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The 21st century has brought great new opportunities for entrepreneurs. The digital revolution has completely changed the way we live -- and the landscape for aspiring CEOs and innovators.
However, the world is also moving faster than ever, and the competition is thick, so you have to gain every advantage you can get to turn your passion or idea into a sustainable business.
Entrepreneurship requires an unvanquished spirit of curiosity, an openness to learning, a letting go of OldCo so you're free to create NewCo. – Michael E. Gerber
This is where this guide comes in. We've outlined the 15 best resources on entrepreneurship to help you acquire the tools and knowledge you need to start your entrepreneurial journey (and keep it going). Whether you're looking to work remotely as a freelancer or want to turn your passion into a career, the resources below will help you get there.
1. Personality Traits that Successful Entrepreneurs Value More than all Others
If you want to know what the absolute most important traits and skills are to develop as an entrepreneur, look no further. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, this will tell you everything you need to know about what makes a successful entrepreneur tick.
Read here: 5 Personality Traits that Successful Entrepreneurs Value More than all Others
2. How To Find Your Passion
If you haven’t yet found your calling, it’s important to do that first before venturing off into any long-term business effort.
That’s not just because you shouldn’t settle for anything less than doing what you love (after all, why become an entrepreneur if you’re doing that?), but also because you’ll never be able to maintain the energy and motivation to get passed tough challenges without this passion to drive you.
Read here: How To Find Your Passion
3. Dangerous Misconceptions About Entrepreneurship That You Should Know About
If you’re relatively new to entrepreneurship, there are some dangerous misconceptions that can hold you and your entrepreneurial efforts back which won’t be immediately obvious. Learn what those misconceptions are and how to keep from falling victim to them by reading this.
Read here: Dangerous Misconceptions About Entrepreneurship That You Should Know About
4. How to Build a Brand in the Digital Age — An Entrepreneur’s Starter Guide
With social media, building a strong brand is more important than ever before. But if you don’t know anything about what it takes to build a brand, don’t worry, this will help you figure out everything you need to get started.
Read here: How to Build a Brand in the Digital Age — An Entrepreneur’s Starter Guide
5. Things You Need to Know If You Want to Be an Entrepreneur
If you want to be an entrepreneur, there are a few things that you really need to know. I can’t stress these points enough– if you have dreams or plans of becoming (or are already) an entrepreneur, you need to read this sooner than later.
Read here: 6 Things You Need to Know If You Want to Be an Entrepreneur
6. The 3 Questions No Entrepreneur Wants to Ask (but You Must)
If you want to build a long and fruitful self-employed career, there are three critically important questions you must ask yourself.
This is yet another thing you really can’t put off, as it affects your entire path through entrepreneurship in several critical ways. But, the good news is, if you can be ready for these things ahead of time, you’ll be far better prepared.
Read here: The 3 Questions No Entrepreneur Wants to Ask (but You Must)
7. With Grace and Grit: A Guide to Sticking it Out for Entrepreneurs
If you haven’t already figured it out yet, entrepreneurship is tough -- really tough. You need to have the right amount of toughness to get through the inevitable challenges you’ll face along the way. Building resilience is key.
Read here: With Grace and Grit: A Guide to Sticking it Out for Entrepreneurs
8. Why Entrepreneurship Is an Effective Path to Happiness (and How to Get Started)
Aspiring business leaders have more opportunities than ever, but the path to success is also very different from what it used to be.
People who might not otherwise have considered themselves entrepreneurs are now deciding to take this path because starting a business gives them the opportunity to do what they love and live on their own terms.
Read here: Why Entrepreneurship Is an Effective Path to Happiness (and How to Get Started)
9. Entrepreneurship and the Architecture of Success: Setting Smart Long-Term Goals
Entrepreneurship is a long-term game. If you hope to find success in your chosen endeavor, you need to have a well-defined plan and the structure to make that plan a reality.
Read here: Entrepreneurship and the Architecture of Success: Setting Smart Long-Term Goals
10. Hacks Highly Successful Entrepreneurs Use to Stay Laser-Focused
Are you a seasoned entrepreneur looking for some extra tips for staying focused? Making your vision a reality is hard and requires a laser focus over a very long period of time. Fortunately, there are some simple hacks that can help you keep your eyes on the prize.
