TSAS #43: How do you develop an entrepreneurial mindset?

Hello SAS Community,

Question of the week: How do you develop an entrepreneurial mindset?

In this week's edition, we cover:

• Mistakes and lessons I've learned throughout my journey of soloprenuership

• Developing an entrepreneurial mindset

• A quick guide to transitioning from a corporate employee to a solopreneurship (Next issue)

• Reading Time: 4 minutes

A former co-worker reached out to me a few weeks ago and asked for a casual lunch meeting. It was a meeting that inspired me to write this letter.

My goal for this letter is to not help you avoid mistakes but rather to learn from and apply them to your real-world application. I truly don't think there is a way to avoid mistakes at all costs because people who are trying to protect you is doing a disservice.

Yes, I mean it. If I try to teach every little thing to my 7-year-old so they don't make mistakes when they reach my age, that would be an unrealistic expectation.

Again, this is where I feel that the original art form is lost. The more time I spend on my social feed, I feel as if people are applying each other's mental models rather than creating their own mental gym.

This is where I am passionate about mental model frameworks that you can apply for yourself. There is nothing better than being able to lean into yourself. Best practices, advice, and lessons are only theories until it is practiced in your environment and life.

Keep in mind when I started my journey, I had no background in social media or marketing. I started out as a traditional designer who felt stuck in my career. Everything turned into a production-based project. Video Editing, graphics creation, landing pages, email newsletters, and constant digital assets creation made me the go-to-gal in our marketing department when working as a corporate professional. It felt good for a while because no one else wanted to learn or had any interest in doing them. I was given tons of praise and it felt awesome to be wanted.

Who doesn't want to be wanted? The day after I quit my job, I was reached out by several ex-colleagues who ventured out on their own. They knew the type of work I was able to do and they needed someone to fill those production types of jobs.

Here are the lessons that kept me thinking I was free but in reality got me trapped in another version of 9-5. Hear me out and I want you to empty your mind for a minute.

Any pre-conceived notions here will not benefit you to gain a different perspective. So, stay open.

Lesson #1 Operating your beliefs in the unknown knowns – Setting my own schedule and operating under no boss or team was a whole new territory for me.

The flexibility with time and not having to be glued to my chair for 8 hours gave me a different sense of relief. I knew how to do the usual creative work and produce quality design work based on past experiences and evidence. So that part felt known and comforting that I can rely on this known expertise.

But, the unknown part was when I felt clueless as to where this was all leading. The path was unknown and just because you know something doesn't mean you stop learning. That is how you overcome knowledge blindness. Keep learning even if you know a lot.

The mistake I made was that for two years I kept grinding in the same sea. I didn't get curious enough to find out beyond what I thought I already knew. I believed what I knew was enough instead of exploring creative work in a different light.

Asking deeper questions such as will this type of work make me feel fulfilled for a prolonged period of time?

Do I know if the project/creative assignment makes a difference in some shaper form? And if so, what is that?

How does my work impact others to create positive change?

All of these questions were unknown while walking into an unknown path. Don't get too comfortable in your known areas because chances the more you know, there is more learning to do.

"When it comes to self-awareness, the "unknown unknowns" are what can hurt us most. " — Donald Rumsfeld

Lesson #2 Hiding behind the screen for far too long. The thing about building your brand online and offline is that you forget that your world is not confined to only client scheduling, deadlines, and designing irresistible offers. There is a balance that I struggled with for a long time.

To tell you the truth, I still haven't quite figured it out yet. But the difference is I am well aware of and understand when to peel back the onion layers.

I went through seasons of service delivery, fulfillment, and making sure clients were happy with my done-for-you services. I got so bogged down with that side of the business that I ignored my personal brand health.

Now, you are thinking what is personal brand health and why does it matter?

The closest analogy I can use is your personal health.

When you are constantly pouring into others' well-being, taking care of meeting others' needs, you tend to lose yourself in the process.

To me, it was the balancing act that was missing in action. I lacked the skills in managing my time efficiently and recognizing that while I was helping my clients to build their top of mind awareness, I was being forgotten.

Why is this important? Because jobs come and go. Businesses fail and are rebuilt. Nothing is permanent.

But, your personal brand health is FOREVER. It is your center of alignment with your beliefs, values, mission, vision, purpose, and everything that you stand for and against. It's what keeps you grounded when shit hits the fan.

Ignore this for a long period of time and you start to fade into the distance where you are at the mercy of referrals or reinforced paid advertisements.

Boils down to two forms of constraints TIME and MONEY.

Investing in yourself can always make room for both in the long run. The hard part is playing the long game for a lot of people.

Lesson #3 Rolling the Dice at every corner and spreading myself too thin. I am not afraid of taking risks but I have missed taking many calculated risks.

