Relentless

re⋅lent⋅less /rɪˈlent lis/ [ri-lent-lis]

–adjective
that does not relent; unyieldingly severe, strict, or harsh; unrelenting: a relentless enemy.

adj.

1. Unyielding in severity or strictness; unrelenting: relentless persecution.
2. Steady and persistent; unremitting: the relentless beat of the drums.

I heard an interesting word during a conversation this weekend. The word used was relentless.

In that discussion, we were discussing the traits that separate the more entrepreneurial among us from the rest of the population.

The conversation shifted to that topic because we were trying to distill and determine the key characteristic that leaves so many who attempt to do their own thing in the dust.

Hard work? A lot of people work hard and long hours. And still don't cut the mustard in the world of self employment. If employed by others, they often receive a modest return on the hours invested.

Risk? Lot's of people take risk. Some more educated than others, but even educated risk does not always bring desired results.

Knowledge? A lot of smart people fail.

Meeting a need? Again it depends.

Add hard work, risk, meeting a need and knowledge? No, it still doesn't equal success. Even by the percentages.

What we all agreed on was one word. When someone mentioned the word relentless, we all quickly and without hesitation agreed that was the key word. That was the word needed to be successful.

Those successful who are entrepreneurs are relentless in the pursuit of what they want or need to obtain. They have a goal. They fix on the goal and don't let anything or anyone get in the way of the goal. They are relentless to get to the goal and many times never stop.

Sadly, my first thought of being relentless was something not positive. And I felt very bad about that.

Some of this goes back to an email exchange I had with another person last week that I greatly admire. He had a comment on his blog that he saw another notable person at a conference stating he bailed the hate mail he gets and that from an inference a lot of it comes from Christians.

In my email exchange, I told him I once asked that same person who spoke at the event he attended about how he dealt with unsolicited advice.

The response was he didn't; unless it came from a selected core group of people. The people in his accountability group. Anyone else must be someone who that person (the event speaker)has solicited feedback or guidance. He has cut off other external feedback because they are on a mission and don't see those who are unsolicited as understanding the various complexities of that mission.

My impression is the speaker at the event is relentless in obtaining his mission. And no one unsolicited was going to question the process in obtaining that mission. Thus possibly the hate mail label. Those unsolicited pieces of mail may or may not have contained pieces of constructive comments, even though presented in a critical manner. But whether constructive or not, they could have also contained information that could have derailed the mission. And that couldn't be risked. Relentless.

That email exchange was one of the thoughts in the back of my mind as that entrepreneur conversation that took place over the weekend.

When the word relentless was brought up, it matched this mission obtaining process.

But I concluded that my view of relentless was not positive and that's what bothered me. I thought I had been conditioned by outside sources to think the worst of this word. Sort of a JR Ewing mental picture came to mind when the word was used.

So when I got home, I looked the word up.

As you can see from the top of this entry, it's not a very complimentary word.

Do entrepreneurs need to be relentless in their pursuit of their mission and to carry it out does it need to be negative?