Read here: 5 Hacks Highly Successful Entrepreneurs Use to Stay Laser-Focused
11. The Best Free AI On The Market
This seems to be a more brazen suggestion as there is all sorts of controversy surrounding this new TOOL that has been released. However, technology is constantly improving and just as the phone became an essential part of life, so will AI. If you want to truly level up your game you need to learn how to do the unexpected before its expected of you.
Read here: How to efficiently make prompts and utilize artificial intelligence
12. Trello: The Perfect Organizer
Stay organized and boost productivity with Trello! Manage projects, collaborate with your team, and track tasks effortlessly. With its easy-to-use interface and powerful integrations, Trello keeps everything in one place, helping you work smarter and faster. Try it today!
Read here: The main site and number one recommendation for team organization
Man working his way up
13. Canva: Make Advertisement Easy
Create stunning visuals effortlessly with Canva! Design professional graphics, social media posts, presentations, and more—no design skills required. With easy-to-use templates and powerful tools, Canva helps you bring your ideas to life. Start designing today!
Read here: Make Advertising Easy And Effortless
14. Google Analytics: It's the perfect observer of success, see where you struggle and where you thrive
Unlock powerful insights with Google Analytics! Track website performance, measure traffic, and understand user behavior to optimize your online presence. Make data-driven decisions and grow your business with ease. Start using Google Analytics today to boost your success!
Read here: Google Analytics Lets You Look Into Your Weak Points And Work On Them
15. Hootsuite – Manage and schedule your social media posts across multiple platforms in one place.
Simplify your social media management with Hootsuite! Schedule, track, and manage posts across multiple platforms all in one place. Save time, increase engagement, and streamline your strategy with powerful analytics. Try Hootsuite today and elevate your social presence!
Read here: Schedule Your Posts And Manage Your Releases, Get To The Top And Stay There
The 3 Main Signs You’re a Hopeless Romantic (and Why That’s Not a Bad Thing)
A hopeless romantic cant help but dream of their perfect partner, but there's a negative association with the term that we should change.
My name is Ricky and I’m a recovering hopeless romantic. I’ve been battered and bruised by unmet expectations, the slow crumbling of unrealistic fantasies, and the gradual jadedness of looking for an idealized version of love. In my younger years, I had big ideas and even bigger visions for what true love meant. A love free from pain, a love that offered salvation, a way to rise above the mundane, the struggle and strife of daily life, with someone by your side.
RELATED: Why Handling Reactivity Is Essential For Healthy Romance
I’ve experienced the poetically tragic and the ineffably beautiful. And, I’m here to reassure you. Because amidst the hopeless romance, there is hope. Hope for a more mature, balanced approach to love. One which catapults you to deeper levels of fulfillment, doesn’t avoid the tough stuff, and allows you to, paradoxically, get closer to the type of love you may have always longed for.
What Does It Mean to Be a Hopeless Romantic?
It’s likely you already know what it means to be a hopeless romantic. What image intuitively surfaces? The hopeless romantic is an archetype in its own right, playing out over and over in stories, music, film, and poetry. The phrase dates back to around the early 1920s, appearing in a short story collection, to describe the mixture of “ passionate (romantic) yet ineffectual (hopeless) love.”
Dictionary.com’s definition of a hopeless romantic is:
A hopeless romantic has high ideas for love and will do all they can to pursue them. Of course, characters we read on pages or see on screen often reflect emotional or psychological processes within; there is truth in fiction. Many of us have the inner hopeless romantic, a yearning to find “the one,” a desire to pursue love at all costs, to place it above all else.
Signs You’re a Hopeless Romantic
It’s likely, if you’re reading this article, you have experienced enough red flags in romance to know your patterns need closer inspection. Above all else, the biggest sign of hopeless romantics is that romantic love, or more accurately romantic drama, consistently takes up a lot of space. Either in being distracted by a new love, engaging in toxic relationships, recovering from conflict, or becoming codependent. Other signs include:
1. You Use Romance Is An Escape
Hopeless romance is immature, to a certain extent. The desire for fairytale romance is naive. Relationships take work. Beyond the honeymoon period of falling in love, a relationship will challenge you to grow and mature. You’ll need to navigate your own shadow, trauma, and defense mechanisms. You’ll need to work on communicating whilst triggered, or overcoming emotional fallouts.
