Entrepreneurial mindset: 5 ways to think like an entrepreneur

There’s something that all successful business people have in common: an entrepreneurial mindset. But the mindset of an entrepreneur isn’t something you’re born with. Anyone can develop it – it just takes a little know-how. So, here’s what you need to know about getting into the mindset of a business owner.

What is an entrepreneurial mindset?

An entrepreneurial mindset refers to a specific way of thinking that’s shared by many successful entrepreneurs. There’s no single definition, but entrepreneurs tend to have a positive, resilient mindset that helps them to approach any problem or setback in a solution-focused manner.

Entrepreneurial mindset characteristics

From a positive mental attitude to an adaptable approach, various factors can help you to build a business owner mindset. Here are some of the most common ones:

1. A positive mental attitude

Entrepreneurs tend to share many common personality traits, one of which is that they’re endlessly optimistic about the future – they maintain a positive outlook, even when faced with uncertainty. Entrepreneurs will come across a plethora of different challenges when setting up a business, and later in their careers. But the best business owners believe in their potential for success – which means that they’re able to maintain a positive outlook even when faced with uncertainty.

2. Self-confidence

Part of having a positive mental outlook is believing in yourself, even when the going gets tough. If you can believe in yourself, then it will help you have more belief in your business—and customers and potential employees will have more confidence in you, too.

Steven Bartlett explains the importance of self-confidence in his BBC Maestro course, The 16 Steps to Start and Scale a Multi-Million-Pound Business:

“It is hugely important that you shape positive beliefs around yourself. Studies show that people who believe they are in control are more successful in business and in life generally. And believing you are in control will serve you well when the unexpected comes along and attempts to knock you off course.”

He continues by saying:

“However capable you are, however well prepared you are, a crisis will show up in your business. It is inevitable. What is not inevitable is how you respond to it. To succeed in business, you have to have self-belief. If you need to change how you think about yourself, put yourself in situations where new evidence will counteract old evidence.”

3. Resilience and perseverance

Positivity and self-confidence both help entrepreneurs to be resilient. Business is inherently uncertain, and businesses face different challenges on a daily basis. Resilience is the ability to adapt and bounce back from challenges and failures, while perseverance is the ability to keep going even when you face difficult  situations. Both are crucial when it comes to developing the mindset of an entrepreneur.

Peter Jones explains perseverance in his BBC Maestro course, Toolkit for Business Success:

“Perseverance is about developing a ’keep on going’ attitude while having a little bit of flexibility to grow and improve your business – and yourself personally. Successful people go that extra mile. Perseverance, sheer determination and tenacity are core characteristics of every entrepreneur. Successful entrepreneurs battle against the odds to build their business.”

Perseverance, then, is about not giving up. And, as Peter Jones advises, “if circumstances dictate, simply take a moment to regroup”.

4. Flexibility

Another key aspect of an entrepreneurial mindset is flexibility. Being adaptable to change means you can adjust your strategies, business models and ways of working as your business ebbs and flows. Being open to change and innovation allows you to embrace new ideas and technologies that have the potential to propel your business forward.

As Peter Jones explains, “Sometimes you need to venture down a different path to get to your destination. It’s business. You need to be prepared to take a detour.”

It’s important to have goals – and to be laser-focused on them – but you should also be flexible enough to adapt and change them, through the ups and downs in your business.

How to develop an entrepreneurial mindset

So, how can you develop the mindset of an entrepreneur? Well, the first thing to recognise is that anyone can adopt a resilient, adaptable and positive way of thinking – it’s not exclusively for entrepreneurs. However, if you are starting a business, or are a business owner, developing your mindset in this way may help you to become more visible, reach more people, and keep bouncing back when you face bumps in the road.

Here are some ways to develop entrepreneurial mindset characteristics.

1. Develop clear goals

Goals are important for any business. They help define your vision and are the driving force behind where your business goes and why.

Steven Bartlett talks about the importance of setting goals in his BBC Maestro course, and explains that he uses a framework called ‘the Three Ms’ – that is, macro, medium, and micro goals. His examples are useful in understanding how to use this framework when deciding on goals for your own business:

“Let’s say you are starting a podcast. Your macro goal might be to create the biggest podcast in the world. (You only have one macro goal because what you are really referring to is long-term vision.)

Your next steps, then, are the medium goals you have to achieve in order to attain that macro goal. Again, if we go back to our example of wanting to create the biggest podcast in the world, our medium goals might be to find a sponsor, to find a studio, to buy some cameras and to book a guest.

From these medium goals, you set actionable micro goals which feed into your calendar and onto your To Do list. These could be; send an email to a studio, research potential sponsors, go to Argos and buy some cameras.”

It’s important, then, to set goals that are both ambitious and attainable. You want a North Star goal – that big, aspirational objective for your business – to work towards in the long term. But that can be overwhelming, so you also need to break it down into more manageable goals, to help you on the road to achieving that big one.

2. Reframe your thinking

Reassessing the way you think about things – failure, in particular – can help you to develop a more entrepreneurial mindset. Everyone is afraid of failure. It’s part of what makes us human. But unfortunately, failure is an inevitable part of both life and business. It’s impossible to avoid – but the way we handle it makes all the difference.

