If you read my previous post about startup addiction, here is a book I recommend you to read about how you can use your addiction to help you success, instead of failing you.

Addictive Entrepreneurship, written by Allan J. Katz, is about discovering how your addictive way of thinking can be the main reason behind your failures in your business, and how to revert it into a propeller for you to achieve your success.

Reading through the book, the reality strikes me – My past business failures are due to not identifying my addiction that comes in the form of perfectionism.

In the book, Allan wrote, “When addictive thinking takes over, you begin to question your own decision-making process. Doubt sets in and all the years of experience and education seem to vanish, allowing you to question whether you should be working for yourself in the first place.”

All I can say is this: OUCH!

Why “Addictive Entrepreneurship” can change your personal and business life

That’s what happened (and still happening) to me – I love business ideas and I am keen to start up businesses according to them, in an almost impulsive way.

However, my perfectionist side starts to question my decision – I start to question my very own decision making, just like what Allan wrote in his book.

What worse, my perfectionism makes me work 18 hours a day, driven by my guilt feelings of not trying hard enough to succeed. I need help badly!

The results are devastating – I’m losing my motivation in pursuing the startups and starting to find ways to get rid of them!

Logically, I have to tweak the businesses until they are working as they should. I have this perseverance and resilience, but my addictive thinking defeats my positive traits.

Allan J. Katz – a direct response copywriter and marketing strategist, a former President of the Direct Marketing Association of Memphis, and an adjunct professor at the University of Memphis Continuing Education Program – explained, through his experience, that what I should do to ‘cure’ my entrepreneurial mind’s addiction is to identify my ‘push-button’ or ‘trigger’ to all negativity, and try to control it and revert it into a positive success-driving force.

I am personally benefiting from Allan J. Katz’ book. If you are really want to know that you are an addict in entrepreneurship, in any forms, I highly recommend you to read Allan J. Katz book, “Addictive Entrepreneurship.”

If you would like to learn more, I recommend you to visit Allan J. Katz’ Addictive Entrepreneurship website to learn more about what’s inside the book.

Ivan Widjaya
Controlling my entrepreneurial addiction