The Myth of the Entrepreneur Mindset

There’s a lot of total garbage written about how to succeed in business.  Mindset is the biggest myth of all.  It's (almost) total B.S.

You're here and reading this.  So you've got ambition, you're committed and open-minded enough to know there's more to learn about being successful.  For me, that's the majority of the mindset sorted - easy eh?

The rest is a system for success that some people stumble upon, but most never figure out.

I know, because I’ve studied this topic and experimented with all kinds of approaches to being more productive and successful.

I’d like to share with you what really matters.

I’ve formulated this after speaking to, and working with, thousands of successful people and their approach to achieving things since I first started work back in 1988.

I also started a business (Greenlight Credit Ltd) in 2012 with some friends and we grew sales to £7m within 5 years.  And I've written a best-selling book (Double Your Business) that Financial Times published.

So I'm no stranger to getting results.

And I disagree with this idea of mindset.  I think it's rubbish.  There are three things that matter.  I lay them out, very clearly, in this article.

Time Management Systems Are About Productivity, Not Achievement…

I have wanted to be a high achiever ever since I was a kid.  I got a first class honours degree in Computer Science back in 1988.

So when I saw time management systems, like the original Filofax™ (I tried three versions of these - including an A4 one),  I thought they would help me to be more successful.

They didn't.

I tried three different Filofax systems.  Two different Time Manager International diary system (madness - the system has 3 diaries per person) and all kinds of knock-off systems produced by people jumping onto the Filofax bandwagon.

No matter how hard I tried, I just could not get on with these systems.  I’d try for a few weeks and they would seem to work.  Then after a month or two, I’d find myself resisting them.

It carried on until just a few years ago, when after trying half a dozen different iPhone and Mac apps I gave up with them all.

Their focus was all on getting lots of 'stuff' done.

Not identifying and moving forwards on the big projects that move your business forwards in a big way.

Stuff is the enemy of progress.  Stuff keeps you standing still.

I did figure out a few key tools to organise myself and my time, though.

• A simple To-do list with important stuff on it - but not everything in my life (definitely not the OCD-friendly Get Things Done approach)
• A simply organised filing setup so I can find important stuff that I need for reference
• A robust calendar.  I like Google Calendar
• Your own rules for how you use the tools

It doesn’t matter if nobody else can understand it. 

It doesn’t matter if it’s unconventional or weird.

It only matters that it works for you. 

Your tools must support you as the business owner.

Which leads me to an Italian mathematician called Alfredo Pareto…

The Brilliant Economy of Employing 80/20 Thinking…

In the 1990s I had a boss who asked how much of my time I  was really effective.

Thinking I was about to be told off, I suggested that I was  pretty effective all of the time.

What he said next shocked me.

He reckoned he was only effective in terms of driving real change and improving the business for barely 4-5% of his time.

The rest was taken up with all of the noise and clutter...

Dealing with urgent issues that leave the business standing still - crises (there were plenty), recruitment, HR issues, computer problems, internal politics,  attending management meetings that achieved little, and so on.

In the 1800s, Italian mathematician Alfredo Pareto calculated that 80% of the wealth in Italy belonged to just 20% of the population.

The same calculation now globally would be something like 98/2.

But it’s not a social justice point.

Pareto also noticed that 80% of the peas in a garden come from 20% of the pods.  Most of the pods failed to reach maturity, were eaten by insects, or were just smaller than the high-producers.

The same is true in your business.  A small amount of your time produces the big results.  The rest is just turning the handle.

If you spend all of your time just turning the handle, your business will stay put and not grow.

It’s often called the Law of the Vital Few.

In every business, there are a small number of employees who are the high achievers.  They get more done and contribute more value than two or three typical staff.

They are your vital few employees, your most valuable people.

The rest are far more expendable than these.

So how does this relate to your time management and the mindset myth?

For most people in business, no matter how much ambition you have, there is too little focus on the things that will make the biggest difference.

The noise of business takes all of your focus.

When you have the wrong focus, you keep getting the same results.

Devote 20% of your time instead towards growth projects and you can produce truly astonishing results.

Focus Like A Laser On What Holds You Back

A laser’s light is so highly focused that with sufficient power it can burn through steel.  Yet this same power from a normal lightbulb is only enough to light up your drive at night.

That’s the power of focus. 

So you don't need a mindset shift.

You need a system.

A system to focus your attention onto the areas that produce the biggest growth.

When you focus your attention this much, things happen quickly. 

You make big changes happen in days, weeks or months, instead of years.

Big results follow quickly from the big changes.

In my regular Double Your Business Plan webinar I explain Business DNA Upgrades and the three big areas that should be your starting point when choosing where to focus.

Set the right focus and give it 20% of your attention (that’s about a day a week) and you will move mountains to grow your business.

There’s one final piece to the success puzzle - making success habitual.

The Final Success Secret - Adopt The Right Habits…

Habits are the things we do automatically and they produce automatic results.

Brush your teeth well twice daily and you’ll have your own teeth into your old age.

The army understands the power of habit.  It’s why they put recruits through months of training and get them to repeat certain activities - polishing their boots, cleaning their rifles, on a daily basis.

They are forming habits that will protect them should they ever come into harm’s way.

Unpolished boots let in water and you can quickly end up in hospital if you’ve got trench foot.

A dirty rifle can jam, costing your life.

So these positive habits are drilled into you, helping you to live longer and helping the army to win consistently.

An Olympic athlete will have a training habit.

Every. Single. Day.

For your goals, there will be habits to get you there.  Simply put the habits into practice and the goal becomes inevitable.

Putting It All Together…

I called this article the mindset myth because it’s easy to get caught up in the mystical idea that it’s your beliefs, your personal balance or whatever that is getting in your way.

The truth, I have come to understand, is that it’s much, much simpler.

I like simple.

Simple is difficult, because simple takes principles.

And getting to the principles takes deep thought.

But I've done that for you here.

You see, it's easy to interview a bunch of people who are successful and assume that to be successful you just need to do what they say.  But they have no idea, really, of what made them successful. They're on autopilot by now.

Their unique upbringing and circumstances and their own approach all have contributed to their success.  So they'll tend to talk about those things.

But they're surface level stuff.

The principles lie beneath, out of sight.

Richard Branson got rich one way, James Dyson another, Duncan Bannatyne and Alan Sugar also followed their own paths.

But at any moment in time, I'll guarantee they have three things in common...

They were fixed on a clear objective, direction or goal.

They knew or figured out a method to get there that played to their strengths.

They had a habitual approach.

Three Things That Deliver Success Every Time...

These three things, then, are all you need.

1. Clarity of what you want to achieve.  Without direction, there can be no progress.

2. Knowledge of how to move towards it that plays to your personal strengths.  Without knowing what to do, you cannot do it.

3. Habits to drive you relentlessly to your goal.  The daily grind of your cultivated habits makes success inevitable.

 

That’s it.  No fancy mindset rubbish.  Just three things.

 

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