Starting a Business QuickStart Guide. Ken Colwell PhD MBA

they are well-meaning or not, those around you will have something to say about your choice to pursue an entrepreneurial path. Don’t be surprised if this solicited and unsolicited input is overwhelmingly negative. Authenticity, at its core, means choosing your path and knowing why you’re on that path regardless of the opinions of others. Authenticity isn’t contrarianism, and it isn’t an excuse to ignore good advice. Rather, it is a way of staying true to yourself, your goals, and your own happiness and success.

      Quick Case: Whitney Wolfe Herd, Bumble – Featured on both the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and the Fortune 40 Under 40, Whitney Wolfe Herd was on the founding team for the uber-successful dating app Tinder. After she left the team in 2014, she began her own dating app called Bumble. Bumble’s tagline is “Make the first move” and features a twist on the traditional dating app: matches between users are only truly matches if the woman messages first. This shift in functionality has paid off in a big way. Bumble reported 30 million users in June of 2018, which trails the 50 million reported by Tinder, but despite lagging, Bumble has demonstrated impressive growth. On the topic of success: “Being able to put your blinders on, ignore negative opinions, and follow your strong intuition is what’s validating to me. It’s a great feeling to know you can trust your gut.”

       Continuous Improvement

      In our world, the only true constant is change. A philosophy of continuous improvement not only embraces change as a constant but reframes it as driver of improvement. This philosophy is referred to as kaizen, a Japanese word that translates as “continuous improvement.” More than a doctrine of ongoing development, kaizen prioritizes incremental improvement over broad, sweeping changes. Incremental changes are easier to implement— they require fewer resources and can begin making an impact right away (albeit a small impact). Over time, incremental improvements add up and result in the same gains that broad sweeping changes might, but without causing the disruption that a total change of course can lead to.

      In a professional capacity, this means incessantly and obsessively looking for more ways to provide value to your target customers and enhance your core capabilities. In a personal capacity it means applying the same logic of incremental improvement to find better ways to meet your goals. That may mean learning something new every day, honing your skills, working toward living a self-actualized life, or all of the above. More than just a tool to spur personal, professional, and organizational growth, the philosophy of kaizen has the additional benefit of encouraging comfort with ongoing change—an attitude that is not only healthy at the personal level, but absolutely critical for a new venture.

      

      Entrepreneurs often make lousy employees. They will never fully commit to an organizational culture or go all in to achieve organizational goals, because they don’t see the payoff for them. They also tend to butt heads with their supervisors because they have strong opinions about the right way to do things that are often at odds with the status quo. Because they are intelligent and driven, they don’t usually fail outright (although some entrepreneurs are so “out there” that they are conventionally unemployable), but they often drift from job to job, getting easily bored and restless and looking for the next thing. Does this sound like you? You should give serious thought to starting your own business.

       Chapter Recap

       Entrepreneurial success is less about a list of traits and more about focusing on the present. Mindfulness, specifically knowing what you are doing and why you are doing it, brings out the best in what are often thought of as “entrepreneurial traits.”

       Understanding the benefits of achieving a state of flow and working toward this condition on a regular basis will improve your feeling of fulfillment along with increasing your productivity and learning capacity.

       There is no question that starting a new venture requires hard work but allowing work life to overtake home and personal life can have very detrimental effects, not only on your feelings of personal fulfillment, but on the success of your venture as well.

       Mindful, self-aware living culminates in leading a self-actualized life. A self-actualized life is defined by an appreciation for life and guided by a set of inner goals and values. This, more than anything else, is the best definition of the “entrepreneurial mindset.” It is marked by creativity, authenticity, and a desire for continuous improvement.