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Many folks want to become entrepreneurs because they are enticed by the control over their workday, the lack of a 9 to 5, and no cap on a yearly salary.

But in reality, starting a small business can be an emotional rollercoaster.

It can take up to two or three years to break even for a start up, new entrepreneurs can end up working up to 60 hours a week, and your work-life can take a big toll on your family and social life.

Why? Because new start-ups are filled with inevitable setbacks and failures and it takes a strong mindset to push through these failures and not give up when everything is going wrong.

Here are 2 lessons to learn from Einstein and Thomas Edison about not giving up:

Lesson 1 from Thomas Edison – if something fails, learn from it, and try again with a different approach

Can you imagine what would have happened if on his first try, Thomas Edison decided to give up on inventing the light bulb? Employees would have to be set free from work early in the winters, and we would have to do a lot less work at night and more relaxing.

Although this actually sounds fantastic – notice how Thomas thought about failing. He said: “I have not failed 10,000 times: I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”

It turns out Thomas’s views about failing were pretty objective and awesome which motivated him to keep trying.

What are your beliefs about failing?

For example if you have empowering beliefs about failing such as Thomas, it’s likely you will accept something didn’t work and try again. If you have disempowering beliefs about failing, such as “I am a terrible person, everything I do turns to dust, or even my fish fails less than me,” it’s likely that you will take longer to recover from failure, and you are more likely to not try again.

Exercise: Write down your belief about a recent failure that occurred that knocked you over, and your feelings about the failure. If the belief is disempowering, are you able to change the belief to something that is empowering that is authentic to you? Such as “All people fail at some point. I am only human. Sometimes failure is necessary for success. Or this failure taught me everything I need to succeed.’

Lesson 2 from Einstein – Learn your own way and don’t compare yourself to other people

From a young age we are put into schools with a set learning style for each student. Therefore if you aren’t able to learn by watching lectures for 8 hours a day you are more likely to fail.

This is what happened to Einstein who didn’t talk until age 4 and failed to pass the examination for entrance into the Swiss Federal Polytechnic school located in Zurich at age 16.

He said: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Einstein, like many of us, learned differently, and thought differently. But it was these qualities that allowed him to come up with his ground breaking work to understand how the universe works and to win the Nobel Prize in 1921 for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.

Like Einstein, if you notice that you work or learn differently, use your own unique traits to your advantage, and create systems that support you, not hurt you.

Exercise: Take this test to find whether you learn best through listening, watching, or doing. https://www.chegg.com/play/student-life/quiz-what-type-of-learner-are-you/

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