Entrepreneur Mindset: Discover the 10 Steps to Program Your Mind For Success
Entrepreneur Mindset: Discover the 10 Steps to Program Your Mind For Success

The entrepreneurial industry is one that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Everyone wants to own their own business. Everyone wants to reap the rewards that come with independent success which include financial freedom, more time to spend with your family and the ability to work for yourself rather than someone else. Discover the Entrepreneur Mindset you need to program your mind for success.

But becoming an entrepreneur isn’t easy. If you want to become financially independent and get more time to spend with your family, be prepared to spend some money and hardly spend any time with your family at all while you work towards your goals. 

The rewards are great, and certainly worth it, but it’s going to take some hard work. This blog is about making that process as painless as possible and giving you the tools and information that you need to be successful more quickly.

What Exactly Is an Entrepreneur?

The entrepreneurial industry is one that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Everyone wants to own their own business. Everyone wants to reap the rewards that come with independent success which include financial freedom, more time to spend with your family and the ability to work for yourself rather than someone else. Discover the Entrepreneur Mindset you need to program your mind for success.

An entrepreneur is anyone who starts a business. However, most people don’t consider those who start a business and then don’t do any work on the business to be entrepreneurs; you must be actively working toward success with your business.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses reports that around 4/10 businesses make a profit. That means 6/10 cost their founders money or lose money for the investors. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom that says only 1/10 businesses are successful. There are people out there creating successful businesses. You can be part of those statistics.

If you look at data from the Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics you’ll see that five years is the approximate time that it will take to know whether or not you are part of the successful businesses or whether your business is going to fail. 

What you do in those five years is going to determine your success or failure and it’s not about your product, it’s not about your customer base, it’s not about your website; it’s not about anything except how hard you’re willing to work to make this happen.

What you will discover here: 

  1. Do you know what the most important factor is when it comes to your success? This ultimate factor is the difference between a successful person and a failure.
  2. You’ll learn what your current strengths are and how they’re going to help you be successful as an entrepreneur, as well as how to develop new strengths.
  3. Figuring out what your weaknesses are and how you can make up for them. You’ll learn exactly how you can identify every weakness that has kept you from being successful in the past and then create a plan to combat them so that they don’t stop you this time.
  4. You get the motivation to succeed as you’ve never had before. You’ll know that you have the tools, the information and the ability to make success happen and for the first time in your life you’ll believe that you have everything it takes to make it: consciously and subconsciously.
  5. You’ll learn how to create new habits that will keep you on the road to success without even trying. You’ll be able to develop these habits so that you automatically do the things that you need to do to be successful.
  6. You’ll learn how to let go of the past and not allow past mistakes to influence your current successes.
  7. You’ll learn how to recognize successes in the past and allow them to motivate you so that you can reach your current goals.
  8. You’ll learn how your scheduling habits are killing your business and how you can find time to be successful even if you don’t think you can fit it in.
  9. You’ll learn how to be the best self that you can be and you’ll be able to use that knowledge to create the best business that you can create.
  10. You’ll learn how to be grateful for the opportunities and knowledge that you have.

Entrepreneur Mindset Step 1: The Ultimate Factor To Your Success

The entrepreneurial industry is one that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Everyone wants to own their own business. Everyone wants to reap the rewards that come with independent success which include financial freedom, more time to spend with your family and the ability to work for yourself rather than someone else. Discover the Entrepreneur Mindset you need to program your mind for success.

Have you ever wondered why some people are successful over and over again, while other people just can’t seem to catch a break? You can take two people; give them the same skills, the same opportunities and ensure that everything is equal between them, and one person might succeed while the other fails. This is not a hypothetical example. 

One person sees that someone they know or admire is becoming successful by doing A, B and C, so they will try to replicate that person’s results by also doing A, B and C. But does that guarantee that they will have the same success? Rarely; so, what is the difference? What is the ultimate factor that determines whether or not a person is successful?

What Does a Mindset Determine?

Your mindset may be the most important asset that you have and the way that you look at the world is going to influence many things in your life. A mindset can also be thought of as a window that you see the world through, a paradigm or the attitudes that you have. 

You can even argue that even if all of the other factors were dead set against you, you could still be successful with the right mindset. Of course, that is not exactly the case because your mindset determines how and if you see opportunities when they come along.

Changing your mindset isn’t that difficult. Think of it sort of like mining coal. Once you can dig down deep and find out what your current mindset is you’ll be able to change it. But the hard part is getting past all those defences and convincing yourself that you not only have the power to change your attitudes but that you have the responsibility to.

There are a few things that you want to understand about mindsets so that you can have the best chance possible of changing yours and avoiding the pitfalls that plagued so many other people on this path. Let’s discuss a few things to keep in mind.

It’s Never off – It’s Always Working

The first thing that you need to understand about your mindset is that it’s always on. No matter what you’re doing, no matter where you are in the world and no matter how you may be currently feeling your mindset is still working, positively or negatively, for better for worse.

What this means, of course, is that everything in your life is affected by your mindset. Even your family life is affected by your mindset. The way that you handle yourself with members of the opposite sex, the way that you present yourself to those you consider above or even below you, the way that you view yourself and the way that you view other people who have had success.

Meet Frank. Frank is a middle-aged office drone who has been looking into starting his own business online. He has researched some of the people who have been successful at various forms of Internet marketing and Frank thinks that the reason that he hasn’t been as successful as them is because they were better informed, had more free time than he does, and they had money to run their company. 

The truth is, Frank hasn’t even tried one single Internet marketing method. Frank’s mindset is that he’s already at such a disadvantage that he might as well just give up before he even starts. The amazing thing is – Frank doesn’t even realize that that’s the problem.

Mindset and Your Subconscious or Unconscious Mind

No matter if you’re awake, asleep or somewhere in between, your mindset directly affects the kind of things that your subconscious mind tells you. If you have a negative mindset, your subconscious mind could be reinforcing negative attitudes at night while you’re sleeping. 

