The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster

Why do some people thrive on chaos while others crumble under pressure? In The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster, Darren Hardy argues that entrepreneurship is not a linear or smooth journey—it is a wild, emotional, and unpredictable ride filled with exhilarating highs and terrifying lows. Hardy contends that to survive—and ultimately enjoy—the ride, you must build the right mindset, master essential business skills, and learn to find joy even in the fear and uncertainty.

A successful entrepreneur, former publisher of SUCCESS magazine, and author of The Compound Effect, Hardy uses a mix of memoir, metaphor, and mentorship to guide readers through what he calls the 'entrepreneur’s ride.' Drawing from his own beginnings selling water filters at age eighteen, he highlights the emotional volatility of entrepreneurship—the excitement of the first sale, the despair of failure, and the lesson that both feelings are part of the same journey. His goal is to prepare readers not just to survive the ride, but to love it.

The Greatest Era of Opportunity

Hardy insists that right now is the best time in human history to be an entrepreneur. Technology has shattered the traditional barriers to starting a business. The 'ivory tower' corporations that once monopolized resources, supply chains, and media are being toppled by small, nimble individuals with Wi-Fi and willpower. He calls this the 'Connected Age,' where tools, resources, and global audiences are at every person’s fingertips. If you miss this era, Hardy warns, you may miss the single greatest opportunity to shape your future and legacy.

To seize this opportunity, though, you must overcome fear, apathy, and external discouragement. Hardy describes this decisive moment as standing at the 'ticket booth' of the roller coaster—the point where you commit to buy your ticket, step onto the ride, and accept the emotional turbulence to come.

The Emotional Ride of Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship, Hardy explains, will test every emotional fiber of your being. You will feel euphoria when customers say yes, and heartbreak when your plans collapse. Hardy compares his early experience—flooding his grandmother’s apartment with a misinstalled water filter—to the cycle of hubris and humility every entrepreneur faces. Success, rejection, and recovery are not exceptions; they are essential ingredients.

He teaches that these moments are not meant to discourage you but to season you. In his words: “You will be thrashed about—severely at times—but that’s the beauty of the ride.” Resilience becomes the entrepreneur’s muscle, and emotional composure the ultimate differentiator between those who quit and those who succeed.

Why Mindset Is the Safety Bar

Hardy emphasizes that success in business is less about resources and more about internal fortitude. Many fail because they underestimate the psychological cost of entrepreneurship. Fear, doubt, and criticism from friends—the 'crabs in the bucket'—can drag you back into mediocrity. Hardy’s advice is to stop being a “likable” people-pleaser and instead redefine rejection as evidence that you’re shaking up the status quo. As he puts it, “If everyone likes you, you’re not doing great work.”

He introduces several core 'safety bars' that will keep your ride on track: a hunger for growth, emotional resilience, and the unwavering belief that failure is tuition. Like Jim Rohn and Napoleon Hill before him, Hardy maintains that attitude, consistency, and personal responsibility are the entrepreneur’s greatest assets.

Building the Skills to Survive

In addition to mindset, Hardy insists you develop concrete competencies—sales mastery, leadership, productivity, and people management. Being passionate isn’t enough; love for your idea must be matched by disciplined execution.

Before you’re allowed to get on the entrepreneurial roller coaster, Hardy says you must meet the one unbendable height requirement: you have to love it. Just like a park attendant measuring every kid to ensure they’re tall enough to survive the ride’s g-forces, entrepreneurship demands emotional height—passion that can withstand the jolts, drops, and flips along the way.

From Water Filters to Self-Awareness

Hardy recounts his first foray into business—a summer spent selling home water filters door-to-door. Eighteen and brimming with enthusiasm, he put his life savings into his first shipment, only to flood his grandparents’ house after a faulty installation. That literal and metaphorical “baptism by water” became his first entrepreneurial lesson: success requires more than raw enthusiasm. Later, as a young millionaire running a thriving sales business, Hardy faced an ethical crossroads when an older woman offered him her last $5,000 to join his program. When she asked, “Should I do this?” Hardy realized she wasn’t right for the business—and he wasn’t right for this business either. He walked away from his company that day. Love and integrity, he realized, must guide every decision.

Four Ways to Turn Passion ‘ON’

Passion, Hardy explains, isn't something you find; it’s something you switch on. It’s not lost under the couch cushions—it just needs activation. He identifies four switches you can flip to awaken your entrepreneurial passion:

• 1. Love What You Do: It doesn’t mean loving every minute. Hardy reminds us that “this work is going to suck 95% of the time.” Even Steve Jobs and Richard Branson spend their days in meetings and dealing with problems. True professionals keep going because they embrace the grind as part of greatness.
• 2. Love Why You Do It: What drives you must go beyond profit. Hardy’s “why” was to empower entrepreneurs and counteract the negativity of mainstream media. Like Mark Twain wrote, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
• 3. Love How You Do It: Hardy uses the example of his housekeeper, Leticia, who brought excellence and joy to even the most mundane tasks. Passion isn’t always about glamour—it’s about presence and pride in execution.
• 4. Love Who You Do It For: Meaning comes from who benefits from your work. Hardy shares the moving story of Todd Duncan, a successful businessman who lost everything—his business, his wife, and nearly his will to continue—but rose again by focusing on his two sons. He found motivation not in profit, but in purpose.

