Successful Entrepreneurship through Discipline & Learning

Is personal happiness out of the reach of most people? Maybe.

I believe that happiness is correlated with the ability for individuals to pursue their own passions. Furthermore, following one's passions is critical to becoming a problem solver (thus an entrepreneur).

The first requisite for success is to develop the ability to focus and apply your mental and physical energies to the problem at hand - without growing weary. Because such thinking is often difficult, there seems to be no limit to which some people will go to avoid the effort and labor that is associated with it ...

Thomas Edison

This Edison quote should be easy to understand and accept since few would argue that the kind of commitment suggested by Edison above can rarely be sustained when their efforts are applied to something that does not interest them. Imagine how you would feel when, during your inventing (read problem solving) efforts you get negative outcome after negative outcome. Could you keep the focus and effort on something that is not important to you?

Again, the master (Edison) …

Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward ...

I think children are initially connected with their passions. It seems as they get older they loose that connection. Instead, adults appear to subordinate their passions with the desire to be financially stable (read: risk adverse). Their passions hopefully take on a secondary role within their lives and become an avocation rather than their vocation.

That's a shame. The world is now so socially and economically so diverse that one can find problems (and opportunities) in almost any area. Why should we work on anything that isn't truly interesting to us? Combine the process of problem solving with our innate passions and success and happiness is not far from our reach!