Solo Founders: How do you do it?

I've been following the other discussion on how do you keep yourself emotionally efficient.

However, I'd to broaden the scope of discussion: How do you do it? Or in other words, how do you keep yourself motivated to keep doing a startup. I'm not talking about projects that you do on the side, while you have a full-time job or are in school. I'm talking about where your startup is your job, whether you have funding or not.

It seems specifically hard to get funding if you are going solo. How do you go about getting funding? It also seems harder making those first key hires.

Why do you guys believe that this is the right way to go? Share the experience.