too many people stop working for the sake of stopping work. If we desire to be in business for ourselves and to get ahead of the instant gratification crowed, then we can only stop working on one thing if we have another one that will take its place.

• That means that I will continue working my corporate job until it costs me more to keep it than it does to leave it.
• That means that I will continue to work long hours every single night producing content, researching, and working on my businesses.
• That means that I’m going to continue prodding my online heroes to do the same types of things.

I love blogging and find it enjoyable. I like connecting with interesting people and forming connections. But this is not a game to me; this is my family’s future. I’m busting my ass harder at this than anything I’ve ever done! For me, there is no failure, only dips in the path to success. I’ll have days where I need to catch my breath, but I’m in this race until the end.

I don’t want anyone to fall prey to the disease of instant gratification. We all need to get off our asses if we want to take hold of those dreams we cherish.

The benefit for those of us who push through is that those who run the race longest are only a tiny fraction of those who start the race at all. Even though I don’t want anyone to lose sight of their dreams, the truth is most will. While I’d love for everyone to run the race, most won’t.

Instant gratification is the entrepreneur’s best friend because it eliminates more of the competition than any other single force.

But this only helps you if you plan to not be eliminated yourself.

Be heroic.