One of my clients recently decided that it was time re-invent both herself and her business. She realised that she had fallen into the ‘ME-TOO’ trap, not only that she was quietly bored with what she was doing, she found that her business was essentially just as ‘ME-TOO’ as all the others in her market niche. So knowing that all change begins from within, one of first of the many things that she did was to pickup and engross herself in a new book, ‘Mindsets’ by Carol Dweck. Carol Dweck, describes a mindset as “the view you adopt for yourself” and goes on to describe how profoundly this affects people’s lives, especially around how they perceive opportunities, learning and failure.
Mindsets are a key part of our personalities that are based on our belief systems.
The most important point that she makes is that they can be changed! She goes on to describe two prevailing key mindsets:
- The fixed mindset: this is judgment based with a constant need to evaluate everything. People believe that their abilities and intelligence are set in stone. That they have an innate set of talents that they need to repeatedly prove, and perceive failures or setbacks as a threat to their sense of self worth or identity. People tend to seek validation and externalise their power, often in denial and justification that the world needs to change, not them. This mindset inhibits entrepreneurship and innovation because it blinds people to possibilities, options and choices, therefore to opportunities to create value that may exist. They have a deterministic view of the world.
- The growth mindset: this is monitoring based and attuned to the implications for learning and constructive action. People believe that intelligence and abilities can be developed through their own efforts, and tend to view failures as opportunities for growth. They have a desire to constantly challenge and stretch themselves and will internalise their power. If something isn’t working, it’s up to them to change; they realise the value of challenging themselves and the importance of effort.This mindset supports entrepreneurship and innovation because it opens people to possibilities, which enables them to become resilient in the face of setbacks, and will make the efforts necessary to pursue greater and creative success as an entrepreneur. They have a great sense of free will and achievement focus.
Research shows that both the Entrepreneur and Innovator Mindsets starts with a growth mindset, but they are also consumer centric and oriented towards creating value.
An entrepreneur and an innovator both want (or perhaps even need) to grow; they want to provide value by creating solutions for things consumers need, as well as creating new value by providing useful things consumers didn’t even know they wanted. This also sets the context for successful entrepreneurship: those who have a growth mindset to ‘see’ the opportunity, take positive actions, intelligent risks and are perseverant and resilient in the face of adversity, failure and challenge. So, if you stop for a moment and reflect, which is what my client did to explore, what you can do to re-invent your business or yourself as an entrepreneur by evolving your Growth Mindset?
- To learn more from the possibilities and opportunities the range of recent challenges and failures present you?
- To further develop your levels of persistence, resilience and determination to succeed?
- To think more creatively ‘outside of the box’ and take more calculated bold and intelligent risks?