Find Your Fight

Beyond love, Hardy says raw drive often comes from anger—the desire to right a wrong. Great ventures, from Gandhi’s resistance to Musk’s innovation, spring from a fight for something better. Hardy encourages you to identify your enemies: comfort, mediocrity, apathy, or societal negativity. Channel your frustration into focus.

Strength Through Obsession

Finally, Hardy argues that passion must mature into mastery. Citing Warren Buffett’s “circle of competence” and Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule (Outliers), he claims that greatness stems from obsessive repetition within your unique strengths. Hard work, not DNA, builds genius. As he quotes Michael Jordan, “Everyone has talent, but ability takes hard work.” The goal isn’t just to love the ride—it’s to keep growing tall enough to handle the next loop.

When you pursue a path outside the norm, society’s first reaction is rarely support—it’s skepticism. Hardy calls entrepreneurs 'freaks,' not as an insult but as a badge of honor. To ride the entrepreneur roller coaster, you must embrace your freakiness and learn to endure the thrashing. Expect the emotional whiplash, the rejections, and the critics who try to pull you back into the crab bucket of conformity.

Beware the Crabs

In one of the book’s most memorable metaphors, Hardy describes how fishermen catch crabs without using lids. When one crab tries to climb out, the others pull it back into the trap—sometimes even tearing it apart. Humans do the same thing. Friends, coworkers, or family members may 'love' you, but when you step out of the safe collective, they’ll project their fear onto you. His advice: build awareness that their disapproval isn’t about you—it’s about them fearing what your courage reveals about their own inaction.

Stop Being Likable

Hardy recalls watching an election night speech and realizing why he wasn’t more successful: because he cared too much about being liked. 49% of the U.S. population disliked the President—and yet he was still one of the most powerful leaders on earth. If everyone agrees with you, you’re not changing anything. Progress requires disruption, and disruption makes people uncomfortable. Like Barbara Corcoran of Shark Tank often says, “Being different is what gets you noticed.”

Become Laughable

If no one is laughing at you, Hardy argues, you probably aren’t doing anything bold enough to matter. First they mock you, then they copy you. He illustrates this with examples like Elon Musk (SpaceX), Walt Disney (Disneyland), and Oprah Winfrey—all visionaries once dismissed as ridiculous. The moral: learn to smile when they snicker.

Define Success on Your Own Terms

Hardy shares a deeply personal realization from buying his dream home on the San Francisco Bay. Expecting his father’s pride, he instead received criticism about a water stain on the ceiling. That moment liberated him—he realized his definition of success could no longer depend on anyone else’s validation. Later, in conversation with Maria Shriver, he learned that even those born into iconic families redefine success inwardly: for her, success meant being a loving daughter, wife, and mother. The key insight: write your own definition before the world writes it for you.

Get a Grip and Recover Fast

To keep your sanity, Hardy recommends 'getting a grip'—developing perspective on how little others’ opinions really matter. He cites the “10 people will cry at your funeral” test: if they won’t weep for you, don’t let them dictate your decisions. And when failure strikes—as it inevitably will—shorten your recovery time. What once took Hardy weeks to shake off, he reduced to minutes. Falling means you’re pushing your limits, and limits are where growth begins.

“Falling is part of getting better. If you’re not falling, you’re not pushing.” —Jerry Hardy

Entrepreneurship is an endless series of falls followed by rises. Hardy’s philosophy embraces the tumble and celebrates the rise. Your goal isn’t to avoid the dips—it’s to love them, recover faster each time, and keep your freak flag flying high.

Sales, Hardy insists, is the beating heart of business. Everything—vision, innovation, leadership—depends on your ability to persuade others to believe, buy, and follow. Drawing on decades in direct sales, Hardy turns an often-dreaded word into a dynamic life skill that every entrepreneur must embrace.

Sales Is the Lifeline

Nothing happens until you sell something. Products, relationships, and even ideas live or die depending on your ability to connect with others. Apple didn’t win because it built the first MP3 player—it won because Steve Jobs sold a vision: “1,000 songs in your pocket.” Hardy’s “golden genie” thought experiment asks what single business trait you’d wish to be the best in—product design, management, or sales. The right answer is sales because it fuels every other success.

