Think like an inventor, Act like an entrepreneur

5 Mindset Hacks for Entrepreneurial success and longevity

A mindset is the defining framework and context in which behavior happens. It is the operating system on which behavior applications run. A mindset operating on liming beliefs cannot produce great conquests because the behavior cannot rise above the mindset. So to experience a different behaviour outcome, change must first occur in the mindset. T. Sibanda

Often times in my daily work of teaching, coaching and inspiring in the business world of entrepreneurship, I often get asked questions like – What’s the key to success and longevity in business? Why do others make it and others fail? In South Africa today, a business is considered viable if it survives its first 3 years in operation. I have put together some 5 key thoughts on what it takes to succeed and be around for long. The journey is more inward than outward.

1.  Experience your entrepreneurial Metanoia.

It’s a mindset hack. Entrepreneurship is not an activity; it’s a paradigm, a mindset. You have to break free from boxed thinking and jump on the entrepreneurial wagon. It’s like shifting paradigms from being an investment banker to an entrepreneur. You see, an investment banker is actually the exact opposite of an entrepreneur. He's not taking risks himself — he is simply taking advantage of risks that other people take. He is a specialist at working within certain boundaries to protect investment and manage risk. To get going as an entrepreneur, you have to totally mind shift from working within boundaries and jump into the land of creating and taking risks. It’s a total liberation! Without that Metanoia, you will always be restricted to playing it safe. I call this freedom a mindset hack because we have been cultured to a ‘play it safe’ mindset. Our road signs scream “exercise great caution” and our songs implore us to be better safe than sorry. Everything in our conscious thinking box speaks of fearing and respecting boundaries. These in turn stand out as repulsive fences to keep us in and not beacons of invitation to launch us out. To break free and discover the amazing vistas and valleys of discovery and success, there has to be a mindset hack that liberates one to actually think and act outside the box. It’s not about open mindedness; it’s about installing a new operating system.

2.  Follow your curiosity. We have been subconsciously paralysed by the saying” curiosity killed the cat” - who actually saw the cat dying? That saying has frozen us in time and space since childhood by maiming our ability to innovate and improve things. Every household has memories of a screaming mother” Don’t touch that! Remember curiosity killed the cat!” Curiosity is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning. It denotes a strong desire to know or learn something. Following your curiosity is the key to invention and entrepreneurship. All amazing inventors like Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Fritz Sennheiser et al, and stand out entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg among others, are shakers who followed their curiosity. In simple terms, following your curiosity is the art of asking the right questions. Is there another approach to this? How can I make this better? If I take a look at it from the other side, what do I see? What will still be relevant in the next 10,20,30 years? How can I better meet my customer’s needs? How can I solve this challenge? If Edison & Bell, et al, Bezos and his contemporaries had not asked those kinds of questions and followed curiosity even in adversity, Great innovations like the light bulb, electricity as well as amazing companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple would have remained abstract ideas that never saw the light of day. Your curiosity is key to your longevity.

3.  Innovate on your customers, reflect on your competitors.

The hack principle is simply this: pay more attention to your customers than your competitors. It’s the foundational mindset of a long-term relationship. Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of shifting their radars from keeping their customers engaged and happy to keeping their competitors on their toes. That shift of focus can be career limiting. The real game changer in business is an engaged and loyal customer. That’s where revenue ultimately comes from. Remember as Jeff Bezos said, “your competitors will never send you any money”. Continuous winning means being able to anticipate the customer’s needs and evolve forward with them rather than obsess over your competition. Always look forward to your customer, that’s why a windscreen is 95% bigger than the rearview mirror. After all, it’s very possible for competition to be on a tangent themselves, meaning you could find your self-playing catch up in a lost cause scavenger hunt.

Reflect on your competition while innovating on your customers. Find new ways to delight them, entice them, and engage them. Let them consume your boardroom meetings and production floors. And when competition gets tough- double down on your customers- re court them and delight them! As long as your attention is on your customers, you wont have nothing much to worry about. After all, behavioural science is on your side, humans are both emotional and change adverse. Once they like, trust and prefer you, they will stay with you.

4.  Have a human face.

This mindset hack principle is easy to miss especially with the lightning speed of advancement in this 4th industrial revolution we find ourselves in. Its disruption and fusion where AI, robotics and quantum computing are changing the entire innovation landscape and the way business is conducted today. In the middle of all this, you have to care more about the customer than the bottom line. Remember people connect to humanity more than innovation. It’s the humanity thought behind the innovation that makes it special and creates those exclusive “wow you thought of me” moments for your target market. Always make it easier for your customer to say - “Wow you thought of me” That’s why the greatest customer loyalty is to those companies and products that create those special “wow you thought of me” moments for their customer. Air BNB created that moment with their product value proposition, which says I can find a space to sleep in someone’s home.

This has that special moment because we all loved that image of a relative arriving with our favorite cousins on a short school break visit. Checking into someone else’s home for a night or two at a great price has that feeling of home away from home and says, “wow thanks, you thought of me”. Cut and packaged vegetables that are stove/oven ready also say to working moms and meal preparers in high demand environments- ‘we thought of you’. The human face to your business becomes your emotional connection point to your customer- It’s emotional and that’s powerful stuff. Remember- it’s always harder to be kind than clever. Have a human face.

5.  Go Box shopping

As an entrepreneur you have to understand the dynamics of box thinking, it has three defining phases. Phase 1 of your entrepreneurial career is spent outside the Box, Developing an individual style and value proposition – that’s the one that gets you noticed and going. The second phase is where a larger part of your career is spent inside other people’s boxes making their dreams come true. The third phase is where you get disillusioned with the status core and decide to find and start something entirely new with your vision and risk – That’s new box shopping. Dan and Chip Heath – best selling authors of Made to stick said – “Don’t think outside the box. Go box shopping. Search until you find one that catalyses your thinking”. – A good box is like a lane marker on the highway, It’s a constraint that liberates. The inability to transition from the ego dominated first stage outside the box to the ego submerged second stage, then to a total break free where you rediscover your creative juices outside boundaries is what keeps us constrained, frustrated and ultimately self- sabotaging. Its time to wear a different hat and take that inward voyage – consider what will still be relevant for the coming generations that can add value to life. Focus on that and have fun achieving it. Remember in the next 20 years, you will be more frustrated by the risks you did not take more than the ones you did. To discover the oceans, you must have the courage to lose sight of the shores. It’s definitely a mindset hack.