Spring is a time for growth in a variety of different ways. And in today’s knowledge economy, much of your business’ growth is dependent on your ability to maintain a growth mindset. Mindset is something that almost every entrepreneur recognizes as of vital importance, but few entrepreneurs make time for mindset work.
This spring, give your business and your life an upgrade by making these mindset shifts.
Failure Isn’t the End: Learning from Mistakes
“21 Steps to Success” by Bernard Goldbach. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Most of us have been taught, throughout our entire lives, that failure is bad. That failure is something to be ashamed of. That if success is the destination, then failure is the dead end that forces you to turn around and go back the way you came.
When you have a fixed mindset, failure is an abject condemnation of your skills, your talents, your intelligence, and who you are as a person. Under a fixed mindset, success or failure is a function of character and talent. Smart people succeed, dumb people fail.
But under a growth mindset, failure is an opportunity to learn, to develop your skills, and to better yourself. To come back stronger next time. To become more like the person you want to be.
By shifting from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, you’ll start to see failure not as a comment on who you are, but rather, as a necessary step on the journey to success.
Reservoir or River? Changing Your Beliefs About Cash Flow
One of the fundamental mindset shifts that absolutely must happen at some point during your tenure as a business owner? Is your belief about the nature and origin of money.
When you’re an employee, the amount of money you earn is dictated for you by someone else. And there’s nothing wrong with that – except when you bring that mentality to entrepreneurship.
If you believe that there’s always a limited amount of money in the world, you’ll be more likely to want to hoard cash instead of investing it into growth. While it’s important to keep a cash reserve on hand to fund operations, you should make sure you aren’t hanging on to so much cash that you’re stifling your business’ own growth.
But that’s what happens when you believe that money is a reservoir with a limited capacity, a reservoir that keeps getting lower and lower the more you draw from it.
But what if money isn’t a reservoir? What if money is a river? This “money is a river” mindset is a much more productive one from a business standpoint. Under this model, cash is constantly flowing into and out of your business. And every dollar that goes out of your business comes back to you in some way, shape, or form, in the same manner that the water cycle renews the world’s supply of water.
If you approach your business with the mindset that investments bring returns, then you’ll be in a strong position to invest into your business and grow it over time.
Rule Breakers are Rule Makers
Industries and businesses evolve when radical innovators come in and disrupt the established order. And most of the time, the business, the industry, and the world are better off for it.
There are a lot of implicit rules that we follow in business. Diversify your client base. Always have a business plan. Stick with what you know.
But these rules were created by people who just so happened to succeed by following them. And there are dozens of examples of people who succeeded by breaking them.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page didn’t have a business plan when they started Google. Neither did the couple who started Cisco. Dropbox started selling their first product before it was even built.
Following the rules doesn’t guarantee success, and breaking the rules doesn’t always come with negative consequences. So start looking for good opportunities to break rules in your business.
In the knowledge economy, business success is mostly dependent on mindset. Start making these mindset shifts today and see how your business improves.