What’s in it for me? Uncover the secrets of successful entrepreneurship.
Get good grades, chase a university degree, and climb the corporate ladder toward comfortable retirement.
This is the standard life path that still dominates modern society.
But in the face of technological progress, the way we live and work is completely shifting, making it easier to start a business today than at any other point in history.
And yet, although entrepreneurship is becoming a more mainstream avenue, the path isn’t necessarily for everyone.
Indeed, making the transition from a predictable paycheck to greater precarity requires more than just business savvy – it requires a fundamental change of mindset.
Whether or not you ultimately want to start a business, developing the mental characteristics of an entrepreneur offers you the best chance of leading a fulfilling life in the rapidly-evolving twenty-first century.
In these blinks, you’ll learn how monetary incentives can actually harm motivation; why the modern suitcase was only invented five millennia after the dawn of the wheel; and why a hedge fund regularly holds meetings for negative criticism.
Learning to adapt to change is fundamental to success in our modern world.
Imagine that just ten years ago someone had told you that you’d be able to press a button on your phone and, within minutes, a car would roll up just for you.
Not only that but that you could pay for the service without any physical exchange and arrive at your exact destination without uttering a word about it.
You probably wouldn’t have believed them.
Of course, today, car-sharing apps like Uber might not seem like such a miracle.
In fact, they have become so common over the last decade that these days, you might even complain if your ride is a few minutes late!
This disparity goes to show just how quickly technology is transforming our sociocultural norms.
And it’s happening at a rate that’s only set to speed up, according to a concept known as Moore’s law.
The key message here is: Learning to adapt to change is fundamental to success in our modern world.
Moore’s law observes that ever since the 1960s, computing power has been doubling every 18 to 24 months.
To visualize the impact of such exponential growth, imagine that you walked one meter forward and then doubled the distance every day for 30 days.
You’d start off taking small steps but, by the end of the 30th day, you would have walked one billion and seventy-three million meters.
In the same way, ideas like immersive virtual reality, self-driving cars, and commercial spacecraft are edging more rapidly from science fiction to science fact.
At the same time, the exponential growth of computer technologies is disrupting traditional business models and supply chain costs.
And not only is it leading to the automation of human jobs, it also seems to be creating a more miserable workforce.
Most large organizations today are plagued by cultures that are ill-suited for the fast-changing pace of the world.
Corporate employees tend to be burdened with outdated cultures of overplanning, unnecessary meetings, office politics, and budget blowouts.
So it comes as no surprise that the majority of salaried workers in western economies from the US to Australia report dissatisfaction with their jobs.
Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are well-positioned to thrive in response to these ongoing economic and social shifts.
It’s also no coincidence that since 2014, the freelance economy in the US has been growing three times faster than the rest of the job economy.
Meanwhile, global venture capital funding jumped 50 percent in 2017 alone.
Learning to adapt to change is fundamental to entrepreneurship, but it’s also a necessary characteristic if you want to thrive in a world that will continue moving at an unprecedented pace.
Let’s look more closely at the entrepreneurial mindset in the next blinks.
Have you ever tried to learn a new skill and decided it just wasn’t for you?
Embracing failure and discomfort is the main vehicle for growth.
Maybe you resolved to pick up a guitar but didn’t get further than a couple of chords before you shelved it back into the closet to collect dust.
Or maybe you hit a wall while learning a new language, so you concluded that you just weren’t a language person.
If you’ve ever resigned yourself to thinking, This isn’t for me, or I’m just not cut out for it, you’re guilty of having a fixed mindset.
The key message here is: Embracing failure and discomfort is the main vehicle for growth.
Psychologist Carol Dweck believes that there are two kinds of mindsets: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.
A fixed mindset presumes that you are born with a certain level of intelligence and creative ability which determines how successful you can be in the course of your life.
On the other hand, a growth mindset views all characteristics as adaptable, and all failure as a form of feedback that propels personal growth.
To succeed at anything new, whether it’s learning a language or establishing your first enterprise, having a growth mindset is absolutely crucial.
This is because learning any new skill inevitably involves experiencing some level of discomfort and blows to your ego.
You might have to practice the same chord 70 times before you get it right – and your frustration will likely mount along the way.
But if you can’t trust that it’s a natural part of the learning process despite the discomfort, then you’re not likely to stay the course.
To endure such a challenge, your belief in yourself needs to come from something other than external validation.
In fact, going as far as to create an environment that fosters negative criticism can be a powerful tool for both personal and business development.
Take hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, which has set up regular meetings known as challenge networks to foster criticism in the workplace.
The idea is that by facing up to negative feedback that is also constructive, you can wake up to whatever could be holding you back.
