We have pretty much covered everything about an entrepreneur. We have talked about what you should wear, eat, how to evolve, and grow and so on. What are we missing something?
But what goes on in the mind of an entrepreneur? Is there a pattern? Or should there be one concerning an entrepreneur’s state of mind?
Obviously, the foremost concern of the creator should be the created, regardless what stage or point of creating the creator is. That alone is enough to occupy even the emptiest of minds. However, the trick is not just to have an occupied mind. It is to have a mind occupied with the next thing. Growth is constant in life. Anything not growing is dead.
So what should an entrepreneur be thinking about?
Money is good but it’s not the most important thing. It’s not all that matters. It sounds ridiculous that this is coming from me, but the fact that it is coming from me should be enough reason for you to listen.
What’s on your mind?
I remember a Panadol exercise book I had the pleasure of owning at some point in my life. I refused to use it simply because I was enthralled by what was written on the cover. It went something like this;
“80% of your life is controlled by what’s going on in your head”.
I was pretty fascinated by the simple truth of the statement. I couldn’t relate it to Panadol and headaches, though that was clearly the connection that was meant to be made. However, I couldn’t get past just how much of it is true. So much is determined by what we’re thinking at every point in time.
Just think about this. A guy spots an attractive woman at a shopping mall. He stops and thinks. He really wants to talk to her. He’s thinking up a strategy, thinking of the most effective way to get and hold her attention. But then, something occurs to him, something that interrupts his previous line of thinking and introduces a fresh one.
What if she ignores him?
Because this has been his experience in recent times, he is fixated by that one thought that takes precedence over everything else. At this point it doesn’t even matter that she’s noticed him staring and smiled at him. He keeps thinking: “what if she doesn’t want to talk to me?” The idea is so strong that he turns away and leaves without making an attempt to talk to her.
And that is the worst kind of failure; the kind that makes us give up without even trying. Because we’ve taken ourselves out of the competition with the power of our thoughts.
GIGO: or in simpler terms ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’ simply supports the idea that we’re only as good as what we consume. Someone who fills his head (and by extension his every thought) with entertaining junk and meaningless crap cannot produce extraordinary work. It’s pretty much like expecting to pluck oranges from an apple tree.
Damn nigh impossible.
It is important for anyone to control their thoughts and what goes on in them. This is especially important for an entrepreneur; someone who lives for ideas, the risk is twice. And apart from controlling what goes into the mind via television, radio, the mass media, it’s just as important to regulate what we take in from our environment, friends, families, partners and so on.
Sometimes, the most well-meaning people in your life are your worst enemy even when they don’t mean to. They play that role by reminding you of how unrealistic your idea is, how you need to pay your kid’s school fees, how the landlord is soon coming for his rent – as though you have forgotten these things. You’re very much aware of them and constant reminders will only serve as distractions at the long run.
It is of utmost importance to have a strict regulatory process for what goes on in your mind. In the words of Henry Ford, ‘whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you are right’. The most powerful nation is still imagination, because no matter what man’s greatest creation has been over the past hundreds of years, it came from one place; the human mind.
What are you thinking?
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