Entrepreneurial Mindset for Transformative Education with Stephen Carter

"To have more than you've got, become more than you are" - Jim Rohn's words of wisdom ring as true today as when he first said them years ago. This principle goes alongside his seven strategies for wealth and happiness which become powerful tools for helping us make ourselves as valuable as possible.

Charlie "Tremendous" Jones is famous for saying "you'll be the same person you are now in five years with the exception of the people you hang around with and the books you read." So, what are you reading? Are you reading books that align with the vision of who you want to be in five years? Are you moving from BELIEVER to "EXPECTER" to ACHIEVER?

The entrepreneurial mindset is rooted in movement, in momentum. It is about being biased for action--take the leap, step into the unknown, go for it. Too often planning becomes its own form of procrastination that keeps us from going after the things we need to do in order to create lasting change in our lives. 

“Principles are concisely worded statements of truth that transcend circumstance” (quote from Alex Judd of Path for Growth) and as a result, it imperative that, as educators, we work to point out principles for our students and teach them to leverage these principles in their lives.

In other words, principles are always at work regardless of our acknowledgement of them—consider the principle of compounding: every single thing we do adds up over time to define who we become. This can work for us (become healthier and happier) or against us (lose our health and sense of purpose) but once we identify the principle and how it works, we are better poised to use it to our advantage.

In this episode of the podcast, I identify four key principles that drive the entrepreneurial mindset: belief drives behavior (and behavior drives results), consistency compounds, time can be spent or invested, and constraints breed creativity.

We focus a lot on investments and getting a return on our investment but often we don't focus on the return we get by investing in ourselves. Through making ourselves more valuable, we become more valuable to others (and therefore to the marketplace and to society at large). Let's focus some intentional investing in our personal growth to become as valuable as possible.

Empathy is the superpower of the person with the entrepreneurial mindset--after all, understanding the customer's problem is at the root of what it means to be a successful entrepreneur. When it comes to empathy in action, I can think of no better example than Sara and the way she inspired an entire crowd at a high school track meet. 

Sometimes you just have to say yes and then figure it out after. When it comes to the entrepreneurial mindset, we have to be willing to take certain acts of faith and embrace a certain degree of risk that says "we may not have it all figured out and we may not have a fully developed plan but we are going to say yes and move forward anyway."

A focus on "having" leads to discontent: we focus on the destination and what we "don't have yet" which puts us in a situation to never be satisfied. If, however, we focus on "becoming" then we are looking at the journey and the value we are creating along the way. This is key to the entrepreneurial mindset. Let's Go!

Why do some people have amazing ideas and aspirational thoughts while others sit in frustration over their lack of inspiration? The answer is so simple its frustrating--what we consume directly impacts the quality of ideas we have. If we want better ideas, we need to consume better content.

All kids should have the opportunity to be entrepreneurs--and it is our job as adults to encourage them and buy from them. Pure and simple. Remember the lemonade stands from back in the day? Remember how you pushed your dad's lawn mower from yard to yard to earn extra money? Those experiences shaped you and when we encourage our youth to embrace those experiences, not only do they develop an entrepreneurial mindset, but they also grow significantly in their confidence and self-esteem.