Introduction

Having been an employee and now an entrepreneur for most of my adult life, I have observed a stark contrast between how employees think and how entrepreneurs think. This book will peel the covers back to give you a rare peek into the inner workings of the mind of an entrepreneur and what you can do to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset.

My Personal Mindset Journey as an Entrepreneur

I did not set out to become an entrepreneur. It was almost like entrepreneurship chose me. A combination of my personality, work habits and preferences, desired lifestyle, and a few other factors led me down the path of starting my own business. However, it was ultimately my entrepreneurial way of thinking that has sustained me and kept me on this path for most of my adult life, or I would have quit a long time ago! I have always had a natural propensity towards leading rather than following. I would rather tell others what to do rather than be told what to do. Punching the clock daily was never appealing to me. Work for me must be satisfying and personally fulfilling or I’ll lose interest. I master things quickly and wanted to create my own fast track to success on my terms rather than wait around for promotions to happen. And finally, the type of wealth that I envisioned for myself was likely not going to be achieved by working for someone else.

I probably came into this world somewhat hardwired for entrepreneurship, but not everyone has to be. Most of what I share with you in this book can be cultivated with the right thinking. Your mind is like a garden. Rich fertilizer, pulling up weeds, and watering are necessary components to produce a flourishing garden. Feeding your mind with beneficial thoughts and eliminating the bad ones are what will help to produce a thriving business. Getting rid of the fear of taking risks and living outside of your comfort zone require a major shift in thinking for many aspiring and emerging entrepreneurs.

Make no mistake. Although I already had a few advantages, I had plenty of mindset obstacles to overcome prior to launching my own businesses. I grew very poor and my family was dependent on government assistance and subsidies for most of my childhood. For a long time, I never saw anyone successful—in my neighborhood or my family—because I was born into a long line of generational poverty. Then, my aunt opened a restaurant where I worked as a teenager. She ran that business for over 30 years and was my first example of a successful entrepreneur. Later, I also witnessed my uncle running a successful restaurant for many years. Shortly after I graduated with my first degree in Business Management, my older sister started a real estate investment business. All three of these family members served as great examples that I didn’t initially realize how much I so desperately needed to see after living in such impoverished conditions.

You Are How You Think

Have you ever heard the phrase, “as a man thinketh, so is he?” It is true, although it is not intended to be gender specific. You are the sum of your thoughts. Your very being is tied to what and how you think. This is why it is so important that you guard what I call the gate of your mind. Just as I make every effort to avoid feeding my natural body junk, I make an effort to avoid filling my mind with worthless or detrimental things. There are some thoughts that should not be invited and other thoughts that come that we have to make a conscious effort to reject, also known as casting down vain imaginations.

If you’ve ever wondered why people meditate, one reason is to reject unwanted thoughts. Meditation also teaches you how to deeply and intentionally focus on thoughts that are good, pure, and lovely. You can meditate on the life you want, the type of person you’d like to become, the success you want to achieve in your business, and any other good thing that you want to accomplish. Meditation will calm your mind and help you to gain clarity of thought, peace, and declutter your mental space from all unnecessary or unfruitful thoughts. It doesn’t have anything to do with being religious necessarily; it is about training your mind.

Success starts in the mind. Mindset is a set of beliefs that you hold, which influences your convictions, your decisions, and, ultimately, the direction of your life. Beliefs lead to actions. Your mindset will create obstacles or opportunities, see barriers or possibilities, and cause fear or courage. Your frame of mind started developing from the moment you were born, if not sooner while you were in your mother’s womb. The environment in which you were raised, your experiences, and what you have been taught are all factors that shape your thinking. If you’ve had a barrage of negative experiences in your life that have adversely impacted you, don’t feel disheartened. The good news is that your thinking can be rewired to change what you believe - starting by changing what you believe about yourself. The focus within this book is primarily on the actions you can take to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset to prepare you to make the shift from thinking like an employee to thinking like an entrepreneur.

In the garden of your mind, plucking the weeds of negative thinking that are counterproductive to becoming a great entrepreneur is a must if you expect to succeed as an entrepreneur. A few examples of these “weeds” are having a normalized view of working for someone else, esteeming your comfort zone higher than your dream of becoming an entrepreneur, and perceiving risk as something negative. Your journey as you read this book will help you not only to reflect on your thinking patterns but also to identify unhealthy thinking and replace it with a mindset that is ­conducive to succeeding as an entrepreneur. But first, you must take an honest assessment of how you think of yourself.

Examining How You Think about Yourself

Before you venture into the world of entrepreneurship, it would be well worth it to dissect how and what you think of yourself. You filter how you view the world and even yourself through your lenses. Questions to ­ponder: How would you describe yourself? Courageous or fearful? Gutsy or timid? Follower of the masses or marching to the beat of your own drum? ­Tenacious or easily moved?

It matters how you see yourself because that is the lens through which you see the world around you. Thoughts are extremely powerful. They are the fundamental building blocks to your success as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship can sometimes be a lonely journey, so a healthy dose of self-affirmation is needed. Before you can become a successful entrepreneur, you first have to see yourself as one. If you have experienced trauma in your life that you believe might be negatively affecting your perception of yourself, seeing a therapist or counselor can help you work through deeply rooted issues. You could have the most ­brilliant mind, be highly skilled, and have amazing qualities to run a business, but mindset blockages can hinder you from reaching your ultimate potential.

