Mastering Your Entrepreneur Thoughts

I recently read "you are a badass at making money" by Jen Sencero, it's a witty, inspirational view on the entrepreneur mindset and how it can lead to business success or not. In the book she shares the journey from barely having two nickels to rub together to becoming a New York times best seller. Most importantly she describes her mindset during the journey and how her beliefs, thoughts, words, emotions and actions at first hindered her, but were retrained to inspire, grow and sustain her business. The aspect of how the mindset affected her thoughts and movements stayed with me more than the direct points on making money. Don't get the wrong idea, of course, I want the money but being mentally ready to go the distance is key.

The entrepreneur mindset. While your beliefs, thoughts, words, emotions and actions work together to drive you to stay either in the comfort zone or risk some or all to go after your heart's desire. The overarching ruler of all feelings is your conscious fueled by the subconscious. When you think about starting, managing or growing a business what comes to mind and body? Which one reflects your feelings:

I can never risk my current life to chase my dreams, it's not safe. I will can only hurt my family by taking such a risk. my life is how an adult should act.	I am ready, all in with both feet,need to know how to start.
My business is doing well growing, incorporating new ideas may ruin what little success I have.	My business is doing well growing, incorporating new ideas will allow me to grow, bring more of my vision to life.

1. How strongly do you believe in your business idea, and goal to be an entrepreneur? Are you ready to risk it all and consistently put 100% of your time and money into your business? Do you only have a safe amount of time and money to invest, to avoid failure and being considered as irresponsible. Most entrepreneurs don't start with a slush fund or a rich uncle that can give you the perfect introduction into the world of ownership. The funds on hand are usually all we have to support your dream or we work one to two jobs to financially support the business. Either way you have to are risking time and money. Our mind will tell us to hold onto those funds, work the other jobs and save, be smart, wise and safe. You will need those funds, continue the same life, job, etc. as you always have and some way, somehow you will be able to comfortably afford to start a business. Our mind will plant fear of the unknown and baseless, our beliefs, thoughts, words, emotions and actions. However, no reward comes without risks, the 100% truth is that failure is more than probable if you don't change your mind to succeed.

2. Who is your support team? Are they people who take risks and will strive with all they have obtain their goals? I know we sing Drake's line "no new friends" but aligning yourself with risk takers is valuable. Allowing your subconscious to absorb and develop in an environment where unknown risks are identified and overcome will retrain your beliefs, thoughts, words, emotions and actions. While most entrepreneurship start out as a one-man (or woman) army, we all need the cheerleaders who continuously strategize on how to keep moving forward by taking risks, and following their true self even through setbacks.  Our mind will tell us that lifelong friends have our back, are the only people we can trust, they are safe and know what is best for you. While those friends are important to our current lifestyle, they may not be the friends for you as a business owner. Our mind breeds fear of us losing those lifelong friends due to them thinking we are acting differently, have no time for them or we are no longer on the same path. The biggest liar we tell is that being unhappy, discontent for the safe life we know is respectable.

3. Are you willing to ask, accept, and trust others? Overcoming our beliefs, thoughts, words, emotions and actions to owning a business may be a 180-degree shift from what you consciously know and subconsciously believe. Let's face it, a business owner may be one of the biggest risks in your life, to date. Being in business is new, no matter how much you researched, how many books read, or YouTube influencers watched, you don't know what you don't know. Your mind will tell you to be a safe as possible, don't risk too much in case you fail, it's too costly to hire others to assist you. In Reality you are only feeding the subconscious fears that rule your beliefs, thoughts, words, emotions and actions when you take on the "superman" attitude and fail or endure unnecessary hardships. When I informed the world about my venture into the ownership, and leaving corporate life, the best advice from my coach was to accept help, outsource when able and remember, "you know your business, you don't know about business". Accepting and trusting other recommendations, directions and guidance will test your comfort zone while unlocking opportunities and reaching goals you thought were impossible. You will retrain your conscious and subconscious fears that rule your beliefs, thoughts, words, emotions and actions.