I want to share three core principles that I've picked up over over 20 plus years of being an entrepreneur. These ideas are tightly integrated into being an entrepreneur, but they're also just practical life principles that can apply to almost anything you might want to pursue.
So whether you want to become an entrepreneur, whether you know somebody else that may want to become an entrepreneur, maybe you or someone you know wants to raise kids with an entrepreneurial mindset, whatever the situation may be, I highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with each of these ideas, not just the idea itself because odds are you've probably heard of one or more of these things before.
But what I want to focus on most in this article is why these ideas are so compelling so that you can get the maximum benefit from them. Let's start with principle number one, have a bias towards action. In almost any situation you might find yourself in, no matter what you're trying to pursue, you generally have two options. You can either take immediate action, or you can delay.
«Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.» The reality is whatever it is that you're trying to pursue, whether it's a new career, a new business, some other ambitious project, you are going to take shots. You're going to face failures. You're going to face rejections. You're going to face unforeseen challenges, things you could have never anticipated in the first place.
The only way you face these things and learn to overcome them is by getting in the game as quickly as possible. Have a bias towards taking action instead of sitting on the sidelines trying to come up with the perfect plan. Let's move on to principle number two, embrace complex challenges. There's this weird dichotomy when it comes to taking on challenges or obstacles.
On the one hand, when we first face a tough challenge, it can be overwhelming, stressful, and frustrating. If you think about the evolutionary pressures that have been on us over the decades, if you go back, let's say 30,000 years, and let's pretend, for example, that there is one kind person who finds it relatively easy to be content in life. They're always interested in the next difficult task that they can pursue. They're looking for the next obstacle, the next challenge, the next opportunity. I want to make that super clear.
So we need to embrace this idea, and instead of seeing obstacles or challenges as necessary evils between us and what we want, there's this paradigm shift when we realize, let's say we're here, and what we want is over here. We want to shift this mindset to recognize that the obstacle is the real reward. This is what makes life interesting. The absolute satisfaction in life is overcoming the barrier, not getting the trophy at the end.
It's the obstacle itself. And so this is why, in my opinion, when people win the lottery, or they get something unearned or undeserved, or they got given wealth, or they got given a house, whatever it might be, they do not typically have the satisfaction that comes from genuinely earning it because the journey, going through the obstacles, overcoming the challenges, that is the real reward in life. They're a source of satisfaction, however fleeting that happiness may be. Suppose you want to learn more about this idea and dive into this and get fired up about this idea. In that case, I highly recommend that you read «The Obstacle Is the Way» by Ryan Holiday, a fantastic book that dives into these ideas in much more detail and kinda takes things in a different direction.
But I think you would enjoy this book if you enjoy this principle at all. But let's move on to principle number three, maintain a growth mindset. As we grow older, as we gain more experience in the world, we tend to develop a fixed mindset regarding specific skills or particular abilities. And what I mean by a fixed mindset is we stop trying to improve.
We decide that where we're at today is where we'll always be when it comes to that specific area of life. What typically tends to happen is we just simply focus on our strengths, focus on things that we find that we're already good at, we put more time and energy into those things, so we continue to improve. And then there's this other category of things in our life that are just uncomfortable; we've never really felt good at them. We're not good at them. We're never going to be good at them, and where we're at today is where we will always be when it comes to those skills or those abilities.
So this is a fixed mindset. This is something I've personally experienced in my own life in a big way. I don't have many regrets in life. I don't reflect much on the past in terms of things that went well or poorly because life adds up however it does, and there's good, and there's the bad.
But the closest thing that I have to regret is not understanding this principle much earlier in life because, for me, going back about 15 or 20 years, I put myself in a box. I'm never going to be good in front of the camera. That's not for me. I love sitting down one-on-one with people and talking about ideas, talking about books and that sort of thing. I had a fixed mindset when it came to these skills when it came to public speaking when presenting on camera.
I'm going to make a lot of mistakes along the way. And simply avoiding having these self-limiting beliefs where you feel you can't learn, you can't grow, and you can't adapt within specific areas. I would suggest to you that you almost certainly have places where you're both in a growth mindset and where you're in a fixed mood. There are almost certainly areas, be it sports, business or work, whatever it might be, where you know that if you continue to practice, you can improve and develop skills and abilities.
But I would also suggest there are almost certainly areas in your life right now where without giving it much thought, you've fallen into a fixed mindset, and you've just given up on really being able to pursue those skills, and so you've just avoided them. And so, what I would recommend to you is to be aware of this concept, recognize it, and focus on developing a growth mindset, especially if it's essential to you and would give you more purpose and more satisfaction in life. If you wanna learn more about this idea, I highly recommend that you read «Mindset» by Carol S. This is the book when it comes to this idea of maintaining, developing a growth mindset. Right out of the womb, kids have a growth mindset around most things in life.
But they can have negative experiences; they can get negative feedback, misinterpret specific comments, and start developing a fixed mindset in certain areas. So this is a fantastic book, both for yourself if you have a fixed mindset around certain things and share with other people. One of my favorite books about the psychology of success; I recommend that you read this book if you're interested in pursuing this principle further. But let me quickly recap all three directions, and then I'll dive into some context on you might want to apply these moving forward.
So principle number one, have a bias towards action. Principle number two, embrace complex challenges. And principle number three, maintain a growth mindset. Now, it's essential to understand these are not things that you either have or don't have.
I would make the argument that you almost certainly have areas in your life in which you abide by these principles without even giving it much thought. And there are probably other areas in your life where you take the dark side of these principles. So, for example, maybe you have a bias towards procrastination, or you don't embrace complex challenges, avoid difficult challenges, or perhaps maintain a fixed mindset. So there's a dark side to each of these principles, and I think each of us applies these principles differently in different areas of our lives.
So more than anything, as far as this article is concerned, as far as the message here is concerned, it's essential to recognize these traits, understand their value, and look for ways to make better use of them. Simply being aware of these principles puts you at a massive advantage because you can choose to bias towards action. You can choose to embrace complex challenges. And you can choose to maintain a growth mindset.
But it all starts with simply being aware that these principles are there and that you can choose how you apply them. So a lot of this comes down to simply knowing about these things and then trying to be reflective about how you may or may not be applying them to certain areas of your life. Anyway, that's it for this video. I hope you enjoyed the article.
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