Rather than thinking of them as failures, think about what you can learn from each setback on your journey. Are there mistakes you’ve made that you know not to repeat again? Have you tried certain strategies which haven’t worked? Are there any things that did work, that you can tweak and use again in the future?

For Peter Jones, there is no such thing as failure. He explains:

“When I was at my lowest, I reframed the word failure in my mind. I said there is no such word as failure, only feedback. I’d love to remove the word failure from our education system because it’s such a derogatory term. If you say to someone, “You’re a failure”, that makes them feel degraded and lifeless. By replacing the word failure with feedback, suddenly you’re finding out how to improve.”

For Peter Jones, it’s all about reframing your mind for success. If you don’t succeed at something, that’s fine. Rather than viewing it as a failure, learn from it. “Understand why it wasn’t successful and apply all those learnings to your next attempt. Entrepreneurs never give up. But if you don’t learn from your mistakes, if you don’t reflect on them and turn them into a positive action, you’re only going to continue to make the same mistakes.”

3. Develop a growth mindset

A ‘growth mindset’ is a term coined by psychologist Carol Dweck to describe the belief that one’s abilities and intelligence can be developed and improved over time through dedication, hard work, learning, and resilience.

Dweck described the growth mindset in the following way: “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work – brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” In contrast, a fixed mindset is the belief that one’s abilities and intelligence are innate, fixed traits that cannot be significantly changed.

It’s perhaps no surprise that most entrepreneurs have a growth mindset rather than a fixed one. And if you’re not there yet, don’t worry – a growth mindset is something that anyone can develop. Peter Jones describes an exercise in his BBC Maestro course to help you develop a growth mindset, called the funeral exercise:

“There’s a lovely philosophical saying: “You live life forwards, but you only understand it backwards“. The funeral exercise allows you to fast forward and get yourself out of a position where you feel stuck in life, a little bit stagnant. It sounds a bit morbid, but it’s worth doing.

Imagine yourself at your own funeral, and you’re hovering above the people who love you, respect you and are there to honour your life:

• What are they saying about you?
• How does it make you feel?
• What does it say about you?
• What are they not saying?
• What’s missing, and why aren’t they saying it?”

Those questions, he says, help you to think about how you want to be perceived, and the kind of impact you want to leave. Thinking about these things can help you to determine what positive actions you need to take for yourself and your business.

4. Experiment, experiment, experiment

It can be scary to experiment – especially in business. But experimentation is one of the keys to growth – after all, if you don’t experiment, how can you know what works, and what doesn’t?

Steven Bartlett believes in the power of experimentation. He says:

“Experimentation is a mindset which allows you to find the correct answer faster than your competition because you know how fast the world is changing and that you aren’t going to find that answer anywhere else. The correct answer for your business today is something you’re going to have to find because nobody in the history of the planet has ever had the job of marketing your business today. Nobody has ever done that before.”

But you don’t need to come up with ideas out of thin air. In a world where we have so much data at our fingertips, experimentation doesn’t mean guesswork. You should, instead, experiment within a scientific framework. Steven explains more:

“Instead of guessing, you start with a hypothesis (which is, in effect, your best guess, allowing you to make a prediction). You run a measured experiment to test the hypothesis. Other versions of the experiment can be run and measured. Conducting the experiment allows you to analyse the results and draw conclusions, and therefore, the hypothesis is accepted or rejected. Through this process, companies in a rapidly changing world will arrive at the right answer as it relates to any and all parts of their business. The results may or may not be in line with your original hypothesis and prediction, but they can be used to inform future projects.”

5. Boost your confidence

Businesses need confident leaders. Confident leaders are more likely to take calculated risks. They’re more likely to be decisive, making decisions promptly and with conviction. And they’re more likely to inspire confidence in others, from employees to those you’re trying to sell to.

However, as Peter Jones explains, “there will always be a level of self-doubt.” Just because you’re a confident leader doesn’t mean you’ll always get it right. But it’s important to build your confidence and learn that taking action is the way to move your business forward:

“The reality is there are many times when we’re not in control. There are also many times when we don’t take action, and then all of a sudden, there are a lot of issues to deal with. Suddenly everything goes wrong. Don’t wait, take action.

Rewiring your mindset for success is very much about how you handle those opportunities. How you handle what most people would see as serious stress. It doesn’t mean that you’re always calm. It doesn’t mean that you don’t worry. But it’s important to have a mindset where you take action. Have a vision for the future, but step in and make those tough decisions such as getting rid of key people and replacing them with people who have a different viewpoint.”

Dedicate some time to working on banishing that self-doubt and improving your confidence. You could do this by improving your communication skills, using visualisation techniques to picture yourself succeeding, or seeking constructive feedback to understand areas for improvement.

Learn from the best

If you want to improve your entrepreneurial mindset, there’s no one better to learn from than established entrepreneurs themselves. That’s where Steven Bartlett and Peter Jones, can help.

In Steven’s course, he’ll teach you how to hone your idea, how to find and attract investors, how to build a brand you can be proud of, and how to stay resilient through it all. In Peter’s course, you’ll find out how to harness your passion, achieve your goals and arm yourself with business acumen that will last a lifetime.