Having got a taste for it in my last article, I wish to be even more philosophically in this one, and, as such, I not only want to explore what it means to have an “entrepreneurial mindset” but also cover why I think it has the potential to save anyone’s life! Big claim!-but please bear with me.
The point at which we “come of age” varies in different countries and cultures. For Jewish people, for instance, males and females come of age at 13 and have a celebratory bar/bat mitzvah. Girls at 16 are regarded as having reached “womanhood” in many western cultures (based on 18th and 19th century ideas in England and France about being a debutante in society). And both 18 and 21 are both used as formal “coming of age” milestones (even legally) all over the world for suggesting individuals have reached full adulthood and now have considerably more freedoms (to vote, drink alcohol, drive cars etc.). Less formally, many use “out of college” as a proxy for full adult maturity (making individuals more likely to be 21 or 22) or in some cases “when married” is when a person is “mature enough” (in the US these days that average age is rapidly approaching 28 for women and 30 for men).
The point here is that at some given point, society will recognize a shift in which an individual is now largely responsible for his or her own choices and not those of their older parents, teachers or other influencers, and can now make decisions on their own as they wish. However, this does not mean that people feel totally “free to choose”. Most of us know that there are both external and internal constraints on our options that we have to navigate and recognize that our freedom to choose is also shared by other adults that have “come of age”, which in turn may have an impact on us. The author Steven Covey expresses this relative freedom nicely in his “circle of influence” and “circle of concern” model, shown in the diagram below.
This diagram shows two forces. A “circle of influence” or our felt freedom to make decisions and change the things around us (such as our freedom of speech/or saying what we like to whom we like) and a “circle of concern” or our perceived notions of what constrains us (in tangible or physical terms –such as the laws of gravity for instance, or in terms of other forces in society-such as the control that others may exert on us-real or perceived).
When we are young, our diagram for these two circles often looks the diagram on the left above, or put simply our perceived influence on the world (at least potentially) is high. This may be hopeful or naïve but in this almost idealistic state of mind many people are likely to take more risks and push through more strongly when life’s obstacles occur. As individuals grow older however, many people will start to experience their ‘circle of influence’ not being quite a strong as they thought (they experience many of life’s normal difficulties and perhaps the ego of a few others and this quickly creates a more “pragmatic” state of mind). Perhaps, even more significantly, the ‘circle of concern’ or perception of the type and quantity of constraints seem to get greater, thereby pressing in on us. In some cases this becomes so much that some people can feel that much of their life is constrained and their relative freedoms few and far between. This may arise for a whole range of mundane reasons such as not being able to get promoted at work, being committed to a 30 year mortgage on a property or having to give up enjoyable personal pastimes in order to become the kids free “taxi-ride”. Taken to extremes, this increasingly more constrained feeling or mindset can become overwhelming and resignation, frustration and even depression can set in for some.
So what’s the anti-dote here (hint: this is where the entrepreneurial mindset finally come in)!
If you re-characterize what is going on for most people as they live their lives, experience of the world simply becomes deeper and more widespread and naivety about how much things can change through personal effort diminishes. We progressively start to look at goals, ambitions and projects as needing series of tasks to be coordinated that will inevitably face problems and obstacles from time to time-some small and some large. When small and simple we may have the capacity and wherewithal to solve the problem (and may even get help to do so). However, when tasks are large or complex, we may not be able to solve the problem we are facing, even with help, and disappointment may result. My simple response to this situation is that developing an entrepreneurial mindset and learning a few entrepreneurial skills, ideally as early as possible in your life, can mean that you can solve many more of life’s problem and further mean that a person’s overall feeling of success or “thriving” in the world may be much greater-and as I said at the top it might even save your life. So, how does this work in practice?
An entrepreneurial mindset is one in which an individual maintains an optimistic overall attitude to every single day when they wake up and adopts an approach or perspective is often called “open” or “fresh”. In fact, Chip Conley, in his recent book, calls this “adopting a beginner’s mindset”, especially as we get older and more set in our ways, in which we ask as many direct questions as possible, not worrying at all about whether we appear intelligent in the asking of them-much as a child would. What this entails in practice is that obstacles are not seen as roadblocks and difficulties but more as challenges and opportunities for new thinking and actions to take place.
This re-wiring of the mind makes a huge amount of difference, because the individual can then apply an entrepreneur’s approach which is step-wise form goes something like this in terms of the kind of question typically asked:
1. What is this obstacle/barrier, why or how has it occurred at a general level (and when where relevant) and in what context?
2. Who is impacted by this obstacle and barrier and in what way (and is the experience of what is happening the same for people)?
3. What are the underlying particular causes of this obstacle/barrier?
4. Who profits from this obstacle/barrier (and how/why)?
5. How can we re-contextualize what is happening as it relates to this obstacle/barrier and think about ways in which it might change/lessen its impact under new or different circumstances?
6. Where have similar obstacles/barriers come up before in different situations and what was done there to lessen or eliminate the impact?
7. What opportunities does this obstacle open up in general?
8. What new people to meet does this obstacle/barrier offer me?
9. What can I personally learn from this issue/obstacle/barrier?
10. What are the gains/rewards for overcoming this obstacle/barrier?
What all these questions boil down to is what author Richard Thaler in his book “Nudge” calls becoming more of a “choice architect” or a person who asks the question “How can I dig into the data with a new set of eyes and think creativity or in lateral ways?” (and in so doing we nudge ourselves and others into new directions in our thinking).
And if we can do this for work-related problems, it’s a short step to personal ones too. As a result, whenever we are facing challenges in our life, rather than to be quickly defeated by the task ahead, these questions will help to open up new possibilities, and with regular practice, may mean that our whole life (especially when we have 'come of age' whenever that may be) runs a little smoother than it otherwise might, as we jump through one hurdle after another with aplomb. Now that’s surely worth shooting for?
