Thoughts on Excellence Free E-Newsletter Series
Volume 20, Issue No. 14a
July 1, 2022
By Dan Coughlin
As I begin this series on the Entrepreneurial Mindset, I realize that I am digging into the very core and essence of who I am. Through this series I hope to share with you what I have learned both from some successes and many failures.
Being an entrepreneur is not so much a job as it is the culmination of values, passions, and desires coming together into a mechanism to make a living. It is vastly more than simply a focus on a paycheck. It is much more a means to put yourself out into the world either on your own or as the head of an organization of people.
Singers need to sing, writers need to write, and entrepreneurs need to create and deliver value into the world. If you took that away from a person with an entrepreneurial mindset, it would be like taking away a part of their existence as a human being. In other words, the entrepreneurial mindset is a very, very personal thing.
In looking back on the past nearly 25 years that I’ve been an entrepreneur and have worked with entrepreneurs, I can now see certain elements that are crucially important. In the months to come I intend to add practical context around each of them.
Here are The Elements of Entrepreneurialism that I will cover in this series:
- Freedom and Responsibility
- Purpose, Path, and Plan
- Empathy and Fulfilling Customers
- You Represent the Brand Every Day
- Sustained, Focused Efforts
- You are in a Relationship Business
- Take Personal Growth as Seriously as Business Growth
- Burnout is a Real Business Problem
- Spend Way, Way, Way, Way Less than You Make
- Your Business is a Subset of Your Life, Not the Other Way Around
- Look for Ways to Just Be Better
- Remember Why You Became an Entrepreneur in the First Place
Each of these elements plays a crucially important role in the long-term success of your venture. It doesn’t matter whether you have one employee, namely you, or 10,000 employees. As an entrepreneur, you are still guiding an enterprise to create and deliver value to other people. It’s an extraordinary adventure to go on that will likely challenge you mentally, physically, emotionally, financially, socially, and maybe even spiritually. It will be filled with highs and lows and unforeseen obstacles and opportunities.
Dig in and focus on the essential elements every day with no guarantee for success. Your taking your ship into uncharted waters. You don’t know what’s immediately ahead of you or miles down the road. It’s the entrepreneurial journey.
Republishing Articles
My newsletters, Thoughts on Excellence, have been republished in approximately 40 trade magazines, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations over the past 20+ years. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with the name of the article you want in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document.