Even your dreams could have an impact. Suppose that deep inside, you don’t believe that you have the ability or power or skill or whatever it is that you believe you are lacking – to be a successful entrepreneur. 

Until you change that mindset, you’ll be getting it from your mind when you’re awake when you are asleep, and pretty much always, for the rest of your life until you’re dead, and who knows, maybe not even then. While you’re unconscious your subconscious mind will be working overtime to plant seeds of doubt that will keep you from success.

The Cost of Making Big Changes

Are you a smoker or have you ever been a smoker? If not, do you know someone who has? You might be aware that when people desire to quit smoking one of the biggest barriers that stand in their way is that they believe that they will be sacrificing something if they give up cigarettes. 

Their brain somehow convinces them that they’re going to be giving up a huge part of themselves – a vital part of themselves – if they quit smoking. Of course, the truth is, that all the things that they’ll be giving up such as poor health, difficulty breathing, increased risk for lung cancer and the rest, are all things that they want to give up anyway. They’re not giving up a part of themselves and all. They’re getting a part of themselves back.

But the mind isn’t an easy thing to convince. Defence mechanisms are built up, pathways in the brain are forged and that metaphorical wall is built, reinforced and then surrounded by a dozen snarling Rottweilers. 

When you want to change, you have to make it through these defences and although it is doable, it isn’t going to be easy. But getting rid of the failure mindset and giving yourself the entrepreneurial mindset is worth it.

Entrepreneur Mindset Step 2: Using Your Strengths

The entrepreneurial industry is one that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Everyone wants to own their own business. Everyone wants to reap the rewards that come with independent success which include financial freedom, more time to spend with your family and the ability to work for yourself rather than someone else. Discover the Entrepreneur Mindset you need to program your mind for success.

What’s the first thing you do if you want to climb Mount Everest? While you might jokingly respond that the first thing you would do is get yourself a CAT scan the fact is that climbing Mount Everest – or any other difficult feat of physical endurance – can easily be compared with entrepreneurial success. 

If you’re going to scale Mount Everest the first thing that you would do is take inventory and find out if you had the tools to climb it. With striving toward entrepreneurial success (which can seem as insurmountable as climbing Mount Everest) you are also going to take inventory of your assets. What are your current strengths and how can they help you reach your goals?

Do You Think You’re Better than Everybody Else?

The first thing that we are going to do is make a list of things that you do better than anybody else. This is not a list of things you do better than anybody else in the entire world, this is a list of things that you do better than the people that you know or the people you’re surrounded by.

Also, we are not going to include things that aren’t going to help you on your road to success. For example, you might be the best sous chef in three counties but unless you’re planning on opening a restaurant it’s not going to help you with your entrepreneurial goals.

However, it is going to include things not directly related to being an entrepreneur but are strengths that can still help you. An example of this would be if you are good at inspiring people. This might not seem directly related to entrepreneurship but if you are trying to launch a successful e-commerce website, being good at inspiring people can be useful in all many ways. 

You can inspire people to share your products on social media. You can inspire people to participate in and spread the word about contests that you run. As you are making your list, if you come across anything that you think might even be slightly related, err on the side of caution and write it down anyway.

You’re also going to be careful about adding things to your list that might be thought of as strengths at first glance but are reasons that you have failed in the past. One example of this might be an attribute like flying

What Are the Attributes of Success?

by the seat of your pants instead of planning out in advance. This could go on your list as a self-starter or ready to jump in at a moment’s notice but if it hasn’t served you well in the past, it probably isn’t going to do you any favours in the future and you should avoid putting it on your list of strengths.

You are also going to want to include technical or artistic skills that might not seem to directly relate but could come in handy later on. For example, you might be great at graphic design. You might simply be a natural technical wizard. You might even be a writer. 

Think about some of these strengths as they relate to your goals of being successful, including the earlier example of sous chef. While culinary arts might not help you start an eCommerce website, the patience that you have cultivated as a sous chef could help.

The next thing that you’re going to do is determine what sort of attributes the most successful people in the world have, or especially, the people that you admire. These can be both wide and specific depending on what your particular goals are. 

For example, they need to be good at whatever industry they are in and they are probably also going to want to be skilled in things like social networks, choosing products, building business relationships and marketing.

You’re going to want to be as specific as you possibly can because at the end were going to compare the two lists and try to find how many strengths you have already that can help you be successful. The more things you list, the more things that you’re going to discover are true about yourself. 

This exercise isn’t actually about finding all of the qualities that entrepreneurs need to succeed; it is about realizing that you already have the attributes that it takes to be successful. And you do, because you’re reading this book. People who aren’t motivated to better themselves and reach their goals don’t read books on success. They tend to avoid the subject as much as possible because it reminds them of their failures.

Here are some of the more apparent attributes just to get you started:

  • Determination: you have the idea or attitude that you are going to succeed no matter what, no matter who stands in your way and no matter what obstacles you encounter.
  • A Passion for Entrepreneurship: if you aren’t passionate about working for yourself and owning your own business, it can be almost impossible for you to be successful at it.
  • Optimism: you are optimistic about the future. You believe that good things are in store for you and your outlook is almost always a glass-half-full kind of mindset.
  • Patience: you are willing to work over a long period to get the results that you want. You’re not going to give up if it doesn’t happen quickly.
  • Reliable: you will be able to handle the responsibility of being an entrepreneur. You have a reputation for being reliable so people are willing to work with you.

Entrepreneur Mindset Step 3: Your Weaknesses

The entrepreneurial industry is one that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Everyone wants to own their own business. Everyone wants to reap the rewards that come with independent success which include financial freedom, more time to spend with your family and the ability to work for yourself rather than someone else. Discover the Entrepreneur Mindset you need to program your mind for success.

You know the story of Superman. You’re familiar with the boy from Krypton who was sent to earth and took on the job of a lowly newspaper reporter at the Daily Planet, hiding behind a pair of thick-framed glasses, while at the same time dashing off to the nearest phone booth to save a plane that was falling out of the sky or help the police catch a bank robber. 

