Getting Ahead: The Entrepreneurial Mindset

The subject of this post has been brewing in my head for over a year. It started out as an email diatribe to a friend about peer to peer lending. I started with how the downturn in the economy would impact people’s willingness to do business with institutions, like big banks, big companies, big, big, big. Our trust in them is shaken, at the very least- employees have learned that these companies are not the guaranteed paycheck they once were, for example, and customers are squeezed with more fees and fewer services. People would turn to the services provided by the smaller guys, maybe even local businesses, out of necessity. They would learn to trust in small companies again (I’m reminded of this when I walk by what I am sure is a delicious, small Mexican food place to get to my nearest Chipotle). This would provide willing customers to a host of new small businesses and more people would be able to carve an entrepreneurial niche for themselves doing whatever they do best. In this climate of neighborliness, individuals lending to individuals would increase, and banks could finally, actually go to hell.

It was a nice thought for a minute. It did get me thinking, though, about what I thought I knew about entrepreneurship. In undergrad, entrepreneur was used synonymously with risk-taker, which I find positively chilling. I went on to thinking it was someone who started a venture. Then on to thinking it was someone who has a micro-enterprise, like an Esty store for example. Then.. maybe a person who creates a disruptive technology? On and on. I gave up.

So I started reading. It wasn’t glamorous. I began with a page-turner from the Internal Revenue Service. It was a list of characteristics that make a person self-employed, rather than an employee, for tax purposes. Stay with me! Certainly, I thought, entrepreneurs are self-employed, so maybe this checklist would help me see what else is means to be an entrepreneur. There are things like whether the person is required to work a certain way, at a certain time, with provided tools or in a uniform. It is a very clinical description. Especially in an office setting, aside from set work hours, for the most part people really are making decisions about how to complete a given project. Ok so that didn’t help.

I came across Linchpin(later in the week I’ll do a full review, but basically it is about becoming bigger than your job, so it turns into what you want it to be, rather than owning you- like a form of self employment at work). Linchpins are people who “invent, lead (regardless of title), connect others, make things happen, and create order out of chaos. They figure out what to do when there’s no rule book.” Unless you’re standing at an assembly line (and honestly maybe even there you have more discretion than I am imagining), I can’t think of a job that doesn’t require a person to figure things out that aren’t in some sort of nightmarish rule book!

As I mulled over the final details of this post for today, I came across an article on Forbes.com (the online version is like the People magazine of financial news, in case you are looking for informative entertainment) in which the writer defined an entrepreneur as a problem solver. Ding ding ding! Why I couldn’t think of that myself is really annoying.

All of my ranting and reading boils down to these facts:

1. If you solve problems, you already think like an entrepreneur.

2. If you solve problems in exchange for money, you are an entrepreneur.

Don’t read too far into that. It doesn’t say anything about if you wear a uniform to work, or if you have to show up at a certain time, or what your title is, or who you work for (which, in all cases by the way, is you). Do you solve problems? Does it (or is it supposed to) pay the bills?

Learning to treat yourself like an entrepreneur will change the way you view your work, I promise. It did for me. And at first I felt like a little girl in my mom’s high heels. I hate that fake it till you make it mentality, but this isn’t that. Honestly.

My to-do list became outcom- focused: Where can a problem be solved? Which activity creates the most value in the long term?

The problems in your work might not be so obvious. For example, last night on our run, Valerie L told me about how she handled a potential client who was quite embarrassed by the subject of her legal question. Her gentle encouragement to the woman made it dawn on me: the only thing a law firm can guarantee (if it makes it a priority) is customer service. There are no guaranteed legal outcomes, that’s for sure. I was very impressed with how she handled the call. I’ll continue with this example: Valerie solved a problem that the customer was having, and I know for a fact that lady would not get the same treatment elsewhere. That isn’t Valerie’s job description at all, but she still owned it. She acted like it was her business- seriously. I hope someone else noticed it.

In short, I highly encourage you to adopt this view of yourself. See how it feels. See how it changes your mentality about work. At the very least, focusing on solving problems rather than collecting a paycheck will help you see how a person in a position to hire others views things, which could be interesting. At most, it will prepare you to take the leap into self-employment (leap, hopefully not the push off the cliff by a layoff or downsizing).

Speaking of seeing things from your employer’s perspective, coming up next I have a fantastic book for my non-business-background readers.