I am actually now thinking to myself if it is a good idea to be sharing this negativity with you and if you would continue to absorb and appreciate the content that I sincerely want to share with you, my fellow entrepreneurs. But, I decided that now is not the time to work on perception management but to talk about a serious matter that I know all start-up entrepreneurs experience and sometimes have only themselves to share it with.

I hope you can allow yourself to trust me when I say I empathize with you my fellow entrepreneurs; who have to go through the hard grind of working long hours (sometimes after working longer hours at work), sacrificing time with family and friends, receiving ridicule and pessimisms from the people around you.

Trust me when I say I feel you when you see your company going into the red. Trust me when I say I know what it is like to get into business debt and the worry about how you are going to clear it is the only thing you can think about. Trust me when I say that I feel you when you fear that success starts to seem out of reach and now you have resigned to giving up. Once again, I feel you, my friend.

Now, when one thinks about a successful person, names of successful business people like Richard Branson and Donald Trump, sportsmen like Muhammad Ali, Lance Armstrong, film and music celebrities like Jim Carrey and Diddy come to our mind. When you think about all these people do you see images of the British billionaire whose record company almost went into bankruptcy? Or maybe the pink-tied toupee-like haired real estate mogul who lost everything and went into approximately a billion dollars in debt? What about the Boxer who was jailed for his religious beliefs or the seven-time Tour de France Champion who had to battle cancer? What about the famous millionaire actor who at one point had only ten dollars to his name or the music mogul who was fired from the post of Vice-President of a record company at the age of 22?

Probably not.

But it is in these little examples that remind me whatever problems I face today are nothing as compared to that of other people. It is these little reflections that remind me that if these people can overcome their adversities then I know that in my heart, I too have the power to overcome mine. After all, they are human just like me, just like you.

I once saw a poster that read, ‘The challenge in front of you is not greater than the force behind you’. Building a start-up is not as easy and fun as it may sound sometimes. There will be times when you will be tested and you will be tested hard.

My fellow entrepreneurs, even though I am faced with these challenges, I know in my heart that I have the power to overcome them and all I need is faith. Faith is what is going to keep you moving. It is the only thing that is going to get you through the grind.