Capturing Your Entrepreneurial Mindset

When you’ve captured your entrepreneurial mindset, you never have to tell people about the value that you provide them. They tell you about the true value your products and services bring to them.

Much of what we learn about entrepreneurship is centered around identifying an opportunity, which usually means finding a problem to be solved or a need to be filled, then solving that problem or uniquely filling the need in a way that provides great value to others. The importance of capturing your entrepreneurial mindset is sometimes missing from this learning. A mindset that can be characterized through your creativity, motivation and ability to remain open to risk and failure. When you’ve captured your entrepreneurial mindset, you never have to tell people about the value that you provide them. They tell you about the true value your products and services bring to them.

The age-old myth that we dispel with leadership can also be applied to entrepreneurship, and that is entrepreneurs are not born, there is no specific gene. They are driven to it. This uncommon drive enables them to do what is necessary to win at business and life. Successful entrepreneurs have often captured the right mindset, and there are unique qualities in the way they think and act.

Whether you want to change the world, make money online, or provide a better life for your family; you want to focus on the following qualities to capture your very best entrepreneurial mindset:

Be Confident

Lack of confidence can be the kryptonite to your entrepreneurial success. Self-doubt kills many business dreams before other external factors come into play. Confidence and the removal of fear or self-doubt comes with two preconditions – clarity and competence. Successful entrepreneurs look at every challenge they face with the confidence that a solution can and will be uncovered. When you’re clear on the strategic vision and direction of your business and learn the essential skills necessary to accomplish that vision, you capture a confident mindset that enables you to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Be Visionary

Much of the entrepreneurial mindset involves a steadfast commitment to a shared vision. Challenges can be that you have limited experience in strategic thinking, or the everyday demands can get in your way, resulting in a receding vision. So, it’s important to make an effort to set aside a specific time every day, or week, to focus on your vision and your goals in a way that brings your vision to the forefront. This mindset will enable you to create the energy needed to focus your daily efforts and be successful.

Be Kinesthetic

If entrepreneurs are not thinking about their vision, then they aren’t actually putting their vision into motion. Your business acumen – human capital management, financial management and technology management – is experiential and something you develop over time. Your entrepreneurial mindset is developed by getting in the game and learning by doing. Education helps but tactile immersion in a process allows you to master, know, or understand what it takes to deliver products or services that will meet the needs of your client, consumer, or customer.

Be Decisive

After self-doubt, indecision is one of the greatest causes of business failure. When you can’t decide what to do, you delay taking action or do nothing. To succeed as an entrepreneur, you must be able to look at a challenge or situation, digest all the information, then make a confident decision to move forward. Starting with the smaller decisions, being decisive is a mindset skill that you want to practice and strengthen every day.

Be Agile

You can be passionate about your idea without falling in love with it so much that you start with your ears closed. Capturing the entrepreneurship mindset involves getting the answers to the test before you take it, but if you think you have the right answers, then you’re not being agile enough to deal with any unexpected challenges you may encounter. Active listening is critical and remaining agile enough to adapt your idea for the sake of finding a solution is important.

Be a Risk Navigator

Successful entrepreneurs are not risk-takers…they are risk navigators. They just don’t allow themselves, or their businesses, to be paralyzed by risk. Entrepreneurship is about understanding and navigating risks in a way where you can mitigate the risk by either accepting, avoiding, controlling, or transferring it. Those who have not captured this mindset will foolishly dive headfirst and blindly into every risk they encounter, while successful entrepreneurs are aware of every potential risk and what measures need to be taken to mitigate them.

Be Resilient

Making mistakes and failing are inevitable, and part of our entrepreneurial growth. If every misstep creates self-doubt, you have to change your mindset, and the way you look at being wrong. You need to go into this journey knowing you can get past any obstacle that comes up — because you can and will. Success rarely happens in a straight line, and the only people who do not make mistakes are the ones that don’t do anything. Resilience allows you to handle those decisions that didn’t yield expected results, and enables you to think, act, and move iteratively — with a mindset of making small, incremental corrections along the way.

Be Coachable

No matter what you are trying to accomplish, someone already has done it before you. I coach entrepreneurs, leaders and teams to achieve their desired business results, and those who have worked with me know that the quickest way to end our relationship is to have my level of commitment exceed yours. Thinking like an entrepreneur means seeking out coaches and mentors who have been where you are trying to go and having the humility to accept their guidance. If you want to accomplish big things in life, you need to be willing to learn from others and nourish a growth mindset. To do big things, you need to grow. To grow, you need to learn.

Capturing your entrepreneurial mindset is not easy. Few say it is. Starting your own business, with your own products or services, may be the most exciting, positive and rewarding thing you’ll ever do. It may also be the most challenging, fearful and self-doubting thing you’ll ever do. Your ability to capture your entrepreneurial mindset will enable you to be successful and build a thriving business that you can be proud of. It involves being decisive, being agile, navigating risk, being resilient, being coachable and, above all, being committed to your vision regardless of the challenges and obstacles along the way. It is about seeing mistakes as an opportunity for growth and not as something to be feared. By embodying all of these characteristics, you can capture your entrepreneurial mindset and equip yourself with the most important tools that your business can have.

Dan Dwyer -- Northern Alabama-based entrepreneur dedicated to the boots to business advancement of veteran entrepreneurs across the globe. Experienced leadership and organizational development consultant, coach to leaders, managers and organizations, leadership blogger, and podcaster, I am passionate about powerful conversations that accelerate organizational success. I enjoy guiding people who guide others; shaping performance improvement, and up starting start-ups. I especially enjoy working with young leaders who want to make a difference for their team, their organization, and our society. With over 25 years experience in building and leading high performing teams at all levels, retaining top-performing professionals, orchestrating multimillion-dollar operational budgets, and cultivating trusting relationships with team members, peers, and senior leaders alike, I blend a practical, results-driven approach, centered on powerful conversations, to get to the core of any situation, and guides leaders and organizations to achieve their very best results.