Entrepreneurs
5 Lessons Social Entrepreneurship Teaches Us About Motivation

What comes to mind when you hear “accountability” or “motivation?” For many, these words conjure the image of a coach or an accountability partner “cracking the whip” so they’d finish certain tasks – even when they’re dragging their behinds and aren’t inspired by the project at all.
No wonder people are sitting on the couch and complaining that they lack motivation. The problem isn’t that there’s something inherently wrong with them. They may just be going about it the wrong way.
What if there’s a better way to get motivated? What if we can take control and create motivation through our actions? What if we can get ourselves motivated by setting up the right conditions?
If you go beyond “accountability” and do meaningful work that inspires you everyday, wouldn’t you feel more driven? When you hear stories about successful entrepreneurs, you often get a sense of “inevitability” – they’re doing what they do not because of external circumstances but because of intrinsic drives.
They’re doing the work not because someone is cracking the whip. They’re driven to take meaningful actions everyday because something deeper is driving their actions and decisions. How can you set up the conditions so taking action becomes inevitable? How do you create meaningful work so you feel inspired and driven everyday?
Social entrepreneurship offers us many insights into how business, motivation and meaningful work come together to create successful enterprises. Successful social entrepreneurs are motivated by the impact and meaning they create through their businesses.
Here are 5 lessons on motivation we can learn from social entrepreneurs who build profitable ventures driven by their desires to make a difference in the world:
1. Set Intentional Goals
You’ve heard many times that you need to set clear goals. Unfortunately, many people focus too much on arbitrary metrics to measure success without fully considering whether those numbers are in alignment with what truly drives them.
To get motivated, you need to set goals with intention. Then track metrics that reflect the impact you want to achieve. You may have to challenge conventional wisdoms to set your own bar. You may have to devise innovative ways to measure success.
If you don’t find meaning behind the numbers, the sense of achievement becomes temporary. You can easily end up on the hamster wheel. The grind can wear you down and leave you feeling fatigue and unmotivated. On the other hand, achieving metrics that speak to a meaningful goal gives you the long-term positive feedback that’ll keep you motivated day-in-day-out.
2. Anchor In a Community
You can fuel your motivation by giving meaning to your venture within a larger context. Rachel Brathen’s 109 World is built on a global community of yoga enthusiasts, while Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen Bank transformed the economy of many third world communities through micro financing.
Instead of being product- or service-focused, turn your attention to the community you aim to serve and find a match between the needs of the market and your vision, skills, expertise or product idea.
You’ll gain inspiration to fuel your actions by listening to and interacting with your community. Such dialogues give you continual and meaningful input that helps you evolve in a meaningful direction.
When your business creates products and services relevant to your community, you get the positive feedback that’ll further motivate you to grow.
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” ― Mother Teresa
3. Give Meaning To Commercial Success
Meaningful venture and commercial success aren’t mutually exclusive. Blake Mycoskie’s TOMS Shoes and Gavin Armstrong’s Lucky Iron Fish are both profitable businesses born out of and still closely tied to a social cause.
These social enterprises are doing more good by using profits from a commercially successful venture to fuel a cause that motivates them. Putting meaning behind profit gives social entrepreneurs the positive feedback that encourages them to do more good because it’s an evidence of their impact.
More often than not, many social entrepreneurs gain clarity on what truly motivates them when they’re not constrained by funding. Such motivation can be more powerful than any financial factor.
4. Get Inspired By Real Live Experience
Many social entrepreneurs find the calling that motivates them to succeed after eye-opening travel experiences that cracked open their worlds and broadened their perspectives.
Scott Harrison of charity: water built his non-profit after a life-changing trip to West Africa. You don’t have to go to some remote, poverty-stricken countries to find your calling. You can discover more opportunities in your backyard than you’d ever imagine if you tune in, stay open, get involved and be relevant.
