Overcoming fear: How business bravery helps entrepreneurs

This generation’s crop of businessmen is characterized by a bold entrepreneurial spirit, driven by the willingness to take risks and openness to new ideas. Such traits have influenced the business landscape over the past decade or two. The emergence of Napster exemplifies this.

Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker founded Napster in 1999, revolutionizing peer-to-peer file sharing. Over 80 million subscribers registered with Napster to share MP3 music files, which caught the ire of musicians and record labels. Amidst copyright infringement allegations, the company continued operations until it was eventually shut down by court order.

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Still, the youthful determination Fanning and Parker exhibited was a modernized approach to business development and operations. Parker even went on to help launch another similar project named Facebook.

Fear, risks, and setbacks are business realities. And it takes bravery to overcome all these challenges.

Emile Haddad, one of the most trusted business coaches, often cited business bravery as one of the main factors for success. Business bravery is manifested in the curiosity to explore and openness to possibilities in the industry. Key here is the approach that in every failure and rejection, there is wisdom and lessons that can start and grow the business.

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The Seattle, Washington-based Emile Haddad has decades of experience in leading companies and individuals toward entrepreneurial success. Read more insights about business and leadership by subscribing to this blog.

Transactional Leadership: Assumptions And Inner Workings

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Transactional leadership is an organizational scheme where leaders motivate and direct followers by appealing to their self-interests. It works around the system of providing rewards if an employee does well, or penalties if the employee underperforms.

One of the basic assumptions of transactional leadership is that employees perform better under a definite and well-established chain of command. The workers can distinguish between the levels of leadership and which specific leaders are delegated to certain tasks. It also assumes that the primary motivation of employees is determined by rewards and punishments. Third, the primary directive of employees under such setup is to follow the orders of the leaders. Lastly, employees need to be closely monitored in order to ascertain that expectations and objectives are met.

Transactional leadership is based on the relationship between the employee and the management, defined by mutual need fulfillment. In the implementation of the rewards and punishments system, rules and procedures are integral. This type of leadership is effective in setting initial expectations and standards which will boost the efficiency and productivity of the team.

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Transactional leaders are expected to give constructive feedback to their team members, which leads to an increase in the efforts of the latter to receive better feedback in the future. Transactional leadership is also fully effective in the event of a crisis or during crunch time. Focus, one of the strengths of this kind of leadership, is key in the mitigation of disasters.

Seattle-based business coach Emile Haddad’s sensitivity to differing values within the workplace has enabled him to come up with business management models that promote professionalism and excellence. Get to know him more through this blog.

REPOST: 25 Entrepreneurs on Work Ethic and Passion

Successful entrepreneurs have gone through very difficult situations before they bagged all the marbles. The following are uplifting quotations from some of the most established businessmen in history to help careerists achieve similar success.

If there is one statement entrepreneurs hear heard time and time again it is that they are going to fail. That may sound extremely pessimistic, but there is quite a bit of truth in that statement.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, approximately half of all small businesses fail within the first five years. In addition, the National Federation of Independent Business’ Education Foundation estimated “that over the lifetime of a business, 39% are profitable, 30% break even, and 30% lose money.”


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Of course, that doesn’t mean you should give-up on your dreams. As any entrepreneur will inform you, failure is a part of the journey. It’s just a speed bump on the road to success. That’s why most entrepreneurs willingly put in an insane amount of hours each week without receiving a hefty paycheck (at least to begin with). They do it because they are driven by passion, not money.

Since being an entrepreneur has it’s fair share of highs and lows, sometimes you need a little inspiration during those moments when all hope seems lost. Those are the times that you should turn to some of the greatest entrepreneurial minds to offer a much-deserved pep talk to remind you that all of your hard work and dedication is worth the fight.