All of this is anything but an escape. In facing someone else, relationships encourage you to face yourself. Hopeless romantics, however, tend to view romance as an escape. The desire for this type of love is a way to bypass difficult feelings, obligations, or responsibilities.
2. You Experience Many Passionate But Short-Term Relationships
Because hopeless romance is founded in an idealized version of love, many people find that, when the going gets tough and the fantasy starts to dissolve, they leave the relationship to pursue someone else. If love doesn’t match expectations, it’s always the relationship’s fault or the other person’s fault. Without self-awareness, this perpetuates the cycle of chasing, falling, and becoming disillusioned. As a result, many hopeless romantics get stuck in a simultaneous state of yearning and cynicism.
3. You Prioritize Romance Above All Else
There’s a difference between prioritizing meaningful relationships and family, from a place of service or love, and the hopeless romantic’s approach to prioritizing. A hopeless romantic will place the pursuit of romance above all else, often leading to codependent relationships that are so intense, and lacking in personal boundaries, other areas of life become neglected. They stop seeing friends or pursuing solo hobbies or interests.
Despite being unhealthy, hopeless romantics get trapped, because their idea of love means giving it everything, being passionate, and making sacrifices. There’s a seed of truth in all of this — love does require giving, passion, and sacrifice. But when it comes from an imbalanced sense of martyrdom, or a need, it becomes unhealthy.
Is Being a Hopeless Romantic Unhealthy?
Modern portrayals of love emphasize this mixture of passion and ineffectiveness. Forbidden or impossible love makes for a dramatic story. What would The Notebook be without arguments or barriers to love between Noah (Ryan Gosling) and Allie (Rachel MacAdams)? Or Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) in the Titanic? Or, stretching further back to the greatest hopeless romance of all, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet?
Of course, normal isn’t healthy by default. Hopeless romance often comes from a place of innocence. How can you argue against believing in love? Or wanting to find someone to share life with? The question then is, how does hopeless romance surface, and in what ways is it unhealthy, limiting, or holding you back?
I explored all of this in detail through my “recovery” from hopeless romance. Like most hopeless romantics, it got to the point where I knew something had to change because I was experiencing regular setbacks and heartbreak. I sensed I was stuck in various cycles of high expectations and disappointment, and intuitively felt I was placing too much value on my partner.
Impaired Spirituality, or More Satisfaction?
In Facing Love Addiction, codependency expert Pia Mellody explains one of the biggest pitfalls of hopeless romance — making your partner your higher power. By replacing your sense of spirituality or transcendence in a relationship, it’s possible to impair its healthy expression. This leads people to “try harder and harder to manipulate the other person to live up to the mental image they have created — that is, someone who will care for and love them the way they long to be cared for and loved.”
However, it’s not all bad. One study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships discovered that people in long-term relationships who had romantic beliefs reported greater satisfaction. According to the study, “romantic beliefs do not appear to foster false or unobtainable expectations for romantic relationships, and the concerns regarding the endorsement of these beliefs may be misplaced.”
The Hope Isn’t Lost in Love
I promised you there would be reassurance, and here it is — being a hopeless romantic isn’t a bad thing. I know from experience that there’s a temptation to judge yourself when spotting these patterns. How could you ignore the warning signs, and get stuck again and again? Part of the process of growth is to take what works, let go of what doesn’t, and build towards a healthier model of love.
RELATED: Are You in a One-Sided Relationship? 3 Steps to Heal or Let Go
If you’re single, consider how you can reclaim the power you’ve given to the pursuit of finding “the one”. Know that true fulfillment comes from within. That being said, a deep, intimate relationship requires a mixture of self-fulfillment and giving. Don’t discard or suppress the inner romantic. Give a voice to that part of you, but don’t make it the leader of your inner kingdom.
The eternal optimism of hopeless romantics is something to admire. You don’t have to become cynical or give up, although that is often part of the recovery process. After exploring this within myself, and vowing never to be in a relationship again, I eventually entered a relationship that asked me to cultivate true love.
It’s not always pretty. But we are growing together, because it’s confronting and grounding, and doesn't allow us to escape. Best of all, there’s still space for passion, and romance, along with a wider spectrum of experience. The more these barriers and unrealistic expectations dissolve, the more vibrant the essence of romance blossoms. Not as a naive fantasy, but something we allow ourselves to indulge in, an expression that has found its rightful place.
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