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How to Wire & Condition Yourself for Entrepreneurship A lot about entrepreneurship is diving into a deep sea and not really knowing what is going to happen next

By Jonathan Michael

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Entrepreneurship is 80% psychology and 20% skill. You are an Entrepreneur way before you become an entrepreneur. What I mean by that is that some people are just wired for Entrepreneurship and some are not. It takes a certain type of mindset and thinking-process to function like an Entrepreneur.

A lot about entrepreneurship is diving into a deep sea and not really knowing what is going to happen next. That being said, it is essential to learn how to condition yourself and to effectively handle the challenges of entrepreneurship -- mentally, spiritually, emotionally & physically.

What do you do when an employee you so heavily depended on quits? What do you do when the client who you were supposed to close that deal with fails to come through? And your next month's payroll depended on it. What do you do when your business partner is unable to function at a 100%? What do you do when clients start choosing the competition over you? A lot of these are all negative situations. But this is precisely what realistic entrepreneurship looks like. It involves converting these negative situations into a positive outcome.

This is exactly what entrepreneurs do. As Tony Robbins says, "Great leaders know how to bring the certainty into their uncertainty." But how do you get to this level of being able to convert the negative into the positive? This is what the essence of this article is about.

I want to share a few thoughts about how entrepreneurs wire themselves for success. As humans, we are always prone to take the easy way out. Our mind is constantly working to help us get what we want faster and through the easiest way it knows how to. So, we are naturally prone to avoid grit, endurance, and habit.

Entrepreneurship, however, involves endurance, habit, perseverance, emotional intelligence and lastly skill. These are the best 5 words I could have come up with to describe the skill requirements for Entrepreneurship.

Here are some ways to start developing an entrepreneurial attitude and conditioning yourself for entrepreneurship:

1. Strengthening the Mind: Entrepreneurs are constantly looking to grow and become better individuals. They know the value of developing a healthy mind with good thought patterns. You need to know how to feed your mind and enable it to grow by reading great books, attending business seminars, watching videos that can inspire you and educate you about this amazing global startup ecosystem that we are living in. It's a great time to start-up and be your own boss.

Exploring the entrepreneurial endeavors of people from around the world can be quite inspiring to fire up the entrepreneur inside you.

Your mind has to be renewed each day - you cannot afford to think like the 95% of the World. To condition yourself for true Entrepreneurship you have to get around successful people and find out what they are feeding their minds with.

All actions flow from our thoughts and therefore for an Entrepreneur to develop an appetite for strategic and bold action they have to strengthen their mind and develop a capacity for knowledge that has the power to start and grow a successful business.

2) Obsessive Dreaming: By constantly dreaming about your business and envisioning what your business could look like even before starting one you can position yourself to actually start it! People who dream big have a unique combination of brain chemistry that allows them to dream unrealistically combined with an ability to take a risk along with the different action steps needed to achieve their dream. If you lack the ability to dream big and yet find yourself wanting to pursue Entrepreneurship ask yourself why you really want to do it.

Entrepreneurship almost demands unrealistic dreaming. Many people around you may call you foolish but I think you should tell them what Steve Jobs said, "Those people who are foolish enough to think that they can change the World are the ones that actually do". Develop a sense and an attitude of dreaming big for your business idea so that your internal wiring knows you're in for the long-term in order to achieve this dream.

Now dreaming big does not only include the fancy estate or the yacht. No, it includes dreaming big for your employees and their families, it includes dreaming about your customers and how your products and services are going to change their lives. This is real impact. It is imperative that you develop an "others" mentality to condition yourself. What this means is seeking out the interests of your clients, investors and employees above your own.

3) Internal Governance: What this means is knowing how to govern your internal discussions. Before you make any kind of decision the final person you consult with is yourself! We are always having internal discussions before doing anything and often times we need to understand the way we internalize these discussions and figure out how we can have the best level of internal governance before making any kind of decision to speak or act. I think prayer and meditation is an excellent tool to help you develop a healthy pattern of thought. Prayer and meditation allows you to calm yourself and brings you to a place of wisdom and understanding which is invaluable for decision makers.

If you see yourself having toxic internal conversations which are negative and unhealthy it's probably time to go through a spiritual detox and re-wire your internal thinking processes for better decision-making.

An entrepreneur is an optimist. Period. Optimism is an essential element to condition yourself for great success. An entrepreneur cannot have any tolerance for negativity or passive thinking.

Jonathan Michael

Founder, JM School

Jonathan runs a fashion school in downtown Bangalore which I founded along with my partner in October of 2014. We are trying to disrupt traditional teaching methodologies with a more practical approach to learning. He writes on Leadership and Entrepreneurship for a startup magazine based out of Vienna, Austria.

 

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