I’m writing from the floor of my hotel room. We got kicked out of our house for five days while the landlord fixes a problem our house. And I tore a muscle in my leg a few days before we left, so I’m stuck here by myself while the wife and kids are out riding go-karts!
But I cherish the extra time to think.
I’m thinking about my experience as a business person (it’s been flawed and imperfect, but I’m still going), and I realize my mindset is important. So I’m going back and reviewing some of the aspects of an entrepreneurial mindset.
My experience has been one of starting new things from nothing and with limited direction coming from a boss or someone on top who can be more directive. My experience has been focused on starting new things, finding solutions to problems around me, and doing it with a team.
Here are four key mindset postures that I believe have helped me:
- Curious – ask questions, trying to understand things from different perspectives. You are flexible. You look for solutions in areas where they normally aren’t found. This is about listening.
- Resourceful – do things no matter what- with or without the resources you’re “supposed to have.” You remodel a building with the people that are willing to do it even if you don’t have enough money. You start the project even if you don’t have all the right people or know all you can about that topic. This is about stepping out in faith and trying.
- Resilient – keep going, don’t quit. Pivot and look for new ways to do things (back to curious). This is about pushing through until you get the breakthrough.
- Communicative – what you’re doing is new and unknown and people are watching, they’re wondering. When you don’t communicate your why, your what, your how, people will fill in the gaps themselves. They will assume, and usually assume wrong, about what you’re doing. You have to communicate to your team, your customers, and the world.
Of course, these can have a shadow side:
- Being too curious gets me distracted or off target because it’s impossible to take unlimited input and there are often many different approaches you could take. Sometimes, you just need to decide and violently execute your plan even if it’s not perfect.
- Being too resourceful can be limiting because you settle for less than the best. You may fail to build something great because you’re doing what you can with what you have rather than waiting a bit longer, or trying a different approach. There’s a reason why there was “a way to do things.” It’s because that way often worked, and worked well.
- Being too resilient keeps you from quitting when it should be time to quit. You may find you should be quitting because it’s just not going to work. But entrepreneurs are sometimes blinded to weaknesses or flawed models.
- Being too communicative may attract input from others that is unnecessary. It also takes a lot of time to communicate. Who are the people who need to know? When do they need to know? How do they need to know?
Do you agree or disagree with these? What would you add?
Chris O'Dell 