Look for motivation and find out what makes you tick by interacting with people and communities you care about. Understand their needs and map your skills and expertise to solving a problem that’ll make a difference in their lives.
Often times there’s no substitute for getting boots on the ground and find out how you can make an impact through participation and trial-and-error.
5. Tap Into Your Strength
Understanding and applying your strength makes you effective. Instead of trying to be perfect in everything, do work that taps into your strength and you’ll find more passion in what you do.
When you focus your strength on high value activities toward a meaningful goal, you’ve a much better chance of creating successful results that gives you the positive feedback to further motivate you.
Success fuels confidence, and this confidence will keep you motivated to do what matters.
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places” – Ernest Hemingway
How are you going to find your motivation by setting the stage for meaningful actions? Leave a comment below!
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How You Can Start Networking in Style in 2023
By investing your time and effort in networking, you will gain more business through the relationships you make

Are you completely new to networking?
Then this article is a great place to start. Networking isn’t hard on paper…you go along to online and in-person meetings, make new connections and build relationships, and those relationships lead to more work so you can grow your business! The challenge is that in reality, it isn’t quite so straightforward, as our emotions get involved and make things much tougher.
It’s incredibly common for nerves to creep in and to feel overwhelmed and apprehensive when it comes to networking – even when it isn’t new to you. But how can you become more successful at it, feel less self-conscious, and make networking work for you and your business?
Here’s a few tips to help you embrace every business networking opportunity you get, so you can grow your business and achieve your goals.
Rock up with confidence
If you want to keep those nerves at bay and ooze confidence at networking get-togethers, you’ll need to downplay it rather than seeing it as a big occasion. Try not to put pressure on yourself and see it as a casual meet-up with a bunch of people with similar goals to you. To help you relax in the run-up to the event, be sure to set achievable goals and expectations before you go.
Keep your chin up and your goals in mind – positivity is key. One easy goal for your first networking meeting is very simply to speak to one other person and see where the conversation goes. Introduce yourself and your business, but take the time to listen to their story, too. It’ll only take a few minutes and will be over before you know it, so it’s nothing to fear. You may even enjoy it and want to speak to a few more people, too!
Where to go networking
If you’ve never been networking before, it might not be very easy to find a group – but only because there’s so much choice and you don’t know where to start your search! Groups come in different sizes and styles, so it’s important to find one that suits you and your business. Informal, formal, big, small… the choice is yours.
For your first meeting, start small to ease yourself in – a big group could prove too daunting, and stop you from feeling comfortable enough to get involved. After all, you want to make a strong first impression!
If you’re wondering which group to opt for in the long-term, give a few a go! Get a feel for them, speak to as many people as you can, and see which one suits! You’ll know when a group feels right for you, and you can see where those all-important relationships are most likely to be built. If a group doesn’t feel like the right for you, give a different one a go.
Get more leads and referrals
This will happen for you, as long as you put the effort into building those relationships. If you take the time to get to know people, and then check in with them and support them, they’ll see you as a trustworthy and reliable contact who they can call on. And when they feel that way, those leads and referrals you’re looking for will come a-knocking.
Once you’ve made relationships with people who you trust, and they’ve had a positive experience working with you, you can even ask for referrals! But don’t rush this, as you don’t want to inadvertently push people away or try and force the relationship along too quickly.
When you do get an opportunity to work with someone you’ve met at a networking group, go above and beyond to offer more value than they’re expecting, as then, they’ll be much more likely recommend you and introduce you to more of their contacts!
Grow your business
By investing your time and effort in networking, you will gain more business through the relationships you make, and you will be able to grow your business.
We know that it’s not easy, going networking for the very first time. And that’s why we want to give you all the advice and tools that you need so you can walk in with confidence and make the most of the opportunity.
2023 is just around the corner, and you have the chance to make it the year you make networking work for your business. And the benefits could be incredibly amazing for your business, just like they have been for ours, and many business owners we have worked with over the years.
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