Pivot Habit

Start, Run, & Grow Your Business the Pivot Habit Way

Mental game

Now You Can Have the Mindset of a Highly Successful Entrepreneur

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Recently, I listened in on a conversation between various entrepreneurs about “the entrepreneurial mindset” and what made them successful. A very interesting thing happened. After kicking around several ideas about mindset and attitude, they concluded that actions, not attitude or mindset, are what set successful entrepreneurs apart from those who either fail or never make it big.

That is a super interesting position to take. Let’s dive in.

Actions over Attitude Does Play a Role

There is definitely something to be said about consistent action. If you haven’t been in business for yourself yet, then any entrepreneur can tell you it’s easy to fall into the trap of not taking action because of:

  • uncertainty
  • sheer exhaustion
  • confusion
  • risk
  • lots and lots of other reasons.

Success tends to come to those who take action often, consistently, and even at those times when they’re uncertain or just don’t feel like getting out of bed and doing it. There are times when a business can be a hard slog. Keeping the flywheel of business moving means keeping forward motion moving. Don’t stop. Never stop.

And That’s a Mindset

Re-read that last section. That’s a mindset. The attitude that you must keep moving… you need to keep forward momentum… That’s a mindset.

Interestingly, everyone in the discussion I listened in on agreed that “constant action” was an absolute, unnegotiable key to the success of entrepreneurs. Yet none saw this as a mindset.

It is. “Constant forward motion” is one of the most critical mindsets for successful entrepreneurs.

And there are a few other closely related mindsets.

But before we dive into those, why bother? Why care?

If you’re new to entrepreneurship, it’s valuable to assess yourself and see where you’re strong or weak, and surround yourself with people who are strong in your areas of weakness. Nobody is strong in all areas, so that’s where finding your balance in others comes in. With that, let’s look at a couple other related attitudes.

Incredible Focus

Successful entrepreneurs tend to be incredibly focused. Specifically, they’re focused on the goal or goals they’ve set out to achieve. There are a lot of unknowns and uncertainty in business. While these things provide a lot of confusion, the best entrepreneurs are anchored in their goals, using them to constantly re-center their thoughts and actions.

Note that this has nothing to with working style. Lots of entrepreneurs are naturally scattered people, “multi-tasking” on dozens of things at once, and for whom their biggest hallmark is the messiest desk anyone has ever seen. It just means that in their mind, they are hyper-focused on their goals and what it is they’ve set out to do.

Failing Fast, or… (my favorite) Pivoting

Being hyper-focused on goals means the goal comes first and if whatever we’re doing to reach the goal isn’t working, great – let’s try something else. The best entrepreneurs aren’t bashful when their tactics to achieving a goal aren’t working. They’re the first to admit it and look for a new path. The goal usually stays the same, but small pivots to pursue that goal are the order of the day.

I’m In Control

This is related to a concept in psychology known as “Locus of Control.” The happiest and most successful among us tend to see things as under our own control or influence. Less successful and less happy people tend to see things happening “to” them as being caused by things outside their control and by forces out in the world.

Successful entrepreneurs as a group tend to have internal locus of control.

What’s Your Mindset?

The group I listened in on, much like fish in water, didn’t even recognize many of the elements of their own very powerful mindsets that had made them successful in the first place! So what about you? What is it about your mindset that makes you successful? And what is it where you turn to others for strength?

The Five Fastest Ways to Turn Around Any Business

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In my work with small to medium businesses over the years, my work has been couched in terms of helping teams maximize performance, helping them excel, being the best they can be, and so on. It’s a positive message that resonates well: everybody likes to see themselves successful.

However, to some degree stated or unstated, the feeling across the leadership team is much more pointed. It’s the bottom of the 7th inning. The game definitely isn’t over but we’re worn out from pitching. We’re already a couple runs down, and we’re not sure what to throw next. If we don’t get this game figured out – and soon – we’re going to lose.

We can’t lose.

The term “turnaround” doesn’t always fit because my clients aren’t usually on their last legs, deep in debt, and struggling to breathe. “Pivot” is a better word. We’re not looking to pivot the entire business model, but we definitely need to have a watershed moment in the business. We have to discover whatever it is that’s “wrong” and “make it right” so that it’s easier to make a buck and once again more fun to get out of the bed in the morning.

Here are the five fastest, most impactful ways I get my clients over that line.

Ask the Customers

You’ve heard the old saying, “In real estate, it’s location, location, location.” But that’s only partly true. It’s really “price, price, price.” It doesn’t matter what you think the price should be. It only matters what the market things the price should be.

Also, it seldom matters what you think your customers need, should pay, or will want. It only matters what you think. Almost none of the businesses I work with have an established channel / forum / mechanism / pick-your-word for a way to communicate with their customers to discover their most critical needs and how to solve them.

I focus an entire module of effort on this question as it is so critical to flipping the script from a relationship where you’re chasing elusive customers to creating a space where clients trust you, seek you out, and ask more of you.

Kill the Demons

“Business isn’t personal.” Lies, and more damn lies. It’s very personal, and it’s a mental game. How are you at it as a mental game? Be honest for a moment about your internal (or external… you know who you are…) monologue?

If I were to challenge you to count your positive vs. negative thoughts, statement, and actions, do you think your balance would be 80% positive to no more than 20% negative? I’ll be the first to admit that’s really hard to maintain! But I ask that goal not because I’m some Pollyannish tree hugger, but because our thoughts tie out to actual brain chemistry that impact critical thinking, creativity, relationship management and much more that is so critical in business.

So, how do we get there? I cover specific techniques in other articles and in my work, but for the moment…

Focus. Really Focus

Pop quiz. What is your method for cleaning out a milk jug? I mean getting it really super duper extra clean and free of soap?

Add a little soap, hot water, swish and dump? Yeah, that’s not going to work. You can’t get all the soap out through multiple rinses. Go try – I’ll wait.

The only way to truly get all the soap out is to keep adding water until the jug overflows and flushes every last bit of soap out.

Are you picturing this milk jug? The water is focus and positive thoughts. This milk jug is your brain on focus and positive thoughts. Any questions? (Ok, I’m no Nancy Reagan but hopefully you got the 1980s reference…)

It is so critical that you have a clear, crystalized focus in front of you at all times so that you can “fill yourself back up” with that whenever challenges do arise.

Kick it Up a Notch

So what does that look like? You need to kick it up a notch. I mean WAY up.

The clients I work with rarely believe when we begin how serious I am about how specific we’re going to get.

I want to see a really specific picture of what you’re building. Some people call that a “vision.” But I’m not interested in “vision statements.” I’m interested in precisely what are you building, what phase are you in, how much are you going to sell, to whom, etc. Really specific.

I’m also interested in your execution plan. What are you going to do this week? Next week? This month?

Not surprisingly, there is a lot of method I use to make it easy to break a business down into bite-sized 1-week and 2-week action plans that doesn’t fit well in an article like this. But if you can create a task list like that for yourself, you will be amazed at just how much more “doable” your business feels.

Find an Outside Partner

Having a partner is like striking gold. The diversity of thought and experience you gain is incredible.

This can be a professional like an attorney, an accountant / CPA, or a business consultant like me. It can also be an experienced and trusted business owner or leader in a non-competitive space who may have experience to lend.

The key to success here is to have a partner who, through their insight is able to lift you up and help you along through the challenging times. It also provides a sense of accountability to meet, review, and take action when things aren’t going well.

Wrapping Up

I can – and often do! – go on about how to help teams rapidly turn around their performance and business ventures as there are lots of options. However, these are truly some of the five most common that I lean on with my clients.

Let me know what you found valuable about these tips.