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According to Author and Entrepreneur Daniel Priestley in his very insightful book, Entrepreneur Revolution: How to Develop Your Entrepreneurial Mindset and Start a Business that Works, the age of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs is beckoning, the days of the industrial age and worker is gradually coming to an end. The book shares great insights on embracing an entrepreneurial mindset, the factors speeding up the entrepreneurial revolution, and ways to be a part of the revolution.
The slow dinosaurs of the industrial age are being outpaced by fast-moving start-ups, ambitious small businesses and technological innovators.
“An entrepreneur is simply someone who spots an opportunity and acts to make it into a commercial success.”
Here are my favorite takeaways from reading: , Entrepreneur Revolution: How to Develop Your Entrepreneurial Mindset and Start a Business that Works by Daniel Priestley.
A great wave of change is about to seriously take off and a wedge will be driven between two classes of people.
- Those who are surfing this wave into the Entrepreneur Revolution.
- Those who are clinging to the Industrial Revolution and are in serious trouble, whether they know it or not.
“Many young people who’ve followed the advice of their parents can’t get stable jobs. There are people with Masters Degrees driving buses on hourly wages because the safe, secure corporate job never emerged.“
The Global Small Business (GSB)
The Global Small Business (GSB) isn’t like a big global business, and neither is it like a traditional small business. As the name suggests, this is a business that typically has less than 15 people on the core team but isn’t limited by geography. It can reach into cities all over the world and can easily be making millions in sales despite a relatively small headcount.
We measure results not hours’ is the new mantra for managing employees of GSBs.
OLD IDEA: WORK HARD NOW AND YOU WILL GET YOUR REWARDS LATER Vs
NEW IDEA: THERE IS NO PAY DAY, THERE’S JUST LIFE
OLD IDEA: WORK ISN’T MEANT TO BE FUN vs
NEW IDEA: FUN BUILDS YOUR BUSINESS
OLD IDEA: PROVE HOW SMART YOU ARE BY REMEMBERING ALL THE ANSWERS Vs
NEW IDEA: SMART PEOPLE SURROUND THEMSELVES WITH SMARTER PEOPLE
“Your goal in the Entrepreneur Revolution is to create value, to take on meaningful work, and to care deeply about what you are involved in.”
Convergence
Convergence is when several unrelated ideas bump into each other and create massive, unpredictable results.
- Digital cameras meet mobile phones and create camera phones. Camera phones meet social networking and, suddenly, news breaks on Twitter rather than on the BBC.
- Touchscreens meet ultra-thin lithium batteries and iPads are born. iPads meet digital book libraries and the publishing industry radically shifts.
- Google Maps bumps into precise sensor technology, packaged inside electric cars, and suddenly vehicles don’t need human drivers.
Huge breakthrough technologies are all bumping into each other. Smartphones, cloud computing, voice recognition, artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms, social influence, collaborative workspace, cheap travel, resource capacity sharing, free video conferencing, RDF chips, emerging middle-class consumers in Asia, crowdfunding, automation, robots, DNA sequencing, 3D printing, highly targeted advertising, self-checkout, intuitive user experience, cryptocurrencies, gesture recognition, open-source operating systems, multi-device ecosystems, face recognition… the list goes on and on.
As an entrepreneur, you will meet the worst version of yourself and the best version of yourself, which are already pre-installed – sometimes you’ll meet both extremes in the same week!. There are three key parts of your ‘entrepreneur brain’:
The reptile.
The highly emotional, survival-orientated part of your brain that has you see the world as a dangerous place where most people and most things can’t be trusted. Its main purpose is to make sure that you can escape and survive any dangerous or stressful situation. When this part of the brain isn’t dealing with a survival situation, it’s looking for sex or entertainment to give it an emotional fix. If ever you’re highly emotional, aggressive, distracted or agitated, you’re in reptile mode.
The reptile – fight, flight freeze (emotional often in a bad way – aggression, fear, panic, etc).
The monkey
The functional worker part of your brain that has you see the world as a set of challenges and problems for you to complete. This is your physiological comfort zone, designed to keep you repeating the same day over and over again. If ever you find yourself on autopilot doing familiar tasks, you’re in monkey mode.
The reptile – fight, flight freeze (emotional often in a bad way – aggression, fear, panic, etc).
