At the best of times, it is hard to tell between a deluded mind and an entrepreneurial genius. Risk, chance, luck...these are the things that you won't find discussed much in the annals of success. Books on success are many. Books on failure are rare. Thus, the question: what do you do when no one believes in you?

1. Why doesn't anyone believe in you?
Why does no one believe in you? Maybe you don't really have anything new to offer. Maybe you haven't properly tested it. Maybe you didn't listen to people and made changes/improvements in it. Maybe what you are saying is completely baseless. Maybe your idea is too abstract. Maybe it is too ahead of its time. Maybe you are not conveying the idea in its simplest terms (maybe you are not a good communicator).

Maybe you don't really want what you are trying to achieve and thus aren't giving it 100% all the time? Maybe you just don;t have the ability and resources to see your ideathrough.

If you won't think about the situation in above mentioned terms, then chances are you are deluding yourself, and all that pain and frustration is wasting away your life.

Which brings us to the case of the entrepreneur: By default, most entrepreneurs keep themselves motivated by using a positive version of "me versus the world" thinking. But, many, including myself have degraded into thinking that the world is out to get them, and that anytime soon, the worst is going to happen. People don't like paranoid people folks.

In summary: If the whole world is telling you something, it is wise to take time, breathe, and carefully LISTEN AND LEARN FROM IT.

Test your ideas in the real world. Get honest feedback from people who would be affected/use your idea/product (or people who are experts in the field). Seek for answers that you don't want to hear. Bluntness has time-saving clarity.

2. Find believers
[note: all the tips from now on are based on the assumption that you have gone through tip #1 above.]
Do you believe in the naysayers? If you don't, you must find believers, and then you must clearly communicate your vision.

Confide in someone really close to you - your spouse, for example.

How do you find people who believe in you?
People must have a reason to believe in you. Maybe it is your charismatic personality. Maybe it is the brilliant and lucid way you have described your idea. Maybe people trust you because you displayed ability and some success in the past in your field.

Network - go to parties and events. See old colleagues and friends.
3. Have faith
elieve in yourself, prove them wrong! Shake off the demons of the past. Every day is your chance to accomplish your objectives.

It comes down to believing in yourself, and others will believe in you.

Hugh Macloed said, "Ignore everybody."

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt The Man in the Arena

(a version of it appears in the movie "Ratatouille")

"First it is ridiculed, secondly it is violently opposed--finally it is accepted as self evident."
- Schopenhauer's quote

(a version of it is attributed to Mahatma Gandhi)

If
you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

4. Keep working
Day after day. Testing your idea. Improving your idea.

When going through hell, keep going.

5. Eat well, keep well
Exercise vigorously. Eat healthy and enjoy your food. Take your time. It does wonders.

And finally, learn to enjoy the journey, the thinking, the rethinking, the modifications. After all, you are doing your best in this life. What more can a man ask for but try and try again?

If you liked this, please check out The Success Manual -  200+ top things we all should know to succeed faster in any career.