Are you a lazy entrepreneur?
I’m absolutely sure you wouldn’t answer YES to that question yet majority of we entrepreneurs exemplify various forms of laziness in our entrepreneurial journey more times than we would like to come to terms with.
So much emotional sentiments have been attached to the word ‘entrepreneurship’ or ‘entrepreneur’ top on the list is the passionate feeling of being your own BOSS.
This and many more has subtly turned we entrepreneurs into some sort of “hero” in our own fantasy world of risk taking adventures. The idea of being lazy will totally seem like an insult to our entrepreneurial personality; for crying out loud, we dare what others don’t, right?
The truth is we entrepreneurs are more susceptible to laziness in more ways than the average person in the world. The very fact that we are on a mission to create change through whatever business we’ve chosen to venture into calls for more discipline and hard work many of us are having a hard time coping with.
Consider the following quote I came up with while trying to examine this subject of laziness in my life as an entrepreneur;
“Anyone is lazy who expects change without action (doing something);
anyone is lazy who expects change with the same action (refusing to try new things);
anyone is lazy who expects change without intelligent action (a plan/strategy);
anyone is lazy whose actions doesn’t yield measurable outcomes! (significant results)”
Laziness for an entrepreneur is not easily detectable, no wonder it is often neglected much to our own peril. Have you ever wondered within yourself if the reason why you aren’t yet living your dream life or haven’t been successful as an entrepreneur is as a result of your laziness?
That might have come out rather harsh I suppose, it was intended so. There wouldn’t be any need to read further if you are already feeling uneasy right now! This article is for those who can boldly look truth in the eyes and accept whatever correction needed.
No one wants to be labeled “lazy”, yet many of our actions are perfect reflections of laziness. When I was much younger, I used to think people weren’t successful because they didn’t know ‘how’ to be successful. As I grew and observed life, I came to another rather painful conclusion; that people weren’t successful not only because they didn’t know ‘how’ to be successful, but because they are simply lazy!
Ignorance isn’t the cause of un-successfulness; laziness is. People are not living their dream lives, not because of lack of knowledge or opportunity, but simply because they are lazy! They have simply chosen to ignore the work required to create the kind of life they desire.
It’s quite natural to think that people remain in their prevailing conditions in life because they don’t know a way out of it. For a very long time, I believed this, even though deep down I knew there was more to it than it seems.
What would you say about someone who obviously knows their current condition in life desperately needs a change but refuse to do what is necessary to make that change happen, even after being told what to do repeatedly?
How would you describe someone who repeatedly complains about their life, but would rather “talk about it” than “go to work on it”?
How would you describe someone who openly shows admiration at the achievement of others but has never tried for once to be the object of admiration?
What would you say to someone who knows your source of success but will never replicate that same source in their own life?
There is only one answer to these questions, and it is – laziness!
Really?
YES!
We often think laziness is simply or only not working. Therefore, we seem to associate idleness with laziness and label ‘busy-ness’ as ‘non-laziness’. Yet we forget there are many “busy” people who hardly get things done (results). We forget there are so many people who are “busy” doing nothing. We have become a generation of “doers” but “non-achievers”.
We have gradually replaced productivity with activity. We never accuse the busy ones of being lazy. Of course NOT! They are working, doing something, actively engaged and not idle. I’m sure you’re wondering, how can I possibly call a busy person lazy? Well, you’re about to find out!
I dare so to you, that the world is full of so many unsuccessful people not because we have so many ‘idle people’, but because we have so many ‘unproductive people’. What we have all suddenly forgotten as entrepreneurs is how success is actually measured. If we have ever asked ourselves this question; “how is success measured?” Then, maybe the meaning of laziness wouldn’t have been this confusing to the world in general.
How Is SUCCESS Measured?
Success is measured by ‘results’ and not by ‘efforts’. If you are one of those who brag about how much effort you put into making things happen but never actually made anything happen; you are LAZY! We do not measure success by how much effort expended; we measure success by the results achieved. We do not measure success by “how much” we did (activity); success is measured by “how well” we did (productivity).
Success is not obscure (vague); it is obvious (noticeable). Unless the results are measurable, one cannot claim to have achieved success. The measurement of success is most accurate at the ‘end’ of the process and not ‘during’ the process. All that takes place during the process are simply efforts and nothing more.
No one has ever been awarded for their ‘efforts’; awards have always been the reward given to those with ‘results’. What we do and how we do (process or effort) is good; but much better is what we achieved (outcome or result). The world only becomes better from the outcome (productivity) of men’s efforts (activity) and not the other way round!
