The Non-Stop Hare & Tortoise Race in Entrepreneur’s Life

It’s definitely not easy carrying the role of an entrepreneur. Besides the outside battles of marketing strategies and cashflow management – it are those everyday inner battles that make or break successful entrepreneurs.

And one of these battles – which have been even baffling me since the time I’ve decided to plunge into my own venture – is that of perennial Hare-Tortoise race which we keep dealing with each day.

We are all aware of the legendary Hare-Tortoise race story – where despite of high speed, the hare loses out to tortoise. But looking at more depth – I’m sure that both of these beings must have had their own reasons and conclusions out of the episode.

I guess these Hare and Tortoise are within all of us.

The Hare is our Passion: our unwavering belief that we can change the world; that others will jump to our ideas the moment we share them; that our ideal partners and people would move quickly to ensure that our ideas will be implemented the way we dreamt of…and lot such idealistic conditions that assume that the world will conspire to make our dreams come true!

And the Tortoise is the reality: the test of patience and real consumer feedback – that stops our dream rockets to keep flying in turbo mode; the inordinate waiting periods for getting feedback/approvals/orders/payments from our potential teams & patrons; and those long dawn periods before our idea finally sees the sunlight.

Both these inner animals keep us busy – while the hare keeps us inspired to constantly push the envelope and keep the hopes alive amidst everyday challenges – the tortoise keeps us on our toes, inspiring us to keep delving into details and improvising processes and methodologies – till our idea gets market acceptance. And not to forget the daily conflict that these lead to – making everyday a walk on the thin edges between being impatient to grow too fast or just getting slowed down by processes and feedback bureaucracy.

So the race continues each day – and I guess there are times when we even let the hare win.

It would be interesting to have your feedback on this – and what suggestions would you like to share with your fellow friends to deal with this inner race?