In business, the mental game is the only game you really need to worry about mastering. Get that right and chances are much improved that the planets will align themselves in your favor.
Regardless of the measure of success you achieve, merely surviving the ups and downs of a career as an entrepreneur will require good measures of resilience and mental toughness.
Here are some attitudes you will want to train yourself to take on.
Delegate, Don't Abdicate
Don't transfer the responsibility for the success of your business to your team. Delegation is not about letting go. It is about leveraging your own time and getting more done. Begin your day by saying "I take full responsibility for the success of my business." If things don't work out, don't blame others. That habit de-powers your internal motivation. Instead, take the full weight of all results on yourself. It is empowering! Intentionally taking responsibility for results will insulate you from depression and disillusionment. It will give you the fuel to come at the problem from a different angle, improving your odds for success.
Risk Reduction
Can you get enough customers at a low enough cost? Most of the risk in business is related to marketing. And the first time you conduct any marketing campaign, risk will be at its highest. Besides being previously untested, new marketing campaigns have not had the benefit of optimization, which can only happen with repeated cycles of testing and tweaking. If you are just starting out with a new marketing initiative, it is healthy to acknowledge to yourself that you are entering into a season of high-risk. If things don't go perfectly, it doesn't have to be an unexpected, devastating disaster. It is normal for first-time marketing campaigns to go sideways. Risk is only reduced with repetitive cycles. Every time you test and tweak, you learn. Eventually, you know what to expect. With repeated cycles, predictability becomes the norm. But at the outset, risk remains in the red zone. Get your head around acknowledging this risk. Accept it, then forge ahead with the armor of this expectation. Once again, own the responsibility for the outcome.
Dimes For Dollars
Your job as a business owner or manager is to create business systems that turn dimes into dollars. These systems must be predictable, profitable, repeatable and scalable. Creating those systems must be your focus. At least part of each day must be set aside for developing predictable systems that have the potential to transform your business. And the most important of these systems will be related to marketing, as this is where you turn your dimes into dollars. Here, too, you must be intentional about taking the full weight on your shoulders. Your team can help create components of these systems, but ultimately, the responsibility of the overall systems of success belongs to the entrepreneur. It will be disappointing for you if you believe your team is capable of turning your dimes into dollars. If they could do that on their own, they would be running multimillion-dollar companies, not working for you. Creating components of your system can be delegated (websites, copywriting, branding, etc.), but the overall cohesive system remains squarely on your shoulders.
Dealing With Failure
You will experience setbacks. The business risk you carry as an entrepreneur is thrilling, but setbacks are one of the terrible sides to the job. It is a knife-edge. One side of the blade is failure that cuts you deep, leaving permanent scars. The other side is breakthrough, creating a legacy for your family and a livelihood for those you employ. Either way, the risk of entrepreneurship creates a fabric of experience that, win or lose, you can be grateful for, as it allows you to explore your limits, learn and grow. If your venture fails, this is not the end. Like the leaves of a tree that fall to the ground, your failures eventually turn into nutrient-rich soil that fuels the next cycles of blossom. If you see each individual business venture as a cycle in your entrepreneurial journey, it is easier to link them together as a single career. The alternative is to see a string of failures rather than learning experiences that instruct you in that final master plan that blows everyone's mind when it changes the world.
Enjoy The Journey
In 1920, theologian Lynn H. Hough said, "life is a journey, not a destination." This thoughtful insight was part of a Sunday school lesson he was preparing. But don't let the context diminish the value of this modern proverb. Mr. Hough had a good mind for business as well, as in 1920 he was also the president of Northeast University, where he established the first MBA program in what is now the Kellogg School of Management. While we have brief moments of arrival, most of our waking moments are spent in pursuit of something presumably worthwhile. If we don't enjoy those moments, we are essentially not enjoying life itself. Make a decision to be aggressively intentional about enjoying the mundane climb up the stairs, the person next to you and the clean air. Say to yourself, "I enjoy the golden moments of each day." Put it in you until it comes out of you.
If you are going to survive your entrepreneurial journey, attitude training isn't just for your staff, it is also for you.
