By Dr Kudzanai Vere
In my entrepreneurship series part 2, I shared about the entrepreneurs’ way of thinking and touched on four perspectives namely, structure thinking, bricolage, effectuation, and cognitive adaptability. All these perspectives give us an understanding of how entrepreneurs engage in their thinking process. How and why do they do what they do as entrepreneurs?
This article is going to unpack entrepreneurship as a mindset.
Ask any renowned entrepreneur how they started their journey and you will hear some say they become restless at some point in their minds that they decided to explode into action. It all starts in the mind.
Lasting entrepreneurship emanates from the need to change things for the better. The difference between what you are and what you should be is a decision so you’re a decision away from your desired person. Once we start talking about decisions, we’re already into the mindset territory.
“At its core, is a mindset – a way of thinking and acting. It is about imagining new ways to solve problems and create value. Fundamentally, entrepreneurship is about … the ability to recognize [and] methodically analyze [an] opportunity and, ultimately, to capture [its] value.” –
Bruce Bachenheimer, clinical professor of management and executive director of the Entrepreneurship Lab at Pace University
I picked up five dimensions of an entrepreneurship mindset in Professor Bachenheimer’s sentiments that I will explore.
Way Of Thinking
Entrepreneurship is indeed a way of thinking. It’s a philosophy. It’s dogma. I have seen how flawlessly some personal development business, leadership, and business coaches predict solutions to some challenges of the day. It proves the fact that it is indeed their way of thinking. They think about solutions.
Buddha once said,
“The mind is everything. What you think, you become,”
Buddah
Think solutions, you create them. Think entrepreneurship, you will become one. The more you ponder on an idea, the sooner you will take action within that context.
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve,”
Napoleon Hill.
Did you know that our mind shaves the capacity and capability to conceive? The mind conceives ideas and strategies so once an idea, dream, or vision is conceived in the mind and you believe in your heart regarding it, you will certainly achieve it.
Way Of Life
Great entrepreneurs are driven by passion and not the rewards that come out of it. Indeed there are rewards at the end of all that necessary serendipity. You don’t need a supervisor concerning what you are passionate about. It’s your way of life.
Seizing Opportunities
The ability to utilize opportunities as and when they show up is one major characteristic of entrepreneurs. They have eyes that neither see north, west, south, or east – they only see opportunities.
Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work so most people don’t recognize them. In the words of Ann Landers, entrepreneurs possess the mental disposition to unmask and utilize them. This ability sets entrepreneurs apart.
New Ways Of Solving Problems
The major distinction between real entrepreneurs and the masses is that they have a unique way of tackling challenges. It is this uniqueness that makes them stand out from the crowd.
Entrepreneurship involves coming up with either a new product or service for the existing market/ new market/bringing in a unique way of packaging existing products/services for the same or different market.
What makes an entrepreneur stand out among others is the ability to come up with a new way of solving current and future challenges. The sharper the solution, the more outstanding an entrepreneur becomes.
Innovation is a virtue in entrepreneurs that gives birth to the uniqueness that they display in their execution. I happen to be in a group of national coaches. There is quite a number but each appeals to the same market in a different way. That’s innovation. You can be in the same retail, manufacturing, mining, or logistics business, to mention a few. It is how you differentiate your products or services that give you that competitive edge in the marketplace.
Create Value
The mind of an entrepreneur is set on creating value. It is when customers get that satisfaction either through your products or services that they would want to continuously deal with you hence the more you work on improving the welfare of the other person, the more value you will create for yourself.
At first, it is not about getting loads of money coming in your direction. It’s about making sure that your customers or clients smile all the way to their domicile delighted. They will act as broadcasters for whatever products or services you offer, thus creating a pool of followers.
This kind of thinking calls for well-established mental muscles to untangle the value that lies at the center of things. If you see people at the top enjoying life, it would seem as if they started from there. A leadership expert, Noah Mangwarara, once said, the only thing that starts from the top is a grave. Everything else starts from the bottom and slowly goes up, action by action.
Don’t forget that entrepreneurship at its core is a mindset – a way of thinking and acting. Be phenomenal.
