11 Jan A Living Mindset
What comes to mind when you hear the term entrepreneur? Maybe it’s the name of trailblazers like Oprah, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Elon Musk. Perhaps it’s concepts of profit, startup companies, founders, job creation, social impact, or success.
However, you don’t need to be an entrepreneur to be entrepreneurial. And having a business is not a prerequisite. John Cage famously said, “Our highest business is our daily life.”
When we cultivate a way of living that enhances our entrepreneurial ability to take initiative, adjust to challenges, think critically, solve problems, communicate effectively, and collaborate – we begin to create a new reality. One that is full of curiosity, inspiration, creativity, optimism, and opportunity.
Entrepreneurship isn’t just about starting companies, it’s a new way of thinking. It involves identifying needs, brainstorming creative solutions, innovating, and taking calculated risks. Ultimately, it’s about having a vision and making it a reality!
Here are three tips for activating your entrepreneurial spirit:
Dream Big
A vision is the driver of the entrepreneurial mind. Great and successful entrepreneurs have achieved their purpose and goals by setting a strong and clear vision, and pursuing it with purpose and passion.
Our vision is what inspires us to make positive changes for ourselves, for our families, and in our communities; and guides our actions towards making it a reality.
Visualise what the future would look like, write it down, create a vision board, draw it, map it, write a song, paint it, or create a video. Map your journey and begin with the end in mind.
A vision needs to be believed to succeed. Nurture your idea, create a compelling way to share it with others, set goals, and take daily action towards achieving your dream.
“If you don’t know where you are going – you might end up someplace else.” Yogi Berra
Culture of Curiosity
The entrepreneurial mind starts to develop when we look at the world through a lens of curiosity. Get curious, learn, ask questions, challenge assumptions, test social norms and traditional ways of doing things. Curiosity and asking questions can take you to new places, uncovering new ideas, new thoughts, and new experiences. Curiosity keeps you innovating, growing, and moving forward.
“I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.” Stephen Hawkings
Disruptive Brainstorming
Brainstorming is simply a mind dump of ideas. The purpose of brainstorming is to jumpstart the creative process, to overcome our inherent fear, and disrupt our usual way of thinking to generate fresh, new ideas.
There are many techniques for brainstorming, but a piece of paper and pen is all you need, you can do it in a group or solo. Start with your vision, a problem, question, or image in the centre of the page. Draw a line from the centre outward and begin to break down the problem or idea into parts. Add a related word, question or concept.
Relax and have fun with the process, you can have as many next level ideas as you want, remembering that there are no bad ideas.
“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”
Scientist and Inventor, Linus Pauling
Complete the activity by filtering the ideas that align best with your vision and goals, develop them into an action plan, build prototypes, tests them, and keep modifying them until you reach a solution.
Developing an entrepreneurial mindset is one of the best self-growth initiatives we can undertake. We are selling ourselves short if we choose to accept that “entrepreneurs” are “other people”, that we do not possess and can’t acquire the skills and mindset we need to reach more of our potential.
So, as you step into the new year make your mantra to be your best entrepreneurial self; create a clear vision for what is possible, adopt a practice of thinking differently, become focused on the solution, embrace failure as an opportunity to try, to reflect, to get back up, to ask for help and to learn. Success requires that we adopt new ways of thinking, that we continuously grow, expand, and evolve. The world is full of amazing opportunities, but only if you are open to seeing them. The choice is yours.