With all of the strengths that Superman has there is still one tried-and-true way to bring him down: a radioactive piece of his planet known as kryptonite. What about your kryptonite? What are the weaknesses that have prevented you from being successful in the past and, unless you overcome them, are going to keep preventing you from being successful in the future?

Okay, here’s where you’re going to need to be honest. Don’t worry, no one is going to grade this after you finish it; no one is even going to see it. You can be honest with yourself here because if you can’t be honest with yourself, who can you be honest with? If you want to improve your life and start achieving your goals you are going to have to take a good, hard look at some things that you might not be proud of. 

If you procrastinate doing work on your online business because it interferes with your primetime television shows, be honest about it. If you are terrible at managing your time and whatever spare moments you might have had in use during the day get lost in the shuffle, be honest about that as well. We’re going to split these weaknesses into three different categories.

Interpersonal Weaknesses

The first type of weaknesses that we are going to discuss is interpersonal weaknesses. These are weaknesses that come from other people. Most of the time, you will not have people stopping you from achieving success, you will just think they are stopping you. This is aa mental block rather than an interpersonal one. 

You can identify when interpersonal weakness is a mental one because the person that you think is keeping you from achieving success hasn’t said or done anything to prevent you from being successful. 

An example of this would be someone afraid of leaping faith because they don’t want to disappoint their parents when they haven’t discussed the matter with their parents and don’t know for sure what their reaction be at all.

Physical Impediments

The actual interpersonal weakness, when you have someone that is impeding you, is more difficult to get past. This usually comes in the form of a spouse. The spouse may not understand what it is that you’re trying to do, they might be afraid of financial difficulties, or that you will change, and they aren’t sure where that leaves them.This impediment comes in the form of anger, but rarely does a personal block like this resort in a major life change such as a divorce.

The next type of weakness that we’re going talk about is the physical one. Depending on the exact type of physical problem this can be easy to resolve or can be nearly impossible. If you want to understand how this weakness works, imagine that you wanted to become a graphic designer. 

However, you didn’t own a computer; you had no access to Photoshop and you wouldn’t have known how to create something in Photoshop even if you did. In this situation, two of the physical blocks could be solved with money. You could buy a computer to do graphic design on and you could buy a copy of Photoshop, or sign up with Adobe’s monthly subscription program to get access.

Mental Blocks

The last type of weakness that we will talk about is probably the most difficult to face. These are the mental blocks; the things that you believe or thing that keeps you from achieving your goals. Facing the facets of your personality that are self-destructive and are keeping you from being successful is a scary proposition. 

Figuring out what these mental weaknesses are is probably the hardest step, but ince you’ve figured out what is mentally keeping you from success then you can start to take steps to remove these mental blocks, one by one. What you will normally find is that these blocks aren’t helpful and they certainly aren’t logical.

You might have a fear of failure that is based on some past event that has no real bearing on your life today, but since that mental block is always been there, it seems like it belongs. You have two choices when it comes to these mental blocks: you can cultivate a failure mindset, reinforcing it every single day with negative self-talk – even subconsciously – or you can chip away at those mental blocks every day until you have removed them completely. What is interesting is that both of these take about the same amount of time. You just have to decide if you’re going to shore up your mental blocks or work on removing them.

Entrepreneur Mindset Step 4: Healthy Mindset Habits

The entrepreneurial industry is one that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Everyone wants to own their own business. Everyone wants to reap the rewards that come with independent success which include financial freedom, more time to spend with your family and the ability to work for yourself rather than someone else. Discover the Entrepreneur Mindset you need to program your mind for success.

So, we have discussed the fact that your mindset is the most important factor when it comes to achieving success. You also should have identified some of your strengths and a few of your weaknesses. So where do you go from there? The very next step is to start yourself on the path to healthy mindset habits. 

Habits are a funny thing. Your habits are things that you do without even thinking about them. Each morning (hopefully), you get up, brush your teeth and take a shower. You do these things without thinking too much about them. You can be worried about something at work, dwelling on a personal issue or even deeply engrossed in a great novel and the subconscious part of your brain will still nudge you every morning until have completed your morning routine.

So, it should be quite obvious that habits are one of your biggest assets when it comes to being successful. The people who are successful in this world are the people who developed the right habits. They don’t have to think about doing things that make them successful; they just get up every morning and do them, which of course, gives them the results that they want in the long run.

In this chapter, we’re going to discuss how you can create habits that will allow you to change your mindset from a negative, self-destructive one to a healthy mindset that is ready for success.

Start Your Day with Positive Affirmations

Have you heard the term self-talk? Self-talk could be more accurately described as internal memo-ing or the constant communication between your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. For people who are not having success, and, are having problems, negative self-talk is likely the reason why. Their subconscious is telling their conscious mind all these negative things and that just reinforces the idea that they aren’t successful and are never going to be successful.

You’re going to do something different. You’re going to wake up every day and give yourself positive affirmations. You’ve probably heard of these before and you may think they’re silly. That’s perfectly okay to think that they’re silly, but still do them because silly-sounding or not, positive affirmations do work. 

Remember that your subconscious mind is like a sponge. It soaks up information and then informs beliefs which then drive your thoughts and your thoughts control your actions. If you change a belief with positive affirmations, you will be changing your actions as well.

Find a place where you can say you’re positive affirmations to yourself, where no one will overhear you and where it is something specific and meaningful that will say to your subconscious mind: “Hey! Pay attention!” 

For example, some people stand in front of a mirror so they can look themselves in the eye and say their affirmations. Some people want as much privacy as possible so they do it in their car on the way to work. It doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as you pick a place and a time that is meaningful to you and do it every day. Create a routine that will develop into a solid habit.