What Then Is LAZINESS To An Entrepreneur?
As entrepreneurs the world awaits the changes we’ve set out to create; the superior values we’ve promised to deliver to our customers; the significant business (an indispensable company) we’ve set out to build.
Laziness creeps up on us when we begin to sacrifice the ultimate for the immediate; when we begin to focus on the output (the money we will get) rather than on the input (the value we will create).
The list is endless, in fact i suggest you keep coming up with more on your own after reading this and please share them with us once you do either by sending us a mail, posting it as a comment under this article. I’ve tried to come up with a few ones that I will like to share below in two basic categories;
(1) Laziness is choosing;
‘Good’ over ‘Great’;
‘Better’ over ‘Best’;
‘Effort’ over ‘Result’;
‘Emotion’ over ‘Logic’;
‘Quantity’ over ‘Quality’;
‘How far’ over ‘How well’;
‘Motion’ over ‘Progress’;
‘Urgent’ over ‘Important’;
‘Available’ over ‘Suitable’;
‘Personality’ over ‘Policy’;
‘Security’ over ‘Freedom’;
‘Action’ over ‘Contribution’;
‘Charisma’ over ‘Character’;
‘Survival’ over ‘Significance’;
‘Activity’ over ‘Productivity’;
‘Average’ over ‘Excellence’;
‘To blame others’ over ‘Yourself’;
‘Faithfulness’ over ‘Fruitfulness’;
(2) Laziness is desiring;
‘Profit’ without ‘value‘
‘Change’ without ‘Pain’;
‘Love’ without ‘Sacrifice’;
‘Wealth’ without ‘Wisdom’;
‘Health’ without ‘Exercise’;
‘Power’ without ‘Discipline’;
‘Progress’ without ‘Patience’;
‘Respect’ without ‘Character’;
‘Perfection’ without ‘Practice’;
‘Fulfillment’ without ‘Purpose’;
‘Success’ without ‘Preparation’;
‘Development’ without ‘Learning’;
‘Freedom’ without ‘Responsibility’;
‘Opportunities’ without ‘Challenges’;
‘Authority’ without ‘Accountability’;
‘Leadership’ without ‘Followership’;
‘Promotion’ without ‘Contribution’;
This is the bottom line; Laziness is every action and anything that is ‘anti-change’. It involves any attempt to maintain the status quo! In other words, you are lazy if you always focus on efforts (playing it safe) rather than results (making change happen).
Thanks for reading!
Please, kindly keep it up!
This is cool and amazing……….
Thank you Dipo for your feedback. Was at your site too, found so many interesting things and was asking myself where you had been all these while that i didn’t know, lol.
Thanks just found out the truth, i am a bit lazy, just promise to read this daily for a week, to waken my spirit in some areas. God bless you.
You are welcome. You are so courageous in admitting the truth and that’s the source of your improvement. Once you can look in the mirror and live with your fault, the road to change becomes easier. Congratulation as you move on to become a better entrepreneur, I look forward to seeing the SIGNIFICANT business you’ll build as a result.
I must commend you on this manual,which has really turn my entrepreneural system positively all around,Titi Jnr,I don’t mind if we can meet,am Salman,CEO supaklinaz laundry & drycleaning,kosobo,oyo.
My facebook is salman tee babs,hope to read from u pretty soon,my time is not wasted reading ur articles!!!
Thanks a lot!
Hi Salman,
Thanks for your encouraging comments, tried searching for you on facebook but didn’t get any results. Send me a mail as regarding what you would want us to talk about (use the contact us form on this site ok?)
Man! Nail on the Head! I really appreciate your posts. Your writing is evidence of someone with real deep insight into problems and the short-comings that create them. Most articles give bland to-do information but I think it’s more effective helping get across why that reader ISN’T doing what they’ve come to take advice on. It makes things a bit clearer when that person can reflect on what’s currently not working. Instead of learning how to jump higher, first learn to remove the shackles.
JP
Hey Jason,
I’m so glad you could join us here and more glad you decided to share your view about this post. Thank you for your encouraging comments. I do agree with you on how important it is to first help clear the shackles before giving guidelines to jump higher. I have always believed that people act in a certain way because they are being limited by the kind of information they have been fed or have been feeding themselves. So it’s more effective to address those limitations by offering them the opportunity to see the reason for their limitation. My guess is that once they see that, they will naturally be motivated to carry out whatever guideline suggested for them to jump higher.
PS.
Got your mail, working on it.
no problem and Happy New Year for the record.
