Millionaire MBA Day 3: Motivation
by
Millionaire MBA
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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Copyright © Millionaire MBA 2011
First Published 2011 by ELW Publishing Bath, UK
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Contents
Introduction
A few years back, 50 leading UK entrepreneurs and business owners were interviewed in their homes, offices and hotels. The purpose of the interviews was to find out exactly what made them successful, and how other aspiring entrepreneurs could replicate their business success.
Those digitally recorded audio interviews were turned into a 'timeless' business mentoring programme called Millionaire MBA. Millionaire MBA is regarded as one of the best programmes in the world to teach entrepreneurial thinking and the 'millionaire mindset'.
Millionaire MBA is a rich, deep mentoring programme which existing and aspiring entrepreneurs listen to over 40 days. Literally tens of thousands of entrepreneurs (like you) around the world have benefited from this programme.
In this ebook, you’ll find the actual transcription from one whole day of the mentoring programme.
To find out more about the full business mentoring programme or to listen to the audio version, please visit http://www.millionairemba.com/
Day 3: Millionaire Difference
Welcome to Day 3, "Motivation."
Today we look at motivation from two perspectives: firstly, the motive to become successful.
Every entrepreneur has at least one motivation to become successful in business, whether it's to prove themselves, not to work for anybody else or simply because no one else would employ them.
There's always a fundamental motivation that drives them to succeed.
Secondly, we talk about motivation in others. Why is it so important to understand other people's motivation?
If we can identify what drives somebody to buy or see another person's point of view when negotiating, or understand their motive when we ask them to do something for us, we'll get closer to the exact outcome we want with minimum effort.
Let's start today by looking at the motivation to become a successful entrepreneur.
The journey one takes as an entrepreneur is an exciting adventure with many highs and lows.
Just as a journey to climb a mountain or run a marathon has tremendous peaks and troughs, starting a business is a hard struggle which many people choose not to undertake.
Those who do have their own motivation. Today we'll learn what drives them.
Most people think that entrepreneurs are motivated by money. Although money is nice to have and to a degree is a motivator, very few would undertake the entrepreneur's journey without the rewards.
Money itself masks the true motivations of entrepreneurs. Take a listen to our entrepreneur's views on this.
Sir Christopher Evans
It was really being in charge of my own life, my own ideas. I wanted to do things my way.
It wasn't money. My origin was [that] I wanted to build my own science projects, my own science company, and succeed and develop things my way. I would fail by my hand or succeed by my hand.
I was very confident that if I did everything my own way, I'd actually be more successful than if I worked for other people's companies and reported in to other managers.
Even in my 20s, it began to dawn on me that I'm not very good at working for other people. Although I respect other people, I used to think, "They don't quite get it."
You do lose a bit of respect, thinking, "The guy upstairs doesn't quite get it, doesn't understand." So I was always destined, I think, to get on my own and do these things, and I couldn't wait.
I had no fear of failure whatsoever.
And... the reason for that is that I was nobody when I was 27, 28, going off to set up my first company. I was just Mr. Nobody - who gave bollocks about whether I failed or not, who cared?
Nobody is going to write about me in the papers. It becomes harder now.
If I fail big time tomorrow, everybody will care; it will be in all the bloody papers, but then... Failure meant nothing.
I never looked back, never looked over my shoulder - just wanted to be in control of my own life, my own destiny, and that's what I did.
Lena Björck
I actually don't believe that you'll ever become a millionaire if you chase the money. You've got to actually be passionate about a product and really want to do that as best as possible.
Then I believe everything else will come naturally.
Michael Smith
There are a lot of people who have their ideas and who'd like to set up their own business but are motivated primarily by money.
You speak to a lot of people who say, "I want to set up this business and make my millions and retire to a desert island by the time I'm 30."
The fact that that hardly ever happens and you very rarely hear of that is because that's definitely the wrong kind of mindset.
Making money is great, but it's like a by-product of the whole entrepreneurial mindset.
I think if you love your idea and you love business and you love what you're doing, the money will come as part of it. It's important to get them the right way around.
Luke Johnson
I think that the driving force was to be a success and to build something that would last, perhaps - or build various things that would last - to have fun on the way and to make a difference.
These are somewhat nebulous concepts, but my belief is very much that to a good proportion of the most successful entrepreneurs, money is a by-product.
Money is a means to develop the business because without retained profits you can't invest and expand.
Mandy Haberman
The money side was almost irrelevant. I know that sounds crazy.
Plus, the driving force for me is about solving problems, and I can't stop myself from doing that. I find that hugely exciting.
Lord Harris
I think it was a challenge. It wasn't for money; it's not for money today, although it's very nice and I enjoy it - I don't deny that. But I don't come for money.
I come to work because I enjoy it, I want to be successful, and I want to get better at what I've done.
Simon Woodroffe
I don't meet many of those sort of people who do things because they want to be very, very rich.
They do things - one, because they don't want to be very, very poor in the early days, but also because they're just passionate or interested in what they do and they want to go and do things.
Having heard that money itself wasn't the main motivator, let's take a moment to hear the other side of that. Money can be a motivator, but not by itself.
Those who set out just to be rich but lack passion, vision and integrity typically fail. Let's hear a few more thoughts on money.
Duncan Bannatyne
I think my original motivation was [that] when I was a child and the ice cream van came round our house, we couldn't afford ice cream.
We were a big family and my father worked at a foundry and my mother was a housewife, so we didn't have a lot of money.
The ice cream van would come round and people would queue up for ice cream, and we didn't have enough money for ice cream.
That always drove me. I didn't think then, "I want to be a millionaire; I want to be a big, successful person." What I thought was, "I'm determined I'm going to be (what I called) 'not poor.'"
This determination to be "not poor" started driving me into business, and then from there that "not poor" came to millionaire status.
Stuart Wheeler
Well, my original motivation was to try to find some way of making a living; there's no question about that.
I think motivation changes. I can't possibly pretend I felt a great vision to help the world by starting up a betting company; you can't really say that would be the case at all - so it was to make money.
Admittedly, we wanted to treat all our clients very fairly and so forth, but the actual motivation was to make money for me and the other shareholders.
Tom Hunter
Well, my original motivation was that nobody would give me a job, so unemployment was the first motivation.
But then there was the financial motivation, and, when I look back on it, the freedom part of it, to say, "I'm going to be my own boss."