Spend Time with Your Feelings

When you do have doubts, try spending some time with yourself and taking a good, hard look at those feelings, to see where they are coming from. As mentioned, your behaviours today are the result of your thoughts which come directly from your beliefs. That means, if you are convinced that you’re going to fail, which you might be if you haven’t been able to attain success so far, then that belief is what is driving all of those other factors that are keeping you from success.

What you can do, is when these doubts enter your mind, and you start thinking about all the ways that this could go wrong, take a step back, and evaluate where the thoughts are coming from. Remember, just because your subconscious believes something to be true doesn’t mean it is. So rather than trying to push away these negative thoughts or avoid them, accept them and then work to eradicate them by finding out which belief is driving them.

Spend Each Day Learning Something New

You should never stop learning. No matter how much you know, there is always room for more information. Just as science discovers that the more that we figure out about the world around us in the universe, the more we realize that we don’t know; It works the same way with your learning as well. Spend a little bit of time every day learning something new that is going to help you.

You could read a motivational book. There are many different ones out there that are geared towards entrepreneurs and are written to give great advice from experts who have made a success out of entrepreneurship. You can find them at your local library or online in digital format. Books by Anthony Robbins, Stephen R. Covey, Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill are all great reads if you’re trying to motivate yourself and become more successful.

There are many other places that you can find motivation. Go on YouTube during your free time and look for motivational videos if that’s more your style or you could even correspond via email with someone more successful than you, who could be your mentor of sorts.

No matter how you get information, the point is, to keep learning and to devote some time each day to that learning. You don’t even necessarily have to read motivational or self-help books. You could do something that improves yourself like learning a new language or teaching yourself a new skill, or by studying a subject that you be interested in, relating to your business.

Entrepreneur Mindset Step 5: Live In The Now

The entrepreneurial industry is one that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Everyone wants to own their own business. Everyone wants to reap the rewards that come with independent success which include financial freedom, more time to spend with your family and the ability to work for yourself rather than someone else. Discover the Entrepreneur Mindset you need to program your mind for success.

You’re probably keenly aware of just how many times you have failed in the past. For some reason, the brain is wired to remember negative experiences better. That’s why you should always look at product reviews online with a sceptical eye because most people – in fact nearly all of the people – who had a positive experience don’t think about it enough to post an online review.

Inversely, most of the people who had a negative experience do think about posting an online review and many of them do. So, your brain is wired to remember your failures better than your successes but that doesn’t mean that you have to let those past failures control you or even influence your actions in the present.

The Value of Past Mistakes

Of course, past mistakes do have some value. You can learn from your past mistakes and that’s an advantage that we have over most of the animals out there. We’re able to learn from our failures, change the way that we’re doing it and then move forward with the new strategy. 

If you try something in it doesn’t work, then you can try something else later on. So, don’t hate your past mistakes. They have made you who you are now, which is motivated and desire success but don’t dwell on your past mistakes either.

Don’t live in the past. When you think about a past failure here are some of the ways that you may feel about it: embarrassed, depressed, frustrated, angry or fearful just to name a few. Now, throw all of those out the window when it comes to pass failures. 

You are not allowed to be emotional about any past failure from here on out. You are going to look at the failure objectively, see what worked and what didn’t, and then move forward, because it’s never as bad as you think it is.

You’re probably the Only One Who Remembers Your Failures

It’s like that episode of Happy Days where Tom Hanks plays a man who went to high school with The Fonz, had some sort of problem with him, and spent a decade learning karate so that he come back and whoop on Arthur Fonzerelli. Do you know what happened? 

The Fonz didn’t even remember him and was more than happy to apologize for past mistakes. The guy spent 10 years of his life dwelling on the past and the only reason that it grew from a tiny event in reality to this huge persecution that he had to get revenge for was his self-talk throughout those 10 years.

Turning Potential Failures into Successes

On the opposite end of the spectrum, another thing we do is to think negatively about future events as well. How is this connected to past mistakes? If your mind is dwelling on past mistakes, and your mindset is a failure because of that any future events will be seen through the same distorted lens. 

Many people let “what ifs” stand in their way. It’s all in the way that things are worded and make no mistake; words are a very powerful thing. A comedian once said something like: ‘I used to tell people I was trying to be funny and I couldn’t get a gig to save my life, but then I told the next guy I was being funny and he booked me!”

There are a lot of “what ifs” out there that could stop you dead in your tracks or spur you onto success depending upon how you word them. For example, instead of thinking that you’re going to fail at something, and giving yourself that self-talk, take a positive spin on it and think that you’re going to have massive success instead.

Whenever you find yourself thinking a “what if” statement that is negative, stop yourself and turn it into a positive one. Eventually, this will become a habit and you will hardly ever find yourself having a negative thought like that again. What you will notice is that you start thinking “what if” positive statements and this will have a huge impact on your life; your attitude will improve, you’ll be happier and you’ll be more willing to work on the things that will bring you success.

Take It One Day at a Time

Each morning when you get out of bed, think of something that you can do to make yourself proud of what you have accomplished. For example, you have your entire Saturday to yourself. You can have a barbecue; you can watch some football on TV; you can work on the hobbies that you been neglecting or you can spend eight hours working on your business. At the end of the day, which one of these do you think that you’ll be proud of yourself for?

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to spend every bit of free time that you get working on your business, although you could, but t does mean that when you have the chance to work, don’t procrastinate. Spending time on your project isn’t the only way to do something that you would be proud of either. If you put $100 in your savings account today, towards your online business, you can be proud of yourself for that. Do something every day to make yourself proud.

Don’t Try to Do Too Much

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that you should limit what you’re doing to a reasonable amount. Many people get excited about their goals and then they bite off more than they can chew and end up feeling like a failure. For example, you should spend no more than the eight hours discussed earlier on that Saturday where you find yourself with free time. 

You might think that you can work for 12 straight hours after a week of doing your job, and maybe you can, but it’s more likely that you’re going to burn out and then you’ll feel as if you failed. Set goals that you can achieve and you’ll be proud of yourself.