Wishing you a happy and rewarding 2011 too Jason. Thanks for sending in the last comment for year 2010! 🙂
Awesome post man! I agree with your points. It’s not the effort that matters but the results. Thanks for sharing. Have fun.
Hi Sam.
Hope you had a wonderful holiday?
Good to have you back and thanks for your comment.
Happy New Year!
Hi Tito,
What a nice post. Isn’t strange that some people keep complaining about why they don’t get good results, yet do nothing about it? If we want success, then we have to take action. We have got to have a plan, set goals, persist, and expect to succeed. Thanks for sharing my friend
So true indeed Dia, many wonder why they don’t achieve much in business and in life, but never question the quality of actions they are taking. Not every action brings about results, only effective actions can guarantee desired results.
Thanks for the contribution.
Laziness is sneaky, because even when we least expect it, it can jump inside of us and completely limit our progress. One thing I keep in mind always to keep myself from falling victim to my own inner pull to laziness is this: if I’m lazy, I only achieve what a lazy person can achieve…knowing that I want more in life, I have to fight the pull and be excellent.
Great topic Tito and very well put together. I particularly like the “what is laziness to an entrepreneur” lists you provided.
Peace.
PS- For some reason this post didn’t reach my google reader account. Not sure what happened with the RSS?
JK!
Looking at it from that perspective does help really. If you have to see that being lazy means you get a lazy result as just about anyone else, would help you want to put in more. I think that’s a useful addition.
Thanks. Will check out the RSS feed too.
Wow, I’ll admit that I can be lazy sometimes. (Hooray for being brutally honest!) Mostly it’s a slight problem of procrastination in my case.
Great stuff here, it really opens up our minds to see why some people act they way they do. A lot of people don’t try or settle for less because they’re just downright lazy. That’s no way to live. It depresses me just thinking about it!
Hey Elise,
Very brutally honest indeed. We all fall prey to this little fox as entrepreneurs, unknowingly. That’s why a checklist as this becomes useful to gauge ourselves from falling completely to its whims and caprices.
In a very simple way, I would say the most subtle form of laziness is settling for less when we can deliver more. It is deciding to do the ‘easy’ work rather than a ‘better’ work.
The way out, I think is not to see doing work as not being lazy, we must begin to question the work we do. Not every work is productive or great work. There are many mediocre works out there. So just working is no longer sufficient. We must ask; is this the best work I have the capacity to do? What result is my work getting? Is the result getting me closer to my long term goals or farther?
Hi Tito,
Well, you have defined laziness in a really different and new way. Makes me think. I must admit that I am lazy sometimes and end up wasting lot of time. Time to wake up!
Happy New Year Ishan!
Glad you made it into the new year, how did the holidays go?
Yes, laziness can be very creepy on us entrepreneurs, we must pay apt attention to it before it becomes a limiting factor to our entrepreneurial ambitions.
Very interesting post Tito, Lazy is one of my favourite words, but I don’t have any negative thoughts about it. I like the word Lazy. 😆
As you said we are measured by results, if those results can be obtained by being ‘lazy’ that’s great. “Work smarter, not harder” is my motto.
One book that influenced me, and directly led me to create a business with a million pound turnover, was “The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches” by Joe Karbo. It was the ‘Lazy’ title that made me buy it. 😉
Although I like ‘Lazy’, we all have to work hard really, but if you enjoy what you’re doing then it doesn’t seem like work. 8)
John
Leamington Spa, England
Hey John,
I think your final thoughts nailed it, working smart doesn’t happen automatic, it only means focusing more on the work that yields the greater results, to me that’s far from laziness. Smart people don’t do all the mundane things, they look for the high road and take it persistently till the right results show. That doesn’t go to say that they don’t work, they bottomline is not whether you work or not, the bottomline is focusing on results from every work, making sure your work is productive and that is what smart work is all about. So being lazy doing smart work is not laziness, it’s the right way to not be lazy.
Welcome to naijapreneur! It’s good having you join us here. Thanks so much for sharing your own side of the story!
Hi Tito
Firstly thanks for leaving an awesome comment on my recent post.I have now replied. It certainly added to the conversation:-) Tthis was the post you linked to and I had to come see what you had said about laziness! Not something you would be accused of that’s for sure lol
It is certainly a post with plenty for us to be challenged by. I am highly motivated with the things I love doing…blog hopping, commenting and networking 🙂 Other things I can easily not have so much enthusiasm for. However, the great thing about this blogging community that I am such a part of now; means the techie tasks (I find them a mystery lol) are now done by my blogging buddies and I also ask for help if I need to.
