17 Inspirational TED Talks on Motivation (Infographic)

There’s no doubt that during your entrepreneurship journey your motivation will be put to the test. So check out Fundera’s infographic for 17 inspirational TED talks on motivation.

12 rich, powerful people share their surprising definitions of success

Billionaire Richard Branson believes success is about happiness.

Though Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, is worth some $5 billion, the Virgin founder equates success with personal fulfillment.

"Too many people measure how successful they are by how much money they make or the people that they associate with," he wrote on LinkedIn. "In my opinion, true success should be measured by how happy you are."

Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington says that money and power aren't enough.

Huffington says that while we tend to think of success along two metrics — money and power — we need to add a third.

"To live the lives we truly want and deserve, and not just the lives we settle for, we need a Third Metric," she told Forbes' Dan Schawbel, "a third measure of success that goes beyond the two metrics of money and power, and consists of four pillars: well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving."

Together, those factors help you to take care of your psychological life and truly be successful, or as the title of her 2014 book, "Thrive," suggests.

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban says you don't need money to be successful.

"Shark Tank" regular Cuban offers a surprisingly simple take on success.

In an interview with Steiner Sports, he said:

"To me, the definition of success is waking up in the morning with a smile on your face, knowing it's going to be a great day. I was happy and felt like I was successful when I was poor, living six guys in a three-bedroom apartment, sleeping on the floor." 

Legendary basketball coach John Wooden said it's a matter of satisfaction.

With 620 victories and 10 national titles, Wooden is the winningest coach in college basketball history.

But his definition of success was more about competing with yourself than the other guy:

"Peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you're capable," he said in a 2001 TED Talk. 

Legendary investor Warren Buffett values relationships above all else.

With a net worth of $77.4 billion, Buffett is just about the wealthiest person in the world, second only to Bill Gates. And yet his definition of success has nothing to do with money or fame.

As James Altucher writes, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway once told shareholders at an annual meeting: "I measure success by how many people love me." 

Acclaimed author Maya Angelou believed success is about enjoying your work.

The late, great poet laureate, who passed away at 86 in 2014, left behind stacks of books and oodles of aphorisms.

Her take on success is among the best: "Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it."

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates believes it's about making an impact on society.

Gates is the wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of $86 billion, But to him, success is about relationships and leaving behind a legacy.

In a Reddit AMA, Gates took a tip from Warren Buffett when asked about his definition of success:

"Warren Buffett has always said the measure [of success] is whether the people close to you are happy and love you."

He added: "It is also nice to feel like you made a difference — inventing something or raising kids or helping people in need." 

Spiritual teacher Deepak Chopra believes success is a matter of constant growth.

The physician and author says it's a matter of continual growth.

"Success in life could be defined as the continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realization of worthy goals," Chopra writes in "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success."

President Barack Obama aims to change people's lives.

Obama once held the highest office in the land — but he doesn't equate power with success.

At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, First Lady Michelle Obama told the audience that her husband "started his career by turning down high-paying jobs and instead working in struggling neighborhoods where a steel plant had shut down."

She went on:

"For Barack, success isn't about how much money you make. It's about the difference you make in people's lives." 

Inventor Thomas Edison recognized that success is a grind.

Edison — holder of over 1,000 patents— had an insane work ethic. He was reported to work 60 consecutive hours on occasion.

So naturally, his definition of success is equally ambitious: "Success is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration."

Popular author Stephen Covey said that the definition of success is deeply individual.

The late Covey became a massive success — and a part of popular culture — with his 1989 book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," which has sold over 25 million copies.

Yet for Covey, success was categorically individual.

"If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience," he writes in the book, "you will find your definition of success." 

Billionaire John Paul DeJoria sees success as working hard — all the time.

DeJoria co-founded Paul Mitchell hair products and Patron tequila. In an interview with Business Insider, he reflected on the lessons he learned while working at a dry cleaner's as a young man.

Apparently, the head of the store was impressed by how spic and span DeJoria kept the floors, even though no one was watching him clean.