Entrepreneur Mindset Step 6: Clarity is Power

The entrepreneurial industry is one that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Everyone wants to own their own business. Everyone wants to reap the rewards that come with independent success which include financial freedom, more time to spend with your family and the ability to work for yourself rather than someone else. Discover the Entrepreneur Mindset you need to program your mind for success.

So, you are ready to make some goals. To discuss goals are going to use the analogy of a vacation that you are travelling to by car (picturing the station wagon from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is perfectly acceptable). The goals that you set are like the ultimate destination, the place that you’re going. 

The vehicle that you’re going to use to get there are the short-term goals that you’ll be achieving along the way but without an ultimate destination, a very specific ultimate destination, you aren’t going to get anywhere. That’s like trying to drive to Florida on your vacation and saying that it is somewhere “over there” east of you.

What Are Specific Goals?

What exactly are specific goals? Let’s take one of the goals that you probably have because everyone trying to achieve success as an entrepreneur has this goal; to make more money. You can’t just use the goal of making more money, becoming rich or financial independence either, because those things mean nothing specifically.

How are you going to know when you get there? How will you know if you’re on the path to get there? Unless you make your goals specific you’ll have no direction; no specific place on the map that you can arrive at and know that you’re in the right place.

So, let’s take our example of wanting to make money. Instead of having a goal that is this general, try creating a goal with something like increase income by $10,000 per year by the end of the year, or by month 12 if you happen to be in the middle of the year. So, you’ll know if you’ve achieved that goal because you can look in your bank account, or at your financial information, and see that you earned an extra $10,000 in the past 12 months. 

Also, when you get to month six you’ll be able to look and see just how on track you are. If you are around halfway there, you know that you’re on track. If you haven’t made anything, you need to step up during the next six months.

Aim High, like the Air Force

Do you know what you’re capable of? You might think you do, but for most people what they can achieve is quite different than what they think they can achieve. You have probably heard the axiom: whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right. 

People have set world records in athletic events, and experts have deemed some of them the fastest or best the human body is capable of, and then someone from a remote part of the world didn’t get the memo that there was a limit as to what the human body was capable of until after they’d already broken the record.

Putting Goals into Action

Set your goals higher than you think you can achieve. Of course, don’t set them outrageously high to the point where they’re unrealistic, but set them higher than you think you’re probably capable of. For example, our previous goal of earning an extra $10,000 in 12 months is pretty reasonable and probably achievable depending on what you do to make it happen. 

If your goal is to make $100,000 over the next 12 months, that’s pretty unrealistic. But what if your goal was to make an extra $15,000 in 12 months? You might think that you’re only capable of making an extra $10,000 but by setting the go higher you have something to aim for and suppose you only make $12,000; that’s still $2000 more than your original goal.

You want to make a list of around five goals to start with. The number is not important; it is arbitrary. What is important is that you create enough goals that will allow you to accomplish something substantial in the next 12 months, or five years, or whatever your timeframe is, and not so many goals that you have no chance of achieving them all. 

Then, for each goal, you’re going to make a plan of action. Earlier we used the analogy of driving a car to a vacation destination. Your plan of action is that car; it is the vehicle that is going to take you to the end where your success waits.

Your plan of action is going to take you from where you are now to the result, which is your goal. It is going to include milestones or places that you stop along the way to check your progress as well as specific small goals that you’ll need to achieve to get to the big goal.

It is sort of like playing a videogame – you have to beat all of the easy monsters before you get to the big boss at the end of the level. If your goal is to make an extra $10,000 in the next 12 months then you need to know what specific things you need to do to make that happen. Are you planning to start an online store? Are you making investments? Whatever your method is, you’ll have specific things you need to accomplish, and that makes up your plan of action.

What If You Don’t Know How to Get There?

Sure, you might be saying, this is all well and good, but what you do if you don’t know how to get to your destination – or achieve your ultimate goal. There are several ways that you can figure it out. You can do research online, you could write to some of the people that you admire and that you know of had success and asked them how they were able to achieve their goals. You can read a few books or get advice from family or friends. There are many things that you can do to learn how to get from point A to point B.

Entrepreneur Mindset Step 7: Be Your Best Self Every Day

The entrepreneurial industry is one that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Everyone wants to own their own business. Everyone wants to reap the rewards that come with independent success which include financial freedom, more time to spend with your family and the ability to work for yourself rather than someone else. Discover the Entrepreneur Mindset you need to program your mind for success.

Have you ever had a job that you didn’t like? When you woke up in the morning you to drag yourself out of bed and force yourself to go into work. This might be the job that you’re working right now. 

Well, you know how when you get to work, sit down to your cubicle and begin crunching those numbers your heart isn’t in it. You’re not giving your best self to your employer. At most, you’re giving about half, and while this might get you a paycheck it is death to an entrepreneurial venture.

So instead, you want to give yourself – your best self – which is the person that is going to work the hardest, the person that is going to persevere the longest and the person that is going to ultimately take you to success. 

You want to be the kind of person that other people will look at and comment on how hard you work and how much you give to your business. Every single day you need to be the best self that you can. That doesn’t mean that you need to be perfect. No one is perfect. But it does mean that you can look back at the end of the day and say: “I did a good job today.”

Things That You Can Do as an Entrepreneur to Be Your Best Self

1. Don’t show up late for work. Show up early instead.

Yes, sitting down at your computer to do whatever it is that you need to do to make your business work, whether that is marketing, building a website or simply finding a good opportunity for entrepreneurial success; that is going to be your job.You should be twice as committed as you are to your day job to the time that you spend working on your business and building your success.

2. Be willing to help others.

If you encounter someone that could use some of the skills that you possess, consider spending some of your free time helping them. For example, if you’re a graphic designer, and a colleague needs a business card, although you don’t directly benefit from creating a business card for your friend, it could pay back dividends down the road. If there is such thing as karma you’ll be building the good kind as well.

