🏁 ROT #14: 18 months to failure

Tony Nava
Aug 18
5 min read

TL;DR: Running a business will break the weak. It’s not about fancy titles or highlight reels — it’s about pain, pressure, and pushing through when everything’s falling apart.

If you want to win in entrepreneurship, you need five things:

Problem Solving – Every day is chaos. Solve fast or fold.
Strategy – Don’t just react — plan your next move.
Endurance – The ones who last, win.
Competition – Be hungrier than everyone else.
Relentless Work Ethic – Outwork every person in the room.

No luck. No shortcuts. Just grit, focus, and the willingness to bleed for it. If you can pay that price, you can build something real. 👊

Running a business isn’t for the faint of heart. If you’re reading this, chances are you’re in the grind every day, hauling, hustling, building something real with your own two hands.

And here’s something nobody tells you when you start 👉 entrepreneurship isn’t about the fake highlight reel you see online. It’s about long nights, constant problems, and the pressure of knowing that every decision lands on you.

It’s hard. It’s messy. It will test you.

But it’s also the most rewarding thing you’ll ever do — if you can survive the process.

That’s why I want to share the five traits that have made the biggest difference in my own journey. These are lessons built in the trenches — from broken trucks to botched jobs to figuring out payroll when the money wasn’t there.

Here are my 5 top tips to becoming a successful entrepreneur. These aren’t theories, they’re what I’ve lived through — the real shit no one tells you. You can read all the books you want, but when you’re out there in the trenches, running your small business, these are the traits that will keep you alive and moving forward.

1. Be a Problem Solver

Your ability to problem solve will dictate how successful you become. Entrepreneurship is all about navigating storms. Every single day you’ll face problems. There's absolutely no avoiding it.

Some are small and annoying, but others will test every ounce of creativity you’ve got. You’ll wake up thinking you’ve got the day mapped out, and then — boom — the truck breaks down, an employee quits, or a customer ghosts you on a big invoice.

It’s in those moments your problem-solving muscle gets built. You either figure it out, or you fold.

Elon Musk once said: “Entrepreneurship is like eating glass and staring into the abyss.”

He wasn’t exaggerating. Problems come at you daily, and sometimes the solutions aren’t clear. But if you learn to slow down, assess the situation, and calmly work through it, you start stacking wins.

Action step: Next time you hit a roadblock, instead of panicking, write it down. Force yourself to come up with three possible solutions. Pick one and execute today. Speed matters. Perfection doesn’t.

2. Be a Strategist

Problem-solving without strategy is just reaction. To actually move forward, you need a plan. Being a strategist means you’re always looking at the bigger picture. You’re not just patching holes in the boat; you’re steering the ship toward a destination.

Strategy is what separates the hustlers who stay stuck grinding forever from the entrepreneurs who build businesses that scale.

Your ability to digest information, retain it, and then implement it is everything. Every solved problem had a good plan behind it. If you’re not thinking a few steps ahead, you’re playing checkers while your competition is playing chess.

Jeff Bezos once said: “We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.”

That’s strategy. Know where you’re headed, but be willing to adapt your tactics along the way.

Action step: Spend 30 minutes a week reviewing your business. Ask:

What’s working right now?
What’s not working?
What’s the next strategy that can get me from this level to the next?

Write it down and execute one change every week. Strategy without action is just a wish.

3. Build the Ability to Endure

This one is huge. Most people quit when shit gets hard. Understand this: entrepreneurship is nothing but fucking hard. You have to build endurance — the willingness to keep going when everything inside you wants to stop.

Every single level in business, you’re starting from scratch. At the beginning, you endure the grind of just trying to survive. Then you finally hit your stride, and guess what?

At the next level, you’re a beginner all over again. New challenges, new headaches, new pain.

Steve Jobs said it best: “I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

Endurance isn’t sexy. It’s not flashy. It’s dragging yourself to the job site after you just got stiffed on a bill. It’s working 14-hour days while your friends are out drinking on Friday night.

It’s hearing “no” a hundred times before you finally hear “yes.”

Action step: Reframe pain. The next time you’re stuck in a hard day, don’t think “Why me?” Think: “This is the price of entry.” Write it down: “Pain = progress.” Hang it on the wall where you can see it.

4. Be Hyper-Competitive

Business is war. And the entrepreneurs who win are fucking hyper-competitive. That doesn’t mean you’re a jerk or arrogant. It means inside you’ve got an unwavering confidence that says: “I’m better. I’ll outwork you. I’ll outthink you. I’ll outlast you.”

Competition is about survival. If you’re timid, if you hesitate, you will get absolutely eaten alive. Bro, you’re swimming with sharks. The only way to survive is to be a bigger fish.

Michael Jordan once said: “I’ve always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come. I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. But I’ve never stopped competing.”

That’s the mindset. You don’t need to talk shit or rub it in anyone’s face. Let your work show for itself. But internally, you better believe you’re a killer.

Action step: Look at your top three competitors. Write down three things they’re doing. Now write down three things you can do better. Whether it’s faster response times, better customer service, or dominating ads, pick one area and outcompete this month.

5. Outwork Everyone With Relentless Work Ethic

Yeah, it sounds pretty fucking cheesy and cliché. But it’s the truth! Your work ethic will make or break you. Too many people jump into business thinking they’re going to be the boss right away.

Reality check: at first, you’re an employee to your own business. And the only paycheck you get is tied directly to how much time and effort you put in.

If you put in minimal effort, expect minimal returns. If you work like a maniac, grinding 18 hours a day on the right things, you’ll see results.

Mark Cuban said it best: “Work like there is someone working 24 hours a day to take it all away from you.”

Now, don’t get it twisted — it’s not about being “busy.”

Busy work will bury you. You’ve got to work hard and smart.Work hard on the activities that generate revenue. Don’t waste your best hours shuffling papers when you could be making calls, knocking doors, or building ads that bring in leads.

Action step: Audit your daily schedule. Circle the activities that actually bring money in. Cross out the ones that don’t. Double down on the money-making tasks.

The Bottom Line

Entrepreneurship isn’t fucking easy. It doesn’t happen overnight. But if you:

Solve problems fast,
Strategize every move,
Endure the pain,
Compete like your life depends on it, and
Outwork everyone in sight…

…you’ll stack enough wins to make it.

And here’s the part no one wants you to know... if any other breathing, bleeding human has done what you want to do, then it’s possible. That means you can do it too.

The only question left is: are you willing to pay the price?

C’mon — let’s get it. 👊 🏁🏁🏁