Enabling the Entrepreneurial Mindset: Step 1 – Unleashing the Mind

Entrepreneurs have the vision to identify and capitalize on risky and new business opportunities. However, underneath the veil lies many skills that allow the pioneering spirit to flourish. These skills are not necessarily something the individual is born with but rather a combination of attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that frame the person for who they are and their conviction and willingness to seek out and exploit innovative ideas. As a result, this enables people from all walks of life to seek out these attributes and build upon them daily to seize opportunities and create value.

The initial trait to nurture and feed the entrepreneurial mindset is envisioning achievable goals through mind experimentation to recognize opportunities. Opportunity recognition is foundational to identifying gaps in any situation that can be overcome by applying innovative forces to the focus area. The intent is to obtain complete comprehension of the situation, uncover gaps through ongoing observation, and externally examine market trends, customer needs, technological advancements, and industry shifts regarding a specific situation. The goal is to remain open-minded and derive new ideas and possibilities to challenge the status quo. The information processed helps identify unmet needs or potential gaps in the product or service offering, commonly known as the business problem.

Business problems are inefficiencies in existing processes, shifts in consumer tastes/demand, and/or disruptive technologies directly impacting a good or service in the market. The entrepreneurial approach to solving business problems replaces traditional thinking by unleashing and allowing the mind to brainstorm and engage strategically and imagining a unique and differentiating approach that challenges the status quo. The primary goal is to establish a radically new set of plausible conditions through unconventional ideation.

Critical thinking enables entrepreneurs to examine angles and brainstorm unique and innovative ideas through a boundary-less prism. The approach should not apply a set of rules or barriers but look at the problem in an unconventional manner that exploits consumer satisfaction effectively. The fundamental rule in creating the next big thing is that it must demonstrate measurable value to the stakeholders and a desire to seek it.

Opportunity recognition is not the only pillar of an entrepreneurial mindset but enhances the entrepreneur’s ability to remain alert and seize opportunities in the market when they surface. Recognition is often built upon other ideas and is not meant to replace something but is augmented to provide a more complete and fulfilled experience for the consumer and stakeholders. An entrepreneurial mindset harvests and ideates through observation to generate opportunities. The goal is to meticulously craft and devise mind experiments that can enlighten the customer experience through innovation while at the same time setting loose the entrepreneurial mindset to thrive. ?