I so agree with you about laziness too. It always amazes me when people ask for my advice (usually about how to get more comments on their site, how to network, use Twitter effectively) and then take no notice of the suggestions I make! Tthey want some quick fix and when I mention hard work they don’t bother to come back! And stay in the same place or disappear from the blogosphere!
Thanks for sharing such a great lot of helpful hints too. Here’s to a wonderful 2011 for you Tito. Your hard work will surely pay off.
Patricia Perth Australia
Thanks Pat for the positive feedback and reinforcing remarks on the need to go the whole nine yards in anything we lay our hands on to do. Laziness really is just hanging in there and expecting great results without taking even greater actions. That’s the way many prefer to succeed, they want it to be automatic. Without any conscious effort from us consistently, then we should never expect any great result. I mean, just look ta you Pat, you have a work ethic that marvels everyone of us. You are simply on every site I visit, you write a post and take time to read almost everyone’s own out there before bothering to write another one. You don’t leave absent minded comments, you take time and delve into the issue being discussed. All these are not quick fix approaches or automatic, they are time consuming and are not what most lazy bones want to invest their time on. They would rather prefer complaining about their situation than taking actions to remedy it. I say, to hell with them!
I think in all of us we have some form of entrepreneur laziness because if we didn’t, then we would have achieved many many more great things.
“That the world is full of so many unsuccessful people not because we have so many ‘idle people’, but because we have so many ‘unproductive people’. What we have all suddenly forgotten as entrepreneurs is how success is actually measured. ”
Sometimes unproductivity is caused by lack of reward. Like working in a job that offers little pay, would you really want to put everything in to it?
Hi Peter,
Thanks for joining us here and being generous enough to share your own thoughts about laziness with us. In a way laziness like you said is within us all, the more reason we need to pay close attention to its subtle existence so that it doesn’t became an hindrance to our greatness.
Wow, Tito! What an informative post you have here.
I agree with you 100%. As entrepreneurs, we should all focus on quality rather than quantity, becoming more effective rather than simply efficient, and going above and beyond to achieve optimal results rather than simply being “good.”
Great article! And, I admit, I sometimes do fall under the “lazy” category. Well, time to kick things into gear!
Christina
Christina,
Thanks for coming around here and being generous to share your views too. I guess there is so much the world expects from us as entrepreneurs and we must never let them down.
Welcome to naijapreneur!
I think being lazy is such very normal to mankind because we are not perfect, though I am so much hard working person but there are times also that I felt myself lazy. I love your post because it will help us to realize things that needs to do..
Thank you Dennis for your honest comment. Its true we all as humans naturally have the tendency to be lazy. Knowing this is what makes resisting that tendency much easier. A problem known is a problem half solved.
Since we know laziness is the bridge we have to constantly cross to get great work done and achieve SIGNIFICANT results in life and business, we don’t have much of a choice than to cross this bridge.
I am glad the post helped you pick up a few tips on how to daily cross this bridge of laziness.
Thank you Dennis!
I do hope you come around again and let’s rob our entrepreneurial minds together 😉
Thanks for the article. Very inspiring. For instance I am always very busy and therefore I do not consider myself lazy… But I agree at the end of the day results is what matter and I have to keep learning to be more goal oriented and focus on the important things. I will keep working hard to shift from doer to achiever. Besides, I also have to take actions to solve some of my problems rather than spending my time and energy complaining about them.
Hey Juan!
Good to have your feedback. It’s crazy huh when we think the doing is the achieving right?
Busyness kills way faster than idleness. I have never been a fan of just doing, I always query every task to see if it is in alignment with the bigger picture. You got the idea bro, it’s all about RESULTS!
No one rewards efforts, period.
There’s a lot to think about here, and too many of your points in the article made me squirm! Its excellent to have to look inside oneself and honestly think do I? Oh dear, yes I do…And then you go on to give ideas on rising above the lazy habit- that’s even better. Hard work I can do, hard focussed work is more difficult when I get stuck in the maze of busyness.
Thank you for this, I’ve bookmarked it and will revivit to keep focused!
Laziness and entrepreneurship are like oil and water being forced to mix. I had to learn that hard fact myself over the years. If you truly want to be successful as an entrepreneur you have to be consistent and dedicated to the process. It doesn’t happen overnight but steady progression leads you to the results you want. I wanted to share my view on the subject: http://entrepreneurialambitions.com/2014/09/09/the-hunger-for-success-real-starvation/
Nice contribution here Yura, I especially like the Oil and water analogy, so on point!