Like transforming company culture, forming a mindset that embraces failure takes practice.
But it’s also crucial because the entrepreneurial journey is a marathon, not a sprint.
In the end, while mindset is paramount, you ultimately need a driving purpose to get you through the race.
Understand your motives before you embark on your entrepreneurial journey.
Let’s say you go out to dinner with a friend and pledge to skip dessert.
But when the time comes, the sight of your friend’s glistening slice of chocolate cake gets your mouth watering.
You’re about to call back the waiter when you remember that recent warning from your doctor about your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
Even though you’re pining for that slice, you resist, and for a good reason.
Here’s the key message: Understand your motives before you embark on your entrepreneurial journey.
Enduring a difficult challenge is easier when you’re driven by a clear purpose, in life as well as in business.
In the 1970s, psychologist Edward Deci ran an experiment that showed how students that were paid to participate were actually less interested in working on solving given problems than those who hadn’t been given any monetary incentive.
Not only is intrinsic motivation a powerful performance enhancer, it’s also what provides that essential anchor point when times get tough.
Indeed, most entrepreneurs pass through what is known as the trough of despair, or temporary periods of loneliness and disillusionment.
It’s only when you believe in what you do that you can endure the lows without becoming overwhelmed with self-doubt.
But to clarify your purpose, you have to be honest about why you want to embark on the entrepreneurial journey in the first place.
Don’t just think of the immediate consequences of leaving your current job and the possibilities it might entail.
Ask yourself if you really need to quit your job – perhaps you’d be satisfied with a freelance side hustle rather than going all in?
To get to the root of your real motives, try the author’s five Fs method.
This is an exercise you can do every few months to take an inventory of your life in a measurable way.
Grab some Post-it notes and jot down the five Fs: freedom, financial independence, fulfillment, fitness, and friends and family.
Next, objectively rate yourself out of ten across each of these aspects.
By putting a number on each area of your life, you can assess whether or not it’s time to make a bold move.
It’s possible that when you’ve reflected on your situation, you’ll realize that it’s not really all that bad.
But if you find yourself lacking in three or more of these five areas, then you’ve got a clear motive to make a big change.
Collecting and connecting ideas form the foundation of entrepreneurship.
Here’s a thought experiment: imagine you have a skateboard, a bicycle, and a motorbike.
Now, deconstruct each object into its essential parts.
The skateboard is made up of a deck, wheels, and trucks.
The bicycle has handlebars, a seat, spokes, and a chain.
The motorbike has an engine, oil tank, clutch, and brakes.
Now, think about how you might combine these individual parts to build a new object.
For example, you could perhaps build a jet ski by combining the skateboard’s deck, the bicycle’s seat, and the motorbike’s tank and engine.
This process of deconstruction and reconstruction is known as first principles thinking, and it’s a tool used by some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
The key message here is: Collecting and connecting ideas form the foundation of entrepreneurship.
First principles thinking helps to transform existing ideas into innovative propositions, rather than just incrementally improving the form of existing services and products.
While it sounds simple in theory, in practice it’s a different story.
A classic example to demonstrate the challenge of first-principles thinking can be found in the modern suitcase.
Even though messenger bags and wheeled wagons date back to Ancient Rome, no one thought of combining the two until 1970, when Bernard Sadow observed an airport worker hauling a heavy piece of machinery on a wheeled platform.
And like that, five millennia after the invention of the wheel, the first piece of wheeled luggage was invented.
Most successful entrepreneurs connect the dots between observations they make in real life to come up with new ideas.
But before you connect your dots, you need to collect them.
The best way to do this is to put around two to four hours aside each week for learning.
Curate useful content and actively schedule time to consume it, whether it’s during your morning commute or while you’re at the gym.
Never underestimate your intuitive ability to take in information when you read books or listen to podcasts.
Collecting dots is what provides you with the sources from which you can draw inspiration, in order to find your entrepreneurial purpose.
The more dots you collect, the more opportunities you will identify to solve problems in the world.
And ultimately, enriching your understanding of the world will help you to connect the dots.
Let’s say you have your lightbulb moment when you realize that you wish you had more time to shop for fresh produce.
Always test your proposition before you carry out your idea.
Spotting an opportunity, you decide to launch a fruit box subscription service.
You assume your friends will sign up and get a buzz going, but you decide not to tell anyone until you figure out all the ins and outs.
So you waste no time and invest all your savings into bringing your start-up to life.
You partner with a wholesaler, hire a software developer, build the app.
Fast-forward to launch day: you’re surprised at the lack of downloads.
What went wrong?
Well, it turns out that, actually, most of your friends would rather continue to buy fruit at the supermarket if given the option.
