Rarer than talent or work ethic, the poet John Keats wrote, is the ability to step into and push through doubts and uncertainties.
In 1817, Keats wrote a letter to his brothers to share this exciting realization. “At once it struck me,” Keats wrote, “what quality went to form a Man of Achievement … Negative Capability.”
P.S. I would have UnGendered the title but it was a quote of Keats and hence kept it. Apologies to all women readers of this post.
Keats explains that “Negative Capability” is “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”
Those who possess Negative Capability, who can sit with uncertainty, who can spend months or years in the minefield that is working on something while knowing that there is a real possibility no one will care about it—they often possess another quality. They do what they do, not as a means to some end (money, fame, awards, etc.), but for the sake of doing it.
So ultimately, you have to love doing it. You have to get to a place where doing the work is the win and everything else is extra.
The above should serve as Motivation to every Entrepreneur, Innovator, Creator, Every Maverick. This is a great Motivation to me while am working on this “Startup Infinity” project (suspense will be out soon :):). I have doubts for “Startup Infinity”..I don’t think anybody’s going to care. There’s not any guarantee Startup Infinity will work…I do not know if all these efforts are going to work out. But I am loving doing it, loved coming up with the concept, loved making a team for Startup Infinity, Loving to garner resources for it. But for me the WIN now is am working on it..And it will remain the WIN.
So just “Let’s Do It”
P.S. “What quality went to form a Person of Achievement ? It is “Negative Capability”. Fixed It.