That's why he now believes:

"Success isn't how much money you have. Success is not what your position is. Success is how well you do what you do when nobody else is looking." 

Origin

The 5 stages of entrepreneurship

Stage One: Drive

What most people lack, and the reason we’re divided as a society between go getters and settlers, is drive.

When you are driven, you suddenly have time.

Why? Because you somehow make that time.

When you are driven, you suddenly can .

Why? Because you jump in.

When you are driven, you suddenly find that you’re doing it.

Why? Because you actually do it.

However, drive is like a drug, one we get used to, and we require more and more of it each day, just to make the initial growth into happening.

The farther up that false growth curve you go, the more drive you require to keep climbing the steep way ahead. The minute you slow down, you feel like you’re missing out, like your time is passing, like you are wasting your moment, like you fall back.

Unfortunately, at any point in time, for any person on Earth, drive will dry out. It’s the effect of the more you know the less you know.

As the fast initial progress reaches the plateau phase, people quit because they basically don’t believe there is a top to that mountain. So that is wave one quitters.

Quitters are awesome because at least they started.

Stage Two: Persistence

From the driven starters, some insist that there must be a top of the mountain they climb, and they start to hustle.

They run out of drive, but somehow find inside them the other rarest of things among human personalities: persistence.

Persistence is painful because it is a sobering up process from the high drive caused.

The persistent ones keep plowing at it, with no drive in their veins, but a bitter combination of pride and ambition, sweetened only by vague hope.

The persistent people are awesome because they suffer those last miles.

Stage Three: Quitting

Right after persistence wears out, one finds itself at the top!

But behold, no breathtaking scenery, no peak to stick your flag into, no selfie to take from the top of the world. Not even above the clouds. Just an endless field of boredom stretching on and on into the horizon.

This is the walk of quitting. It is like a walk of shame, only that you throw tomatoes at yourself:

What was I thinking?

The walk of quitting is so long and boring, that most people simply stop there and camp out for the rest of their lives. Then they come up with personal development theories that teach success is not everything in life. Bullshit.

Those who keep going, at some point, fall into the dip.

The dip is the final test of the quit zone.

The dip is when the boredom of nothing happening pushes you over the cliff with bad news, when the cloud fails your user database, when your partner quits, when your market gets a behemoth player, when it’s not enough that no weight went away for four months in a row, now you got gastritis and must eat more often.

Those who stand the quitting zone are so awesome for having strength of character.

Stage Four: Vision

The quitting zone is followed by the vision zone, when the true growth starts.

The problem is that the vision zone comes right after the dip.

People are beat up, tired, bored, with zero faith, and suddenly they must climb again. Only the few talented, free and/or lucky, have the vision of what is happening.

Most will see the climb after the dip as another dip, only some see it as the inflection point.

They know they are back on the way up.

Only those, therefore, have the vision, which in fact they had from the very beginning, which in fact to them was their drive in the first place, instead of desire or curiosity.

You could see as a fine observer right at the beginning who has vision powered drive and who simply burns calories and ideas (and dollars). That’s what makes a good early investor.

People with vision are awesome because they are the ones who prove that "anything is possible".

Stage Five: Mission

The mission zone is when those who had the vision of their growth understand the unique opportunity to actually put meaning into the world.

A true mission has exponential potential.

Those who find their mission are the rare people that take it upon themselves to change something, or make something last.

They become personally invested, not in short term objectives or shallow whims, but large, long term, deep and meaningful promises, which they make, openly or not, to the world itself.

Most people stop at having vision.

Vision and growth bring a lot of comfort. Money flows, wealth builds, success is present, there is very little incentive to assume a mission. A mission can take a serious hit at the "winning" that vision brings.

Missions are the things which bring sudden deaths to promising mavericks, who fall from the sky, like shot down ducks.

However, a successful mission is the true exponential growth ingredient. Nothing booms like a supersonic engine without a mission powering it.

So, are you an entrepreneur? What stage are you in?

