Maybe starting a new business isn’t your passion, but in these days of rapid change, where everyone is dealing with uncertainty, I believe that thinking and acting like entrepreneurs will help you get ahead in any profession. In simple terms this means taking control of your life, going after something you love to do, and taking action. Stop letting life decisions happen to you.
As a long-time mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I’ve been convinced for some time that good entrepreneurs have the right mindset, and the right attributes, to be good at anything they want. Starting a new business is actually one of the toughest things that anyone could aspire to, since it always involves making decisions and progress in uncharted territory, with no one to follow.
So how do good entrepreneurs do it, and what do they do that everyone can learn from? I saw some good insights in the classic book “Own Your Future,” by Paul B. Brown, who has been studying and writing about business leaders for many years for Forbes, BusinessWeek, and Inc.
He offers a collection of lessons regarding how entrepreneurs think and act, which relate equally well to almost any profession or lifestyle. I’ll summarize a few of his principles here as examples, and I’m adding a few from my own experience:
- Use act, learn, build, and repeat to move forward in increments. The entrepreneurial approach is to decide what you want, take a small step toward that goal, pause to see what you have learned, build off that learning, and iterate the process. Other people often seem to bounce around randomly, and be the unhappy victims of other people’s actions.
- Embrace smart risks, but don’t be reckless. Smart entrepreneurs work extremely hard to find smart risks, like really large opportunities, but limit potential losses, because they know that success is an iterative learning process, with many pivots required. Other people never take risk, or let their passion overcome them to bet the farm on a long shot.
- Avoid overthinking yourself, leading to no action. When the future is unpredictable, as it is today, action trumps thinking. Action leads to evidence, in your job or in the market, which is the best fodder for new thinking. If all you ever do is think, you can gain tons of theoretical knowledge, but none from the real world, and make no real progress.
- Nurture relationships with people who can really help. Entrepreneurs build listening relationships with peers, mentors, and investors who may not even be social friends, and ask them the hard questions they need grow their business. Other people think relationships are only for personal and social use, and only mention work while venting.
- Find and sell your unique competitive advantages. Successful entrepreneurs focus on amplifying their strengths, while many people focus on eliminating their weaknesses. Everyone needs to sell themselves with the same fervor that entrepreneurs sell their product or service. If you don’t highlight your competitive advantages, no one else will.
- Focus on problems you can solve and who is your target. A key step in selling yourself or your product is to identify your customer, and focus on value that you can deliver to that customer. Don’t discourage yourself by broadcasting your value to the wrong people, or not doing your market research on the problem they need solved.
- Always see the glass as half-full, rather than half-empty. Maintaining and projecting a positive attitude is critical to career and personal progress, as well as business growth. How many people do you know that always focus on their setbacks, rather than their progress? Every hiring manager, as well as investor, reads your attitude carefully.
- Generate energy, rather than sucking it out of others. Your actions must always create positive energy for those around you, or people will hasten to get away from you and your business. Entrepreneurs learn this early, to keep their team and customers motivated. You need to do this, to keep your lifestyle and your career moving forward.
I assure you that if you follow these principles in your current career, and think like an entrepreneur, you will advance more quickly, get more done, and be a happier person. According to a classic article and many others, entrepreneurs running their own business still rank themselves happier than all other professions, regardless of how much money they make.