3. Develop relationships. 

No one succeeds in a vacuum and the relationships that you build with other people can help you much later in life as well as build lasting friendships. Some people will only build a relationship with someone who can to help them with their business and this is a huge mistake. You never know what might happen in the future, somebody that you have developed a friendship or working relationship with might suddenly finds themself in a position to help you achieve success.

4. Start to cultivate patience. 

Many entrepreneurs want success right away. There is nothing wrong with this, but you’re probably going to want to learn to be patient if you’re in business for yourself because it can take a while to see the fruits of your labour. Rarely is someone an “overnight success.” It is much more likely that they worked hard to get where they are and you just weren’t aware of it.

5. Become flexible when you have to be. 

One of the problems that entrepreneurs run into, particularly if they are the type of personality that likes a very rigid set of rules and working guidelines, is getting stuck at an impasse because something happened that they couldn’t plan for. No matter how much you try to prepare for every eventuality and the only way that you’re going to overcome those challenges is to be flexible.

6. Be honest; use integrity and all of your personal and business dealings

If you think that a product that you are considering is of poor quality, or there’s some reason why it is not a good product to sell, don’t sell it. If someone comes to you and offers to make your website rank a whole lot higher using black hat SEO techniques, tell them no. You want to be the kind of businessman (or woman) that customers can depend on and trust and violating that trust will cost you.

7. Don’t Multitask

Everyone talks about multitasking like it’s the greatest thing since the Macarena but the truth is multitasking can cost you time spent on your project. Studies show that you not only have a 40% reduction in the amount of work that you get done, but that you actually might be damaging your brain by multitasking. 

Instead of multitasking, give whatever project that you are currently working on your full focus. Give your current project 110% and watch your productivity rise drastically. People tend to like multitasking, either because it offers them variety and makes work seem to go by faster or because they’ve been told it increases their productivity.

8. Make Sure Your Heart Is in It

You want to make sure that your heart is in what you’re doing on two different fronts. First, make sure that you are passionate about what you’re doing to achieve success in your completely invested in the project. But also, make sure that you are invested in whatever specific project that you’re currently working on. 

If your heart isn’t in it, then consider outsourcing it to someone more passionate about it than you are. For example, if writing is not your forte, hire a freelancer. If you have been trying to design a company logo and you find yourself getting frustrated, consider hiring a graphic designer or using one of the premium logo services online.

Entrepreneur Mindset Step 8: Your Time is Precious

The entrepreneurial industry is one that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Everyone wants to own their own business. Everyone wants to reap the rewards that come with independent success which include financial freedom, more time to spend with your family and the ability to work for yourself rather than someone else. Discover the Entrepreneur Mindset you need to program your mind for success.

You might be confused by the title of this chapter. You might be saying: “Hey, I value my time. That’s why I am doing this whole entrepreneurial thing.” What you probably mean, however, is that you value your leisure time, and this chapter is more about valuing the extra time that you have when you’re not doing something that you have to do, such as going to the doctor or going to work, so that you can have the time you need to be successful. 

“I just don’t have time,” is the common battle cry among those who never actually make a success of themselves in any field. You have time during the day or evening or when you should be sleeping that you can use to be successful. You just have to find it.

Jealously Guard Your Time against Others

Do not let other people monopolize or even have any part of your precious success time. If you’ve committed to working on your business from 7 AM to 8 AM every single weekday, then don’t agree to run an errand for a friend during this period. You don’t want to be a “yes man.” 

Your time – at least the time that you’re spending working on your business – is your most precious commodity, and you should jealously guard it against others and not let anyone take you away from spending that time working on your business.

If you’re getting into the entrepreneur business because you don’t like to work hard, you are definitely in the wrong occupation. While there are many entrepreneurs out who have achieved a great deal of success and now have free time that they can spend doing what they want, they either worked very hard to get to that point or are still working hard. Successful people can’t seem to stop working. Even if they’re retired, there is always something that they are doing to achieve goals or to better themselves.

Is your business your number one priority? Are you willing to make some sacrifices to achieve your goals? The answer to both of these questions needs to be yes because if you don’t make your business your number one priority it will slip further and further down on your ranking list of priorities until you seldom work on it.

You need to be willing to make sacrifices to achieve your goals; some of the sacrifices are going to be painful. Just like a man or woman who is going on a diet, you might have to sacrifice the chocolate cake and Rocky Road ice cream of your life to achieve success.

Price Your Products What You’re Going to Be Worth

If you are entering the marketplace with a product or service, don’t do more than a basic, cursory examination of the going prices. Once you know what the going prices are, consider how much you think your services are worth, which also goes for products. Some people start their business off on the wrong foot by lowering their prices drastically in trying to undercut the competition. 

This is a bad idea for many reasons. First, you’re not going to be able to outprice the biggest retailers out there like Amazon and Walmart. Second, people are more apt to buy something that costs what they think is a fair price than something dirt cheap. Cheap stuff isn’t good and the good stuff isn’t cheap, as the saying goes.

Have you ever wondered how some people charge what seems like exorbitant prices for the same services that you’re providing? It’s like the story about the fruit merchant who met another fruit merchant on the road.

Manage Your Time Effectively

The second merchant asked the first how much he charged for apples and the man replied that he sold them two-for-a-dollar. The second merchant was aghast and asked him how he could get people to pay two-for-a-dollar for his apples when everyone else was charging two-for-a-quarter. The man replied that he didn’t know what everyone else was charging, he just charged with he thought they were worth. 

If you think you’re worth a certain amount, then charge that amount. You’d be surprised how willing people are to pay a competitive price if you’re confident and good at what you do.

If you want to be successful, you’re going to have to start managing your time differently than you have in the past. In the past, you may have flirted with the idea of starting an online business but spent most of the time looking around, seeing what other people have done and watching videos on YouTube – business-related or not. 