When I think about myself, I think that I am extremely resilient, ­laser-focused on my goals, ambitious, loyal, wise, capable, ­self-reflective, pensive, curious, intelligent, valuable, and inquisitive, among many other things. There are many things that I am not, but I don’t dwell on those things. I only choose to think about myself in a positive light despite my awareness of my shortcomings. I have to be aware of my shortcomings for the sole purpose of working to overcome them in order to become a better person, but not to beat myself up or get down on myself.

Why Is It Important to Shift Your Thinking?

Well, if you want to think like an entrepreneur, it’s necessary to shift your thinking. Many educational systems globally are structured to teach students to gain a sufficient level of mastery in a particular area of study to prepare them to join the workforce as an employee at someone else’s company. There is an invisible yet direct ­school-to-work pipeline that exists to convert students into workers. The vast majority of the world is indoctrinated in this type of educational ­system, which has become the societal norm. As stated earlier, the environment that you are exposed to impacts your thinking, which in turn affects the course of your life. Unless you have been introduced to the world of business ownership or the concept of entrepreneurship, it is highly likely that your mindset is not conducive to running a ­successful business.

If you want to continue down the conventional path that leads most people towards becoming an employee, then a mindset shift isn’t needed. By the time children are in kindergarten, their teacher would have asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up. Children, being products of their environments and what they’ve been exposed to, often say, “a teacher, a nurse, a police officer, or a fireman.” By high school, for Career Day, employees from different companies come to speak to the students to expose them to different career choices, again most commonly as an employee at a company. As students approach their senior year, they are encouraged to think about a career path and/or take a college entrance exam to prepare for college, then choose a major, and then start interviewing for a job before graduating college. Although some students get exposed to entrepreneurship, it is usually through a special program or someone outside of the normal school environment.

Differences in Belief Systems

The belief system that you adopt will either be conducive to succeeding as an entrepreneur or work against it. There are distinct differences between the mentalities of an employee and an entrepreneur. No entrepreneur becomes successful by thinking like an employee. They are mostly contrary to one another. Working for someone else versus working for yourself requires its own unique approach to seeing and doing things.

Your belief system is the foundation of your convictions about what decisions you make in your life and why. For example, I personally believe that entrepreneurship is a calling and not just a vocation. Therefore, I approach it differently than some other entrepreneurs. I see entrepreneurship as a conduit to bringing good in this world, to make a difference, to impact and influence lives with their gifts and talents, and to leave a legacy. To whom much is given, much is required. When you work for yourself, you have the power to create opportunities and jobs for others. And since the majority of wealth in this world is in the hands of entrepreneurs and investors, they have the means to provide solutions to others that can both make money and change lives.

_____________________________________Total points: _____

(See the scoring guide in the Appendix to calculate your score.) How did you score? If you found yourself on the lower end of the scoring scale, this does not rule out your potential to become a successful entrepreneur if it is what you desire to do. It simply means that there is lots of room for you to cultivate your entrepreneurial mindset. That is exactly what this book will do, so keep reading!

Factors That Shape Your Mindset

Because of your environment, experiences, and other influences, your mind is currently programmed for either success or failure. The belief system that you’ve formed about the 12 fundamental areas that will be explained in this book will determine if you will succeed or fail as an entrepreneur. By examining your mindset towards each of these 12 areas outlined as follows, you will gain an understanding of which areas of your thinking need to be modified. The Mindset Exercises and Assessments throughout this book are designed to help you uncover hindrances to succeeding as an entrepreneur and suggest ways to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset. These 12 fundamental areas are:

1. 1.Risk—exchanging the possibility of loss for potential gain
2. 2.Leadership—involves setting clear directives, providing oversight, developing talent, and moving the activities of others towards a common objective
3. 3.Vision—having foresight of what is ideal, but is not yet a reality
4. 4.Pioneering/Innovation—discovering what has never been achieved before and succeeding at making it happen
5. 5.Obstacles—anything or anyone that stands in the way of a goal
6. 6.Change—adjusting to a new set of circumstances
7. 7.Failure—an unintended, unfavorable outcome
8. 8.Work—the effort required to achieve success in one’s vocation and life’s purpose
9. 9.Creativity—the seat of imagination; the ability to create what you saw first in your mind
10. 10.Status Quo—the current state; how things are presently
11. 11.Selling—the process of exchanging goods, services, or intellectual property for payment
12. 12.Self-determination—the intrinsic and relentless willpower to find a way to make things happen

Each of these 12 areas is divided into 12 chapters and carefully explored. To get the most benefit from this book, complete each exercise before proceeding to the next chapter. As you navigate through each chapter, expect to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. The purpose of this book is not to convince anyone to become an entrepreneur, rather, it aims to identify mindsets and thinking patterns that are the most and the least favorable for entrepreneurs, and then provides suggested action items that aid in developing an entrepreneurial mindset.