Stop Hiding and Start Helping

After being escorted out of Nordstrom for hanging around too long, Hardy had an epiphany: he wasn’t selling; he was hiding. Like many entrepreneurs, he was disguising fear of rejection behind busywork. True selling, he realized, isn’t manipulation—it’s service. Hardy’s mentor taught him to replace his “hit list” of prospects with “families I’m going to help next.” That mental shift changed everything. Helping people get what they want is how you earn everything you want (echoing Zig Ziglar’s core philosophy).

Empathy Sells Better Than Enthusiasm

The best communicators don’t talk their clients into buying—they listen them into clarity. Hardy teaches entrepreneurs to climb into their clients’ minds, even their beds metaphorically, to feel their late-night worries and desires. Sell with empathy, not hype. This human-centered approach turns transactions into trust.

From First-Date Fred to John Lennon

Hardy compares bad salespeople to a desperate romantic he nicknames “First-Date Fred.” Fred spends hours boasting about himself and wonders why no one calls back. The cure? Ask questions first. Find what they need, not what you want to sell. Contrast Fred’s failure with Miami realtor John Lennon, who sold over $3.7 billion in luxury properties by discovering each client’s unique value trigger. He didn’t sell condos—he sold parking spaces, closets, and dreams personalized to each buyer. The lesson: sell solutions, not inventory.

Sell in Bulk and Find Your Dream 50

Hardy urges you to scale strategically. Instead of chasing one customer at a time, find influencers and build bridges to networks. Sell by leverage, not by volume. He calls this the “Dream 50” strategy—the top 50 contacts or partners who could transform your business if you focused all your energy on serving them. This exact strategy led to SUCCESS magazine’s million-copy launch in 2008 without a marketing budget.

When you reframe sales as service, sales calls become acts of contribution. The roller coaster’s fuel isn’t money—it’s meaningful connection. Selling well feeds that engine for the entire ride.

Hardy is blunt: most entrepreneurs fail not because of bad ideas, but because of bad hiring. The people you choose become your ride companions. If you fill your roller coaster with B-players, you’ll crash on the first loop. Great companies are built by great people, and you can’t afford mediocrity.

Hire Evidence, Not Hope

Entrepreneurs, driven by optimism, often make terrible hiring decisions. Hardy admits recruiting his “dream assistant” Amanda because she loved his book and flattered his mission—but she couldn’t use Google Docs. After weeks of frustration, his sister-in-law helped him hire Maggie, a quiet but competent professional who transformed his workflow. Lesson learned: enthusiasm isn’t a substitute for evidence. “Hire evidence, not hope.”

Only A-Players Allowed

Steve Jobs famously said, “A-players hire A-players; B-players hire C-players.” Hardy echoes this warning: as soon as you settle for good, mediocrity spreads like a virus. A-players don’t cost money—they make it. A brilliant team member may cost $250,000 a year, but if they make you $5 million, they’re free. Create a culture where excellence attracts excellence.

Know What They Really Want

Money is not the main motivator. Hardy cites Brad Smart’s Topgrading research: top-tier talent seeks five things—great people, challenging work, opportunity, growth, and only lastly, pay. As Steve Jobs put it, they must “fall in love” with your mission. Offer intrinsic motivation, not just incentives.

The F-Factor: Fun and Meaning

To keep great people, make work fun. Cody Foster of Advisors Excel demonstrates this by taking his entire 250-person team (and their guests) to Cancun each year when the company hits its stretch goals. But the fun isn’t in the trip—it’s in doing meaningful work together. “What makes work fun is doing meaningful work,” Cody says. Richard Branson agrees: “If it’s not fun, it’s not worth doing.”

Bottom line: hire slowly, fire quickly, invest deeply. Your business’s future depends on whether your teammates scream in panic or in joy when the roller coaster drops.

Leadership, Hardy says, is the most important skill in keeping your business on track—and the hardest to master. You are your company’s greatest asset and its biggest bottleneck. To lead effectively, you must set the pace, make unpopular decisions, grow others, and know when to get out of the way.

It’s Always Your Fault

When things go wrong, stop blaming others. The CEO of a billion-dollar homebuilding firm told Hardy, “The only constraint to our company’s growth is my ambition.” Leadership begins with self-responsibility. If something fails on the line, on the team, or in the market—it’s your fault. Accept it. That humility creates accountability and growth.

The 21st-Century Leader

Command-and-control leadership is dead. Today’s workforce—diverse, cross-generational, and values-driven—demands collaboration and authenticity. Millennials, for example, crave purpose and independence more than hierarchy. Leaders must adapt from bossing to inspiring, from managing compliance to enabling creativity.