From now on, you have to be more serious. You’re going to have to start devising a schedule and sticking to it religiously. Make sure that you set aside enough time during the day to make a significant amount of progress with your business. If you have allotted 15 minutes per day to grow your e-commerce website, you’re going to grow at a very, very slow rate.

We live in a distraction-filled society. When you get on the Internet there are 4 billion things vying for your attention. Someone just got on Facebook that you’ve been wanting to talk to; there is a tweet from your favourite celebrity that you want to read; there’s a video on YouTube that everyone is watching. If this is how your Internet experience usually is and you are starting an online company you’re going to want to take active steps to remove the distractions.

What used to be effective as a tool called Freedom which allowed you to irrevocably and completely block the Internet for some time. However, now that we have mobile devices at our disposal and multiple methods for accessing the web, you’re just going to have to exercise some good, old-fashioned self-control, buckle down and get done what you need to do make your business successful.

Entrepreneur Mindset Step 9: Serve Your Audience

The entrepreneurial industry is one that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Everyone wants to own their own business. Everyone wants to reap the rewards that come with independent success which include financial freedom, more time to spend with your family and the ability to work for yourself rather than someone else. Discover the Entrepreneur Mindset you need to program your mind for success.

The next thing you are going to discuss is showing up to serve. The most successful people in the world do not have people in service to them; they are in service to other people. Think about Domino’s Pizza. A few years ago, this pizza chain had reduced profits with low sales all over the United States.

So they changed their tactic. Instead of making pizzas according to their recipes, because that is the way it had always been, they asked their customers what they would prefer. It turned out, their customers wanted a better-tasting pizza and so Domino’s went to work creating one. Now, profits are back up and the company is doing fine.

Another contemporary example: the fast-food chain McDonald’s just announced that they are going to provide breakfast all day long. For decades, other restaurants have taken advantage of MacDonald’s strict breakfast hours and enticed customers by having a breakfast menu that was available longer or even all day. 

McDonald’s finally decided that they were here to serve their customers and not dictate the times that they should be eating breakfast, and expanded their breakfast menu hours to the entire day. Needless to say, the move was quite popular.

Who is your audience? Who are the people that are going to be responsible for your success? Your customers, of course; they are the people who buy your products and services. Some people look at this audience like it is here to serve them and their needs and in fact, the opposite is true. 

You need to be here to serve your audience. You need to find out what they want and what they need and then provide it to them. No matter if you are providing a product or service if you want to be successful then get ready to serve your audience.

Take Time off for Mentoring

Your customers aren’t the only people that you should be serving. Helping people after you have already become successful is important but you don’t have to wait until you’ve reached your goals to start helping other people. Many advantages come with helping people with some of the areas that they’re struggling with, that you’re able to assist in. 

First, you’re going to feel great because you’re helping someone change their life and that is one of the biggest rewards and the most fulfilling things that we can do as human beings.

Also, you’re going to be teaching yourself at the same time you are teaching others. They say that that is the best way that you can learn something – by teaching it to someone else. You’ll be helping someone and you’ll both be learning something valuable as you strive for success. 

You’re also going to get some major motivation from helping others and especially if you can help them succeed. Your enthusiasm is going to go up, your motivation is going to increase, your excitement will be high and your successes can be greater than they have been before.

You might not have thought about it, but those same people you’re helping now could end up being more successful than you and some areas and that could be a valuable relationship down the road. Most people are going to remember that you helped them for many years to come and not only would they be willing to do a favour if they’re in a position to do so they might even seek you out and offer.

Seek out Ways That You Can Help Others

Whether you are helping mentor other people trying to be successful in the same industry that you’re in or you’re helping your customers find exactly what they’re looking for and making sure that you provide them with the best service possible, you’re going to have to go out and seek ways to help people; they may not come to you. 

So, what are some of the ways that you can find people that you can help? How do you know that they need help? Most importantly, what do you have to offer that is valuable enough to teach others? This last question is important, not because there’s something that qualifies you to be a great teacher above all other things, but because you’re going to want to know the answer to that question so that you have the confidence to teach.

As for finding people to help, your customers will probably come to you but make it clear that if they’re looking for something specific, even if you don’t necessarily deal with it in your store or business, that they should ask you about it anyway because you might be able to help. Make sure that you post this on your website somewhere and go to social media to offer help as well. 

As far as mentoring goes, there are forums all over the Internet with people that are seeking advice, some of them better than others. Try to find people who are serious about being successful, like-minded with your values and goals and willing to accept your help. There’s no sense in helping someone who isn’t going to put in the work because this will not give you any of the benefits that come from helping people.

Become Known As Someone Who Will Go above and beyond for Your Customers

You want your customers to be happy. This means good customer service but if you want to shine, go above and beyond with every single customer that you get. Do absolutely everything you can do to solve the problem and make them happy and you will reap the rewards. They will talk about you to their friends, their colleagues and their family members and when they need a product or service that you sell they’ll be back to buy from you again and again. 

This is how Amazon has become so successful, by cultivating a reputation for customer service that is matched by no one else.

Entrepreneur Mindset Step 10: Be Grateful

The entrepreneurial industry is one that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Everyone wants to own their own business. Everyone wants to reap the rewards that come with independent success which include financial freedom, more time to spend with your family and the ability to work for yourself rather than someone else. Discover the Entrepreneur Mindset you need to program your mind for success.

There is nothing like achieving the success you want to make you grateful, but eventually, the newness wears off and you forget to be grateful. There are so many opportunities to be grateful every day and so many reasons to do so. 

For one thing, people around you will be happier and much more willing to spend time with you. You’ll also be happier yourself and have a more positive attitude. You’ll also find that everyone is more willing to help you when they know that you’re grateful for everything that you have and everything that you receive.

Be Grateful for Your Opportunities

You have probably encountered people who feel entitled. They somehow believe that they deserve to have success without working for it, even though all of the other successful people in the world have had to work their butts off to get where they are.

