According to a recent report, 82% of young people want to start their own business. This means that at one point or another, at least 8 out of every 10 young workers would want to start their own business as opposed to getting another job or keeping one.
If you are one of them, here are some mental attitude adjustments that you will need to make while you get ready to take up the challenge of starting and running your own business be it this year or whenever you are ready.
A Move from “how can you help me?” to “How can I help you?”
One of the common things you see on an average CV is “I humbly wish to apply” which is almost the same thing as saying, “please give me this job or I die.”
The funny thing is that this mindset doesn’t end here. It follows many people to the job. They are all about what they can get from the firm. They do the barest minimum and wait for pay day.
If you are serious about starting your own thing, this has to change. You have to become the chief helper (CH) of your company.
And most times after all that, you will still be dealt a bad hand and you won’t have a choice that to accept and smile through it. That’s how the ball rolls on the other side. Are you ready for this?
You will need a high dose of ‘earn to spend’ mentality
Yes, you need to fund your dream. Nobody is going to do that for you or even take you seriously if you don’t have enough skin in the business. So you will go broke many times trying to make the baby kick. This means that the merry days might be over or might be on hold for a while.
If you don’t feed the business, it dies. So your new play right now might be easy. Save and spend it all on the business and repeat. Are you ready for this?
Risk management, not risk avoidance
You will need a lot of this one.
When I worked with the bank, we were never allowed to do anything that wasn’t within the policy. Even when you were to sign a document, you were asked to “put your blood to the document”.
This meant that everyone was as careful as hell. Take no risk and do no risky was the game. This is also how it plays in many other corporate organisations.
But if you are to go on your own, you need to get comfortable with taking calculated risks and managing fall outs when things don’t go as planned. This is the key mindset of an entrepreneur. In fact, this should be what gets you started in the first place.
Are you read for this?
Self-leadership mentality
You are now the boss. The success or failure of this brand new thing depends on how you lead yourself and not how you are led.
As an employee, you look up to your managers, supervisors or CEO’s who tells you what to do and sometimes even help you do it. But in this new journey you want to embark on, you lead and the results or failures will trail along. Are you ready for this?
The mindset of loving rejection
Some of the NOs you will hear will be deafening. But you need to be mentally ready to ask the next person.
As an employee, you are shielded from so many rejections. Some people will even give you deals and business just because of the company you work for. But now that you work for yourself, nobody knows you, at least not yet. That can only come riding on the wings of massive rejections.
Are you ready for this?
Competence mindset
Nobody cares about your titles anymore and you credentials are of little importance here. All key stakeholders want to know what you have done or what you can do so that they can make a more informed decision and protect their interests.
If your self-respect has all along been hinged on your title, office power and brand equity of your employers, it’s time to strip yourself and build your self-identity on the possibilities of the things that you can build and not what others have built.
Are you ready for this?
Result oriented and not rules
The mindset here is to get things done and not just to follow rules even when nothing is being done.
In a lot of companies, employees are busy following rules and being careful not to go against the grain that bulk of the time. In the end, they get little or nothing done.
On the path of entrepreneurship, the reverse is the case… there are no rules, just get things done.
Versatile specialist.
The mindset here is to know little of everything as against being the master of your department alone and caring less of what goes on in other departments of the company.
When small and starting out, you will be the chief and master of all departments and you might do this for a very long time before you can afford any form of help.
Are you ready for this?
From marketing to closing
The mindset here is to get better at closing the deal and colleting the money as against just telling people about what you have and hoping they like it enough to buy which is what most organizational sales reps do.
Are you ready for this?
Creative initiative
The mindset here is to design and build solutions more than you rely on what others build.
In an established organization, somebody is saddled with the duty and responsibility of designing products and offers. In your business, you are the chief designer. And how far you can go is a function of how far you can instruct your imagination to take you.
Are you ready?
Inner trust
The mindset here is to trust your guts and take a chance. If you win, you are good, if you lose, you still have to find a way to be cool.
Nobody has your back but you and your God. It is a battle against the tides and you must know how to both row and swim
Are you ready?
Uncertainties of possibilities
The mindset here is to be aware of the uncertainties yet believe in the possibilities that such uncertainties can bring. You feel the fear but do it anyways. And even when the result don’t add up, you do it again and again.
Are you ready?
No excuse is good enough execution
This mindset requires no “buts”, “ifs” and “maybes” on the things that are necessary for your progress and profit in business.
That means you become better in making decisions quickly as soon as you get just enough details to help you access risk and impact of such decisions.
And with that, you don’t just keep thinking, you just do it.
Are you ready?
Profit oriented not revenue
This mindset says that bottom line is more important than commentary. For me in business, revenue is commentary. I need to know what the net profit is because that is what truly determines if you are to open for business the next week.
This is why the business of the 21st century don’t measure size by revenue or the number of shops or staff but on how much the business actually takes home.
This might be different in where you work right now. Everybody is on revenue drive and top management are making decisions that are both silly and sinking to revenue and nobody seems to care.
In your case, when you become your own boss, you will have to care and it will matter and determine a lot of things.
Are you ready?
Security to freedom.
This mindset requires that you sacrifice security in search of freedom. That means, you will have to live a larger part of your life denying yourself o things many won’t do so that you can live the rest of your life having what many can’t.
Your job gives you security, business will give you freedom if you stay on it long enough
Are you ready?
The clock doesn’t work.
This mindset requires you to focus on what you could churn out as opposed to clocking in and out at some specific times.
And I must add that if having time is the reason you want to quit and start on this part, don’t do it because here you will work round the clock and still not finish much.
So these are some of my mindset prescription guys. Are you ready to take the dose? Be quick and make up your mind…
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