What You Can Learn from One Fictional Movie Character – and Two Real Life Entrepreneurs

Despite all odds, Rocky Balboa believed in himself.

The fictional fighter in the Rocky movie series from the Philadelphia slums could have felt sorry for himself, given up and blamed others.

Did he? NO! As he says in Rocky III:

“Nobody owes nobody nothin'. You owe yourself.”

In other words, don't think of all the things that can go wrong and then feel defeated because a problem arises. You owe it to yourself to give it your best … and make a grab for greatness.

Yet it's hard to feel that way on days when it seems like everything that can go wrong, does.

I know. Sometimes as an entrepreneur it can feel like your dream is impossible.

Don't give up!

It's Not Just Movie Characters Who Achieve Against All Odds

While a multitude of quotes from the Rocky movies have inspired entrepreneurs, you don't have to look to the movies for motivation.

Consider Mark Zuckerberg. A little more than a decade ago, he was a college student. He didn't even graduate from college. Today, as co-founder of Facebook, he is the sixth richest person in the world on the Forbes 2016 billionaire list.

Rising from college student to CEO, Zuckerberg created a site that reaches over 1 billion daily active users - that's nearly 15 percent of the world's population!

Sounds impossible doesn't it?

Or there's Richard Branson, the iconic entrepreneur. He started with nothing and then built his own airline, Virgin Atlantic. He wasn't from the airline industry. It wasn't like he had a lot of money at the time, either. But somehow he started his own airline.

And today, he's one of the handful of pioneers of private space flight with his company, Virgin Galactic.

Think about that a moment. Who starts their own space travel company? What could be more impossible than that?

Granted, those two people are unique. Few of us are going to become billionaires.

Get Motivated by People Who Reached for the Stars

So instead, draw inspiration from what they overcame to achieve a seemingly impossible thing. Being a billionaire is not the definition of success. No one is suggesting that just because you fall short of Zuckerberg's net worth you can't be successful.

Think about what it must have been like in the early days for Zuckerberg and Branson. Surely many things went wrong. Some people doubted them. They probably had trouble getting some of their calls returned. They likely worried about where they'd get the money to build their companies (even as they showed a confident face to the world). But somehow they kept on, driven by their dreams.

Whatever you are dreaming of in business, go for it.

Dream no small dreams. Don't fixate on all the odds against you. Reach for the stars.

Image Credits: Lanterns, Construction, Skateboard, Rocky, Hands, Hang Glider.  Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic. Rockets. Zuckerberg, Nasdaq via Wikipedia.

This article, "What You Can Learn from One Fictional Movie Character – and Two Real Life Entrepreneurs" was first published on Small Business Trends