These people are always negative, they whine and complain about any work that they have to do and believe that the world should be handed to them on a silver platter. If you are one of these people, stop! If you just know people like that make sure you avoid ever falling into that trap because it is a pit of negativity that is very difficult to crawl out of.

Be thankful for the opportunities that you have. If you live in a developed country, think of all the people around the world who don’t have the opportunities that you have. Think of people who not only don’t have access to the Internet, but don’t even have access to clean water or electricity. The opportunity to build a business and achieve that much success is nothing to be scoffed at. If you have that opportunity, you are lucky and you should be grateful for it.

Also, you should be grateful for the teachers that you have in the information that you’re able to acquire, from the Internet or whatever sources you are using. You should be grateful for the teachers that you have, that they have the knowledge to teach and that they are willing to teach you. 

There are successful people out there who don’t subscribe to this particular thought model, instead of taking the approach that the more people they shared the secret of their success with, the more competition there will be, which will somehow devalue their success, even if it’s not the same industry. However, most successful people are grateful for those who help them get where they are today.

You’ve probably heard of Tony Robbins. Tony is a motivational speaker, author and very successful individual. Even with as much success as he’s had, and all the things that he has done to create this environment for himself, he is still immensely grateful to the people who helped him get where he is today.

In a recent interview with success.com Robbins said that he is still grateful to his earliest mentor, a man named Jim Rohn, who motivated Tony Robbins when he was very young. Follow Tony’s example and be grateful because there are benefits; not only the ones mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter but also some pretty amazing benefits for your business itself. 

Science can’t seem to find a metric to measure this, but people that are grateful for all the opportunities that they had and all of the people who have helped them, are more likely to be successful than those who are not, and are usually several times more successful.

Practice Being Grateful until You Get it Perfect

It’s okay if you don’t feel that you’re at the point where you can be very grateful. Like anything else, being grateful takes practice. You might have to think hard about what you have to be grateful for when it comes to your online business, or you may have to wait until you do have something to be grateful for. 

The point is, start changing the way that you think. This grateful attitude goes along with everything else in this book. You are just being grateful because you should, you’re being grateful because it changes you as a person; it makes you a better person and it magnifies your success.

Start a Gratitude Journal

One of the things that you can do to become better at being grateful is to start a gratitude journal. A gratitude journal is when you sit down at the end of the day and write down some of the things that you’re grateful for. You can use your computer, you can use a piece of paper and a pen or even a smartphone app if you prefer. 

Just as long as you spend a little time each day thinking about what you have to be thankful for, writing it down and using it to further your success.

Ways That You Can Show Your Gratitude

One of the things that you can do to give back is to use whatever assets that you have gained from being successful to help someone else. If you’re an Amazon affiliate, and you’re getting your first check from Amazon for just over $100 if you can afford it donated to charity, or take it down to your local soup kitchen to help buy groceries or even outsource some of the things that you need for your business so that other people can make money too.

If you can show the world that you’re grateful, the world will keep giving you opportunities and information to help you be successful. It sounds hokey, like some sort of new-age philosophy, but it truly is the way this thing works and if you talk to anyone who has achieved a decent level of success they will tell you that positive attitude, gratefulness and a willingness to learn are all keys to success.

Conclusion

This book is intended to help the serious person desiring to be an entrepreneur to take the first steps towards their success. In this book, you learned how important mindset is when it comes to success. You’ve learned that it’s the ultimate factor that stands between the average person desiring success and the person that achieves it.

You can take stock of yourself, learn what your current strengths are, and which ones you need to cultivate in the future as well as what weaknesses have kept you from success in the past. You can learn how to set yourself up with healthy mindsets instead and how to use that new mindset to take you as far as you want to go.

 Of course, this is no easy journey and it may take some time to develop that mindset. No one is expecting you to change overnight but hopefully, this book will help you take the first two steps towards success.

Action Steps to Take

Here is a step-by-step summary of all the things that you need to do to attain the success that you desire, based on the principles and information in this book.

  1. Realize how important mindset is. Understand that your mindset is what will determine whether or not you’re successful – for good or for bad. Know how to change your mindset so that you can steer it towards success.
  2. Know what all of your current strengths are. Know what skills you bring to the table, know which skills that you’re going to need but that you might need to hone and understand how to use the skills to achieve the success that you want.
  3. Conversely, know what your weaknesses are some they don’t prevent you from being successful. You know that in the past, your weaknesses have been responsible for you not achieving your goals. This time, tell yourself, it isn’t going to happen because you control your weaknesses; they don’t control you.
  4. You are going to change your mindset to be healthy and geared toward success. No matter what your goals are from this time forward your mindset will be a positive one and that will change your life completely. Even if you decide never to open up your own business this will give you success in your marriage, your job and your interpersonal relationships.
  5. You’ll know how to focus on the present and quit dwelling in the past. You’ll know the proper way to set goals so that they are clear, concise and specific, and they give you the ability to create a roadmap to reach them.
  6. You know how to be the best self that you can be. You’ll understand the process of change and be actively working on it with the confidence of knowing that as of right now you truly are the best self you can be.
  7. Understand how to value your time so that other people don’t take it from you and so that you can use it to achieve the goals that will take you from here to wherever your success is. No one else is as important as you are when it comes to achieving your goals.
  8. You’ll learn why you should serve others and how you can serve others, including both your customers and other people in the business. You now understand why this is so important and how it can help you become a better person.
  9. You’ll be grateful for what you have currently, how to give thanks for each day and why this is great for your future success. 
Venese

Venese

Hey there, my fellow entrepreneur 🙂 Your Entrepreneur Resources is here to help entrepreneurs and solopreneurs just like you with your business journey. I have taken detours and made mistakes as an entrepreneur. Now, I want to help you fast track your success and save you time and money. I'm here to help you connect with amazing mentors, support you with free and paid resources, along with everything I have learnt!

NOTE: This content might contain affiliate links that allow you to find the items mentioned in this content and support Your Entrepreneur Resources at no extra cost to you. You can find out more about it here.

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