Last week the live caterpillars arrived for my daughters’ anticipated butterfly launch later this month.  Watching these caterpillars (which has mildly repulsed me, but I’m charging forward in the name of Motherhood & Science) over the past several days, has inspired me!  As I’ve watched these, once pinky nail sized creatures, move up and down, up and down, their specimen cup of a home, gathering food and making small, yet impactful strides towards their ultimate goal, both independence from that cup and full transformation into its intended existence, a beautiful, prominent butterfly destined to FLY, I am reminded of the similar pursuit, sheer will and determination required of Entrepreneurship.

In previous social media posts, I focus on a term called “Relentless incrementalism”- the process of accomplishing something substantial through small but incessant additions.   These young caterpillars so relentless, so determined, while the initial journey has been tough to stomach, as somehow managed to inspire me.  The similarities of what it requires to be great in business and these little creatures’ journey to beautiful butterflies is uncanny.

While heartbreaking, according to Bloomberg, 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs who start businesses fail within the first 18 months. This means that 80% of entrepreneurs don’t make it.  Now we could speculate forever on the reasons, and there are more than enough blog post that do, my aim is to support the upside.  Root for the underdog, “Be” the small business cheerleader if you will.  The solution is in the “Butterfly Effect”!  Wikipedia describes the “Butterfly Effect” as a concept that implies that small causes can have large effects. Initially, it was used with weather prediction but later the term became a metaphor used in and out of science.  In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.  So as it relates to these mini-creatures habituating themselves inside their specimen cup on my granite counter top, EVERYTHING is riding on the work and the conditions that they are in currently.  Can they see their butterfly destiny?  Who knows?  But they are resilient in the pursuit of excellence by taking steps every day that will ultimately result in a larger later state.  Much like entrepreneurs and sadly back to the 80% that don’t make it, more importantly (and inspiring) the 20% that do, we are tasked with this same rigor!  They get that the relentless incrementalism of their current labor intensive environment will EVENTUALLY build something or teach them something even greater AND much like these pet caterpillars, it requires a mental state that fully taps into one’s Inner B.O.S.S (Bad Ass, Omnipotent, Sole-Sucking, Strength read more about this concept in my book “Grow Your Business in 90 Days or Less”  http://www.amazon.com/Grow-Your-Business-Days-Less-ebook/dp/B017TE8HWM ).  Now please understand, I am in no way suggesting that this constant state of “grind” is easy…BUT it is necessary.  While building my business and maintain a full time position, I got up at 5am, worked until 6am, then again from 8pm to nearly 1am almost every night.  I relied on the small and not so small wins to get me through.  Evaluating the caterpillars and my own journey, I carved out the top 3 mental characteristics needed (develop or sharpen if you don’t have them) to survive the “20 Mile March” (a term from the book “Great by Choice” by Jim Collins).  Mental fortitude and a strong mastermind are foundation to making it.  Here are my 3 tips and hacks for staying the course:

1. Curb Procrastination Now!

Easily the biggest conduit to small business failure.  I recently listened to an entrepreneurship podcast, in which the guest talked about wanting the business success more than being afraid of doing the hard work!  Wasted time and procrastination can easily derail your inspiration, ambition and lead to consistent bad habits.

My #1 cure for this is the “15 minute” rule!  I learned about this principal in graduate school while I fought to

2. Find and Channel Your Personal Productivity Hacks!

When you treat the daily grind of entrepreneurship as a game it propels you into a realm of productivity you never thought possible.  My favorite productivity hack is “Eat the Frog First” (I hear you thinking, what is with her and creatures).  This concepts focuses on tackling your toughest task, or the thing that you are dreading doing first.  At the top of the morning when most people are fresh and void of numerous interruptions in their day.  My biggest challenge has always been tackling the toughest task.  Usually these are the task that are also the most pivotal and the thing that propels your business forward.  So to cure this behavior, I plan my day with a list prepared the following evening and commit to one thing that I must complete (or at least reach a benchmark) before I allow myself to do anything else.  This means no emails, no phone calls, no social media, etc. Once I’m done I set a treat for myself, whether that’s perusing the internet for concerts, great handbags or a task from my list that is necessary but enjoyable.  Denzel Washington said it best “Do what you have to do so you may do what you want to do”.

3. Build systems IMMEDIATELY!

Perhaps the cornerstone of scale, the ability to create systems in your business will ultimately lead to your business becoming a self-sufficient enterprise that exists independently of your laborious sweat and tears.  As soon as you have done a task with some frequency, look for ways to increase efficiency in completing the task, whether it is a standardize response to the same question received consistently in your business or automation in your record keeping.  For me it was the “What’s included in a sponsorship proposal?” question. So to save time from this same answer over and over again I’ve set up a friendly, warm, helpful, yet automated auto response to this question.  This saves me at least 15 minutes every time the question comes up  which is nearly 10 times a day.  This system has also been helpful as I have hired and trained new virtual assistants.  Systemize EVERYTHING!

I’m interested in hearing your productivity hacks!  Please list yours in the comment section below.  Fill out the contact form and your hacks and your business could be published here on the blog.