Origin

International Accelerators Speak Out on the Top 4 Components for Startup Success

If anyone could unravel the mystery of why some startups succeed and others fail, it would be the business accelerators. They have a front-row seat with real-world experience. Their reputation is on the line, and rapid turnover is not their friend. They have a vested interest in seeing their clients succeed.

Work/Action

As Alyse Daunis, Program Manager, of Launch Alaska says, "Startups need doers. Doers live for building things and executing. Founders who execute intelligently and quickly are more likely to succeed".

"In the early days, the founder(s) need to be hands-on with all parts of the business - the technology, sales, finances, etc. It is inevitable that they will need to do things outside their comfort zone and do them at least well enough to get others to buy in", says Elza Seregelyi, director of L-SPARK Canadian Business Accelerator.



Eric Mathews, founder and CEO, of Start Co adds, "… action removes doubt. A startup’s main advantage is speed of learning. You learn what works and doesn’t work when you take action, run tests, get feedback, and iterate. You can’t be an entrepreneur in an armchair -you must do".

And Greg Wright, founder, of HATCH pitch says, "(Maintaining) a relentless focus on doing whatever it takes (acting, not talking)".

Customer Focus

Ashish Bhatia, founder/MD, of India Accelerator offers, "Don’t focus too much on funding! Focus on solving the right problem, the right way. Focus on basics; customers, their experience and retention".

"(Having) a deep understanding of the market (you) plan to serve, its size and realistic revenue potential, and the needs of the customers there. Apply technology to solve real customer problems better than anyone else is currently doing it", says Jason Cole, CEO, of Da Primus Consulting.

"(Keep) a laser focus on the customer", says Joe Bush, executive director, of Worcester CleanTech Incubator. Susan Langdon, executive director, of Toronto Fashion Incubator adds, "(Use) Innovation: Develop a product or service that's more innovative and desirable than what your competitors are offering".

Empathy

"It sounds incredibly counterintuitive, but those who practice grace, generosity and peace are more likely to succeed due to their inherent capabilities and perceptions of life and business", says Lauren Tiffan, director of Ocean Accelerator.

"Understanding the customer’s situation. I love founding teams where at least one person has firsthand experience in the customers’ world so they inherently understand the pains and opportunities. But even so, founders still need to validate their assumptions", adds Elza Seregelyi, director, of L-SPARK Canadian Business Accelerator.



Nobu Kumagai, founder and managing partner of Wildcard Incubator, offers "Compassion. This along with "gratitude" are both taught from notable entrepreneurs in Japan who (achieved) success during the post-war period. Successful founders and businesspersons, historically and across the Pacific, possess this compassionate mindset, to empower those surrounding (them), including co-founders, co-workers, customers, intermediaries,and so on".

Persistence

"Willingness to listen and learn, persistence, and the ability to excite others about their idea", says Christian Busch, CEO of German Accelerator Tech NY.

"Determination and resilience in the face of disappointment", adds Keith Hopper, CEO of Danger Fort Labs.

Eric Mathews, founder and CEO of Start Co says, "Perseverance is the X-factor. There will be troughs of sorrow, pits of despair, crashes of ineptitude, but understand that the obstacle is the way forward. Know that there are only two steps on the path: start and never stop".



Other desirable qualities the respondents mentioned more than once included sales, cashflow management, team building, coachability, resourcefulness and basic business and social skills. Jim Bowie, site manager/associate director of the University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program thinks another desirable quality is, "The ability to be a persuasive communicator and focus on sales".

Ben Hsieh, program manager of Nest added, "Time management, interpersonal/communication skills and quick learner".

We are grateful to the accelerators who have shared their experiences to help us better understand and reinforce what it really takes to be a successful startup. After all, it’s their business to know!

Stay tuned for more great advice about entrepreneurship from accelerators who have seen it, lived it, and learned from it!

Origin

Great founders lead with product strategy

In the beginning, it was just you and your founders. In order to raise capital, you had to not just know the problem you were solving intimately but you also had to be deeply passionate about it. You are the expert. You are the solution. You are the vision for the future.

The wonder of this early entrepreneurial environment is that it’s easy to respond to new information and bring expertise to every problem that comes up. But it doesn’t stay this way forever.