Some people may call it the "shiny object syndrome." But I realized that not all shiny objects are made equal.

The skill-based shiny objects are transferrable. I don't regret taking the time to learn how to create a webinar, or landing page, run live streams, and build an email drip system.

But that wasn't the real issue with shiny objects? The worst part of shiny object syndrome was not being able to filter the external noise that applies to your own situation.

A few years ago I was convinced that I should build an app for twin moms like me who struggled to get adequate support. I was doing random things.

One day I was attending networking conferences. The next day I was running around like a chicken with a head cut off trying to build a business online.

The problem: LACK OF FOCUS

When you are not focused on your key areas of interest to build your ONE-KNOWN thing, you chase fuzziness behind the fuzzy thing.

The biggest lesson here was to pause, reflect, and reassess my energy stock. Where was this energy flowing and how is this impacting my decision-making? There is a difference between "trying to make things work" and "making things work to happen."

NO CLARITY ≠ NO FOCUS.

Lesson #4 Derailed efforts without consistency and self-reliance leading to endless procrastination and impatience.

People swear by consistency and building resilience in the business world. I found that as a mother of two young children, I was never ENOUGH.

The self-criticism and comparison game kept slowing me down significantly. When you look forward, you worry about the future. When you look back, you regret, how far you have progressed.

The hard lesson was self-acceptance. Knowing my point of reference was the key to restructuring my confidence muscle. More importantly, knowing myself.

In which areas do I excel and in what areas do I need to improve on?

Becoming clear in the circle of competencies is what would have kept me from avoiding mistakes.

In 1996, Buffett told his shareholders, "You don't have to be an expert on every company or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital." — Warren Buffett

In other words, I can teach you about personal branding and how as a professional to leverage your unique skill sets and experiences to share with others. However, I am not equipped to build your personal brand to land on the PR News, pitch Television, broadcast media, or TedTalk. Personal branding can be used in million ways to shine your light depending on where and how you want to project and be perceived.

Lesson #5 Save enough and give yourself a runway

The first couple of years felt like the series, "LOST" with random strangers with different intentions, plans, and motives. Forget about finding your blue ocean that experts talk about "riches are in the niches." I was swimming in all types of pools not even aware of which pool I am in.

Have you ever told yourself, "I feel like I'm all over the place?"

Yes, that randomness, scattered brain, and fuzziness come from a lack of preparedness.

But you can never be prepared for everything. I had to quit under the circumstances of taking care of my family. It was the ONLY priority at the time and nothing was lined up. No savings for rainy seasons. No alternative passive income. No audience to monetize from that people rave about online.

Then, when it was time to sell, it felt rushed. After a year of freelancing, contracting, and dabbling into many opportunities, I was able to secure some 1:1 clients.

I still love the private coaching/mentoring who need guidance from A to B. The mistake I made was that I gave up too soon on consistency before needing to expand my horizons.

Most people don't think about the transition phase that it takes to become a full-time solopreneur. The mindset shift does not happen overnight and unfortunately, there are too many success stories that make you feel that you can jump off the cliff.

It is in my nature to take risks and I tend to choose exploration over regretting decisions. However, when you have financial obligations, real-life problems to take care of, basic belonging and needs to be met, all of that can create constraints rather than freeing yourself. The only way I was able to be free from my own prison was when I saw opportunities in a different light.

Opportunities made sense and were in alignment with my goals and vision. I always say give yourself enough room and runway because failure is inevitable both in life and business. As much as we want to avoid failures, they will happen but failure without planning is reckless in my opinion.

So, how do you develop this entrepreneurial mindset?

Ask yourself these questions to spark alignment:

• Do you have the right support and network?

• Are you surrounded by people who challenge you to be better? Or, do they pretend to be your supporter but their actions tell you something different?

• What are you consuming (books, podcasts, articles) intentionally to grow and align yourself?

• Who do you listen to and pay attention to on a regular basis to create room for new ideas and challenges to overcome?

Environment and proximity are HUGE indicators of building our healthy mental models. Imagine having a bunch of friends that don't support your weight loss journey or tell you who you should be or what to eat.

Imagine surrounding yourself with people who constantly worry about living paycheck to paycheck making you feel more anxious.

There are times I realize I need to support others but also see how others support you in your well-being and growth.

Listening more than you talk and asking questions is the best way to become a lifelong learner to nurture that mindset.

Investing where to put your time and energy is a 100% REFLECTION of your efforts.

That's it for today. As always I am interested in learning what you are up to. In the next letter, I will be sharing the transitional phases in depth to give you more insights into solopreneurship. Thank you for reading!

Stay Humble, my friend.Yours Truly, Humaira"Create a collection of memories. Not distraction"