The key message here is: Always test your proposition before you carry out your idea.
It’s never a good idea to go all in on your first attempt and yet, jumping to conclusions is one of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make.
An equally common pitfall is keeping your idea too close to your heart before sharing it with anyone, or what’s known as paralysis analysis.
As a result of these flawed habits, almost half of all start-ups fail in the market.
Luckily, there are low-cost strategies for avoiding both jumping to conclusions and paralysis analysis.
The key is to test your idea on your customer segment first and foremost.
After all, how can you know if your idea will work unless you know that your customers really want it?
When testing your idea, prioritize which assumptions you test based on their risk level, also known as identifying your make-or-break assumption.
In other words, stay focused on the assumptions that are most critical to your business.
For example, Uber founders Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp made a couple of low-risk assumptions about their platform connecting drivers with riders: most people have smartphones and are happy to pay with them.
What they couldn’t reliably assume is that people would willingly jump into the back of a stranger’s car.
Without first surveying customers about this fundamental trust factor, Uber might have never become a market success.
To get to know your customers’ motives, engage them.
Make sure to use open-ended questions – like why?
– to uncover the deeper meaning behind their wants and needs.
This is what will help you focus on what you don’t know, so you can objectively understand the value of your proposition.
Your time is precious. Limit your focus and eliminate distractions.
Every day, we’re tasked with making decisions.
Some might seem minor, like whether or not to floss.
But poor decisions repeated over a long time can have a catastrophic impact.
If you think of each day you don’t floss as a step closer to tooth decay, it’s easier to see the value in what might seem like a trivial activity.
Similarly, checking your email every 15 minutes might seem inconsequential in the moment.
But when you do that daily, it adds up.
Consider that the average person touches their phone 2617 times every day.
When you also consider that it takes 5 to 45 minutes to get back into the zone, it’s clear that reckless screen-time habits eat up precious time.
The key message here is: Your time is precious.
Limit your focus and eliminate distractions.
Reflect on how much time you spend reacting to push notifications about the latest email or headline.
Check your screen-time stats.
If you’re on your phone for three hours per day, set a goal to reduce that figure to 60 minutes.
Next, adapt your environment to match your goals: turn off notifications while you work and pre-schedule three slots per day for checking email.
The same goes for business, where every day you have to choose which tasks you donate your time and energy to.
The question is, how do you determine which task is worthy?
Administrative processes like generating reports or maintaining web presence are crucial for business, but are they also taking up all your time?
It might seem like you’re just spending two hours on tasks that generate $10 per hour while focusing on $50-an-hour tasks for the rest of the day.
But over a year, these accumulate into a considerable loss.
To stay focused, consider outsourcing tasks that don’t generate much value.
If an automated service can produce the same reports for $10 a month, it’s logical to opt for it.
For jobs that require human attention, consider hiring a virtual assistant for $10 per hour from recruitment websites such as Fiverr or Upwork.
Of course, you have to evaluate individual skills and invest in training.
But making the hire will allow you to focus your energy on activities that add value.
Ultimately, limiting your focus allows you to maximize your productivity without burning out.
After all, if you want to be an entrepreneur and live a fulfilling life, you’ve got to learn how to work smarter, not longer.
Final summary
The key message in these blinks: Making the transition from being an employee to an entrepreneur can be intimidating.
While it’s not the right path for everyone, adopting the mindset of an entrepreneur will ultimately help you derive purpose from your work and life.
Learning to think like an entrepreneur will encourage you to embrace uncertainty, exploration, and failure as tools for personal growth.
To endure the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial journey – and enjoy the ride – it’s crucial to adopt strategies for working more efficiently, instead of just more.
Actionable advice: Reflect before you react.
For the next 21 days, any time a negative emotion crops up – like anger or frustration – stop yourself from reacting and consciously reflect on how you will respond.
Like a muscle-building exercise, the more you practice not reacting to your emotions, the more of a choice you will have in how you interpret and respond to external triggers.
As you get better at making the right decisions, the benefits will become evident both in business and in life.
Got feedback?
We’d love to hear what you think about our content!
Just drop an email to remember@blinkist.
com with Employee to Entrepreneur as the subject line and share your thoughts!
What to read next: How I Built This, by Guy Raz You’ve just learned how to make the transition from employee to entrepreneur.
But how have others gone about embracing the entrepreneurial spirit?
Luckily, in our blinks to How I Built This, you’ll have the chance to hear the life stories of successful entrepreneurs and how they built their paths to success.
Along the way, you’ll learn what the entrepreneurial journey looks like in practice.
You’ll also see how start-up founders transformed their own lives – and the world – by executing their ideas, all while struggling against various trials and tribulations that stood in their way.