The entrepreneur (or ‘humanitarian’ or ‘visionary’ if you prefer).
The entrepreneurial part of your brain has you see the world as a deeply connected place that you can transform in a meaningful way. Your entrepreneur isn’t limited by your current circumstances or resources, it’s creative, dynamic, caring, loving, inspired and passionate. If ever you are working towards
The visionary – insight, inspiration, strategy, empathy, compassion, play, creativity (emotional in a good way – passion, love, humour, etc).
Accessing your inner entrepreneur isn’t as hard as you might think. You first need to convince yourself of three things:
- You don’t need anything – you are whole and complete in this moment and your survival is not threatened in any way.
- You are not required to perform repetitive and meaningless tasks in order to survive.
- You’re here to transform the world for the better, serve others and experience the rewards that come from these inspired acts of service.
Lean In
Entrepreneurs are the ones who implement with excellence, not the ones who just sit around with nothing more than their lofty ideas.
True entrepreneurs lean in. When they have the chance to invest money in a smart way, they take it. If a great person becomes available, they hire them. If a competitor shows up, they get fired up for the challenge of outperforming them. When you lean in, you don’t dream of retirement. You don’t hope for an exit to show up. You hope to see bigger challenges, you want your vision to show up faster and you dream of never retiring.
Leaning in means working with the best people, it means showing up with your game face on and leaving your doubts at the door.
There are three keys that all successful entrepreneurs need if they are going to make the most of their ideas, talents, opportunities and the times we’re in. Every entrepreneur will need:
- Luck
- Reputation
- Vitality
LUCK
The first key to luck is that you learn to recognise luck. If you can’t even see how lucky you are already, you will be blind to any good fortune that shows up in the future.
You influence your luck when you show up in places that are luckier, when you spend time with people who are luckier, when you learn ideas that produce luck, when you get crystal clear on your vision and when you begin having lucky conversations.
People want to be able to create success the same way a chef makes a pie. They want a recipe and a formula. They want to know what exactly to do in a step-by-step method. Unfortunately, a huge part of the formula is that you have to be lucky
For you to influence your luck, you must start putting yourself in an environment where great people, ideas and resources are flowing.
Reputation
“It can take 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffet
By far your most prized asset must be your reputation. It’s an asset that will pay you well in life. Guard it, nurture it, make decisions with your reputation in mind, because great entrepreneurs believe that money comes and goes but your reputation is permanent. Reputation is a powerful multiplier of your luck – people who have a good reputation seem to always have lucky breaks coming their way.
VITALITY
Coming from a space of vitality rather than functionality is a characteristic at the heart of every great leader, adventurer, author, actor or entrepreneur.
Functionality is defined as performing a set of tasks or processes efficiently. It’s a given that you need to be proficient at what you do. However, alone it won’t get you closer to success in the Entrepreneur Revolution.
People who are functional end up being replaced; people who are vital end up with ownership. They stay true to their centre and they own their space. Often, this results in them owning their marketplace, their business and their niche too.
“Vital people have a sense of curiosity, a spark, a contagious energy and a genuine desire to serve at a new, higher standard.”
The three ingredients you need to hit the entrepreneur sweet spot:
- Do something you’re passionate about.
- Do something you’re good at.
- Do something that makes money.
“Some believe that only the rich get richer. Some believe that money comes to those who wait. Some believe that money comes to them because they prayed for it. None of this is true – money is nothing more than a means of exchange between a willing buyer and a willing seller, and it changes hands when the seller has a product or service that the buyer wants.”
RIDING THE ENTREPRENEURIAL ROLLERCOASTER
WILLINGNESS TO STRETCH
“You need to embrace the feeling of being stretched. Every time you feel that you’re being pulled into the unknown, or there’s too much to do, you need to smile and remember that this is what it feels like to be doing something big and meaningful.”
WILLINGNESS TO GET RESOURCEFUL
“The way you deal with being stretched is to get resourceful. Rather than dwelling in the discomfort of how you are being stretched, get proactive about finding a solution.”
Other Insights from the Entrepreneur Revolution Book:
“If you want more joy, stop consuming. Stop consuming people, things or events and stop trying to ‘get back’ the past. Start creating the future. Create yourself, based on who you want to be. Create your work, based on what you want to do. Create your life, based on the legacy you want to leave behind.”
All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
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