Desire VS. Compulsion – The Most Fundamental Question For Entrepreneurs
Nugget from Felix Dennis
Hello Friend!
Today I bring you a nugget from the great Felix Dennis ✨
👤 Author
💡Nugget
✦ Felix Dennis
(From his book “How To Get Rich”)
All error springs from flawed assumptions. If there are no assumptions, there can be no error.
I am told that during the Vietnam War, a sign was kept nailed on a wall above a particular marine commander’s desk which said: ‘Assumption is the mother of all f***-ups’. Those seven words should be carved into the heart of every entrepreneur, the wealthy or the wannabe, the gonnabe or the been-there-done-that.
As far as getting rich is concerned, the cardinal error is to begin such a quest in the vague belief that you would like to be rich. Wishing or desiring to be rich is perhaps the most commonplace of human desires, other than sexual fantasy. Yet few people ever succeed in achieving it. Such desire is a fleeting thing, a will-of-the-wisp floating across the surface of the mind as you pass the front window of a chic boutique: ‘I wish I was rich. If only I could afford it, I would march straight inside and buy that beautiful handbag.’ Then the No. 43 bus comes along, and all such thoughts are abandoned on the pavement.
Wishing for or desiring something is futile without an inner compulsion to achieve it. Such lack of compulsion, if not frankly acknowledged, can lead to great personal unhappiness.
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The assumption that you might be able to achieve some goal if you only wished hard enough is not just a f***-up. It’s a potential personal tragedy.
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Do not mistake desire for compulsion. Only you can know the song of your inner demons. Only you can know if you are willing to tread the narrow, lonely road to riches. No one else can know. No one else can tell you either to do it or to refrain from the attempt. When the going gets tough, when all seems lost, when partners and luck desert you, when bankruptcy and failure are staring you in the face, all that can sustain you is a fierce compulsion to succeed at any price.
✦ Mark Manson
(From his blogpost “The Most Important Question of Your Life”)
What determines your success isn't “What do you want to enjoy?” The question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?” The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences, but the quality of your negative experiences.
There’s a lot of crappy advice out there that says, “You’ve just got to want it enough!”
Everybody wants something. And everybody wants something enough. They just aren’t aware of what it is they want, or rather, what they want “enough.”
Because if you want the benefits of something in life, you have to also want the costs. If you want the beach body, you have to want the sweat, the soreness, the early mornings, and the hunger pangs. If you want the yacht, you have to also want the late nights, the risky business moves, and the possibility of pissing off one person or ten thousand.
If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come any closer to it, then maybe what you actually want is a fantasy, an idealization, an image, a false promise. Maybe what you want isn’t what you want—you just enjoy wanting. Maybe you don’t actually want it at all.
“Your real resume is just a cataloging of all your suffering.”
- Naval Ravikant
“If you need encouragement, don’t become an entrepreneur.”
- Elon Musk
📁 All the ideas in this article are saved and classified in a searchable Database, which (as of July 2024) contains nearly 2,000 timeless ideas (sourced directly from the most influential doers and entrepreneurs — captured on books, interviews/podcasts and articles).
I call this Database the Doers Notebook, and I’ve recently opened it for anyone who wants it.
🤔 Why did I build this?
Well, as the Latin motto goes, “A chief part of learning is simply knowing where you can find a thing.” And since it’s all 🔎 searchable, we only need to type a keyword to immediately get a list of insights related to it!
For instance, if I’m unsure about how to get more sales in my business, I can simply type the word “sales” and immediately get 88 search results! In this case from Jim Edwards, Peter Thiel, Naval Ravikant, Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Balaji Srinivasan, Nassim Taleb, and many other remarkable individuals.
It’s like having a 🧠 second brain from which we can pull wisdom on demand.
And this is super valuable because it can significantly decrease the error rate in our judgment.
“In an age of infinite leverage [code and media], judgment is the most important skill.”
- Naval Ravikant
I actually made a video where I went through the list of insights I got for the keywords “sales” and “creative”.
So, if you wanna get better at sales and learn to be more creative (and also see all the features of the database and how you can get access) then definitely check out the video 👇
💥 Stuff I Loved
My top podcast for this year!
David Senra (the host of Founders) not only has taught me invaluable lessons from the world’s greatest entrepreneurs, but also inspired me from his insane enthusiasm for this topic.
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Wishing you a lovely weekend!
Julio xx
P.S. If you liked this article, you'll definitely enjoy my free 80-page ebook. It’s packed with 23 big ideas (from top influential doers and entrepreneurs) to become better, richer and wiser. Download your copy here!
This really resonated with me. Thanks!