Four Rules for Modern Leadership

• 1. Lead by Example: Like Dwight Eisenhower’s string-on-the-table analogy, Hardy shows that people won’t follow a push—they follow a pull. Actions teach louder than words.
• 2. Do What’s Unpopular: Great leaders make hard calls. Howard Schultz at Starbucks closed hundreds of stores to save the company. When in doubt, do what’s right, not what’s comfortable.
• 3. Grow Others: Like Hardy’s English teacher Mr. Wilson, who helped a shy student named Cassie find her voice, your job is to see potential and bring it out. “Your task as a leader,” Hardy says, “is not to grow your business—it’s to grow your people.”
• 4. Let Others Lead: “Be a quitter,” advised a billionaire Hardy once met. Quit doing tasks others can do better. Delegate relentlessly so you can return to your real job—visionary leadership.

Every team mirrors its leader. Your words set the tone, your energy defines the culture, and your behavior determines the results. The roller coaster follows your rails—if you lead well, everyone enjoys the ride.

Hard work doesn’t equal success. Productivity—the disciplined allocation of focus—does. Hardy learned this after realizing he worked more hours than billionaires like Branson or Trump, yet achieved less. He discovered that all high performers share one superpower: they know their vital functions, focus on their vital priorities, track their vital metrics, and constantly make vital improvements.

Your Vital Functions

Dr. Mehmet Oz told Hardy, “Every endeavor has a few vital functions—find them and become excellent at them.” Like a surgeon who focuses only on the most critical cuts, entrepreneurs must identify the few actions that truly drive results. Hardy once tracked his own 'vital time' with a stopwatch and discovered he spent less than twenty minutes a day on activities that generated revenue. Once he doubled that time, his business exploded.

Your Vital Priorities

Overwhelm is the enemy. Hardy calls this “lion taming”: a lion confronted with a chair sees four threats and freezes—just like entrepreneurs facing a dozen competing priorities. Warren Buffett’s method solves this: write down your top goals, keep only the top three, and throw away the rest. “If you have more than three priorities,” Hardy warns, “you don’t have any.”

Master the Skill of ‘No’

Saying no is the master skill of success. Warren Buffett rejects 99 of every 100 opportunities. Steve Jobs once said his greatest pride came not from what Apple did, but from what it didn’t do. Hardy agrees: focus is achieved through subtraction, not addition. If an opportunity isn’t a “Hell yes!” then it’s a no.

Your Vital Metrics and Improvements

Measurement keeps your ride on track. Hardy recommends identifying one 'economic denominator' that drives all others—like new leads, client referrals, or conversions. Track it daily. Then, choose your “Big 3 Goals” and the key habits that make them happen. Review them nightly, as if you were a waiter 'cashing out' your day’s performance. Progress, not perfection, builds consistency. As Vince Lombardi said, the goal is to be “brilliant at the basics.”

Productivity isn’t about time management; it’s about priority management. The fewer things you do, the better they—and you—become. Focus sharpens every twist, every turn, and lets you enjoy the speed instead of fighting it.

As the ride races to its end, Hardy reminds you not to mistake motion for meaning. Too many entrepreneurs chase bigger, faster, louder—and end up hollow. The real goal, he insists, is to enjoy the ride and make sure it’s leading somewhere worth going.

Don’t Want What You Don’t Want

Hardy confesses to envying Richard Branson’s life until he realized he’d hate it—400 companies, constant lawsuits, and endless complexity. Branson thrives in chaos; Hardy thrives in mastery. The lesson: stop coveting other people’s dreams. Define your happiness before success defines it for you.

Don’t Miss the Point

Hardy recalls visiting his dying mentor, “Coach,” who grasped his arm and whispered, “Don’t miss the point.” Coach meant that he had spent life chasing houses and money, but neglected relationships and meaning. Hardy reflects that 'keeping the wrong score'—tracking wealth over wisdom—is the ultimate entrepreneurial tragedy.

Do the Right Thing

When faced with moral choices, choose integrity—even if it costs you everything. Hardy recounts how his father, a football coach, once declined his dream job to care for his ailing dad. Doing the right thing, Hardy argues, may temporarily slow the ride but ensures peace when it ends.

Trust Your Gut and Keep Your Resolve

Jeff Bezos left Wall Street to start Amazon after imagining his 80-year-old self looking back with regret if he didn’t try. Hardy encourages entrepreneurs to apply this 'regret minimization test'—acting now, so future you can be proud. Despite doubts, keep climbing your mountain. The summit’s silence doesn’t mean failure—it means you’ve surpassed the doubters’ noise.

Seek Your Greatness

The final message echoes Hardy’s mentor Jim Rohn: the goal of life is the full development of your potential. The ride isn’t about wealth or fame—it’s about using your gifts in service to something greater. “Live today,” Hardy writes, “the way you want to be remembered in the end.” Success isn’t reaching the destination—it’s smiling in every photo the camera takes along the way.