Born to be an entrepreneur

This Monday's questions are about motivation, working hours, how entrepreneurship is affecting the personal life and what Mattias would do differently if he could start over his business journey.

1. What motivates you?

For Mattias seeing progress is a big factor that gets him out of bed every morning. This progress could be his own progress, the progress of the company (measured in numbers and money) but also the personal growth of the people surrounding him.
For him being motivated is a natural state as long as he stays grateful on his own journey. Whenever he is not balanced he gets stressed and when this stress continues over a longer period of time, it can cause his motivation to decline.

Svea adds that for her the biggest motivation is to be able to work a job she actually cares about and enjoys doing. She was dealing with a lot of scepticism when studying photography and design and planning to be her own boss. Now many of those people are stuck in their "safe" and "normal" jobs and hate what they are doing - while she enjoys every day of her "unsafe" and "unnormal" job.

2. How many hours do you work on average?

As an entrepreneur, Mattias does not really believe in counting his own working hours. However, at one point, he calculated how many hours he had spent working on his business during the first four years. The result was about 16.000 hours which equals roughly 11 hours per day - 365 days per year. On the same note, he calculated how much money he actually earned and came to the conclusion that he was basically working for free. Mattias points out that if money is your only motivation you will not survive as an entrepreneur for very long.

3. Did being an entrepreneur affect your personal life?

Mattias answers by saying that for him it is actually the other way around. He explains that for him it is not an option to be an entrepreneur but it rather is the exact thing he is meant to be. How he is as a person and what is important to him resulted in his entrepreneurship. He also shares a story about how he was carrying around business cards stating "entrepreneur" on them in the early days. He clearly says he wasn't an entrepreneur back then. Rather an aspiring entrepreneur with dreams who needed to first undergo a self-development transformation in order to start his own journey.

4. Looking back at your career, is there anything you would have done differently?

When Mattias looks back, he rarely looks back at history with regret. He explains that if he would say something like "I should have done this or that", he would forget that what happened was actually the reason why he started and why he is where he is today. He adds that every person has different starting points in life and that because of this, it is a big mistake to compare yourself to others.

💡 EPISODE TAKE AWAY
Don't worry about the past, rather invest that energy in planning your future (and get over it).

How do you keep yourself motivated?