If you’re really onto something, you will need to scale fast. Scaling means bringing people onto your team with expertise in other areas. They’re not like you. They don’t know your problem inside and out. Instead, they maintain functional expertise. Your new hires might be God’s gift to DevOps or data science… but they’re not going to be steeped with your passion and background in whatever problem you’re taking on.

And that’s the point of stress. Until this point, you never needed to make your product strategy explicit. You and your cofounders could maintain a level of shared understanding. You could argue about the minutiae of a feature and how it was implemented. You didn’t argue over the general direction of the whole product.

That shared understanding starts to disappear as you start to expand. And I’ve seen this as a make or break moment many times for young teams. For the founders who are able to confer their wisdom, passion, and product strategy onto their team, the sky is the limit. For the founders who struggle to create that common ground, the struggle to keep everyone aligned can be insurmountable.

This might be confusing. After all, you’re the founders. Not everyone on the team needs to have all the pieces of the puzzle. As long as they trust you and you know your stuff, you should be good to go.

Unfortunately not.

Your Role Changes as You Scale

Things change as your business scales. More than anything, you’re not always accessible. Sometimes you have customer meetings and escalations that take precedence. Sometimes you find yourself in endless cycles with board members and investors. Sometimes you simply can’t find enough time in the day to meet with all the members of your team that are interested.

As your business scales, you’re not as accessible. And you have a few options. Your first option is to stay the course; ask your team to rely on your expertise. Now you go from being the rockstar savant on solving your problem to being the single point of failure. You’re the insurmountable bottleneck that is keeping your wonderful business from having the impact it could have on the world. This option sucks.

Your second option is to trust your team to figure it out. You hired great people. You know that they can’t come to you to answer every question. You empower them to make their own decisions. And you let them execute. You’re the type of boss you’d want. One filled with implicit trust. Unfortunately, this option isn’t much better than the first. You can’t win a relay race if everyone is running a different track. It doesn’t matter how fast your sprinters are. Regardless of how smart your team is, unless they have a shared understanding about what they’re trying to accomplish, they won’t be able to make uniform enough decisions to deliver an earth shattering business. This option also sucks.

Your third option is the tough one. You hired great people. But you now understand your job is to lead them towards solving your big, hairy, audacious problem. And that means spending less time doing the problem solving yourself and spending more time educating your team. Every hour you spend getting your team running in the same direction is an hour that you multiply their effectiveness. You save them from having to backtrack. You improve the quality of their conversations. You keep them motivated and empowered. You arm them with the tools to make the right decisions — quickly.

Your best option requires you to put your product strategy on paper, and talk about it regularly.

Your New Job: Chief Strategist

If you’re able to clearly articulate three things, you’ll be forever benefited by it. First, you need to articulate a clear understanding of your customer and how your customer uses your product today. What are the features that they require? What are the features that delight? If they weren’t using your product, what would they be using? This is a humbling exercise. At the beginning of any journey, you can’t do everything. Be open about that. Where are you starting and what problem can you solve today.

Then, you need to offer a clear vision for how your addressable customers and users evolve over time with the addition of new features and capabilities. What is it that you’re going to start building into your product to grow access, usability, and use cases? This articulation should be staged over time. Your product will have to evolve over time — your strategy has to take that evolution into account.

Finally, you need to give your team an understanding of why your solution is differentiated from a field of competitors. With that clear differentiation in tow, your brilliant team will be able to prioritize the features and functions that they want to concentrate on building. They’ll know the things that help drive them towards parity but don’t ultimately fit in with your positioning. And they’ll also know those capabilities that will reinforce the differentiation that you’re aspiring towards.

The way you get leverage as you scale is by codifying your vision and sharing it. As your team grows, you can’t assume that they’ll understand each other and the problem you’re addressing the same way you and your fellow founders did. To get everyone moving in the same direction, your product strategy needs to become your teams holy document — and you need to be its chief evangelist. Without it, you’ll be wasting your time and your team’s brainpower.

[Maxwell Wessel - Investor]
Origin