Without further ado here are uplifting quotes, in no particular order, from 25 entrepreneurs on work ethic and passion:

1. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs, Co-founder of Apple

2. “Entrepreneurship is about turning what excites you in life into capital, so that you can do more of it and move forward with it.” – Sir Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group

3. “Anything can be done, as long as you truly believe it.” – Ashley Qualls, Founder of WhateverLife.com

4. “We led with our conviction rather than rational, because rational said it was impossible.” – Daniel Ek, Founder of Spotify

5. “Nothing worth having comes easy. Relationships (of all kinds) take work. Customers take work. Building a team takes work. If it’s easy, it’s often not worth having and almost never a competitive advantage.” – Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz

6. “One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passions; your passions choose you.” – Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon

7. “One can steal ideas, but no one can steal execution or passion.” – Timothy Ferriss, Author of “The 4-Hour Workweek”

8. “Live your passion. What does that mean, anyway? It means that when you get up for work every morning, every single morning, you are pumped because you get to talk about or work with or do the thing that interests you the most in the world. You don’t live for vacations because you don’t need a break from what you’re doing—working, playing, and relaxing are one and the same. You don’t even pay attention to how many hours you’re working because to you, it’s not really work. You’re making money, but you’d do whatever it is you’re doing for free.” – Gary Vaynerchuk, Co-founder/CEO of VaynerMedia

9. “If you’re passionate about something and you work hard, then I think you will be successful.” – Pierre Omidyar, Founder/Chairman of eBay

10. “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney, Co-founder of Walt Disney

11. “Every single person I know who is successful at what they do is successful because they love doing it.” – Joe Penna, Creator of MysteryGuitarMan

12. “The first thing is to have a vision that’s meaningful to both employees and customers. For Zappos it’s about customer service. You need to be truly passionate about your business. The goal shouldn’t be just to make money; I think you need to figure out something you would do even if you didn’t make any money from it. You’re going to have hard times growing your business, and if you’re passionate about it, that’s what’s going to get you through those hard times.” - Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos

13. “If you just work on stuff that you like and you’re passionate about, you don’t have to have a master plan with how things will play out.” – Mark Zuckerberg, Co-founder/CEO of Facebook

14. “You must fall in love with what you do, because being an entrepreneur is a lot of hard work, and overcoming a lot of adversity. From that love will come the dedication that will get you out of bed at 4 a.m. because of a great idea you just had and get you to work till 11 p.m. and not feel tired.” – Ken Field, real estate magnate

15. “Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.” – Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder of Alltop

16. “Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that… you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.” – Elon Musk, CEO/CTO of SpaceX & CEO of Tesla Motors

17. “Find your one thing and do that one thing better than anyone else.” – Jason Goldberg, Founder of Fab

18. “A mediocre idea that guarantees enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.” – Mary Kay Ash, Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc.

19. “We were working at Odeo, but we weren’t as passionate about the podcasting service as we should have been. We weren’t using it, and that was a problem. Twitter got started because Ev gave us some freedom to think along different lines.” – Biz Stone, Co-founder of Twitter & Jelly

20. “I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one.” – Bill Gates, Co-founder of Microsoft

21. “In my experience, there’s only one thing that will always steer you toward success: That’s to have a vision and to stick with it… Once I have a vision for a new venture, I’m going to ride that vision until the wheels come off. There are always going to bumps in the road, but I try not to let them faze me.” – Russell Simmons, Co-founder of Def Jam & Phat Farm

22. “I try not to make any decisions that I’m not excited about.” – Jake Nickell, Co-founder/CEO of Threadless

23. “Don’t get caught up in how many hours you work. Judge success based on having goals and measuring your results. Hard work, and lots of it, is certainly needed, but focus on what you get done. What do you need to do to deliver for your client? To land the next customer? To expand within your customers? . . . .” – Mark Cuban, Owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Co-owner of 2929 Entertainment, Chairman of AXS TV, & Owner of Landmark Theaters

24. “With every obstacle that has happened to me in my life, my brain immediately says, ‘Where is the hidden blessing?’ In starting a business and growing a business, every day is learning how to manage obstacles.” - Sara Blakely, Founder of SPANX

25. “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” – Henry Ford, Founder of the Ford Motor Company

If you’re an entrepreneur, what are some of your favorite quotes involving work ethic and passion?

Emile Haddad is a Seattle, Washington-based business coach who has taught many professionals the skills they need to achieve success. For more on his accomplishments, click here.