The Mindset of a Successful Entrepreneur

Increase your odds of succeeding

I remember when I started my digital marketing freelancing business. I offered services like website design and copywriting, but I couldn’t get any clients. I had no idea how to start, so I did what most struggling entrepreneurs do.

I started asking people for business. When that didn’t work, I thought, “Maybe if I do a bit of free work for a few companies, maybe they’ll buy my services.” “Maybe” is not a strategy. And yet, it’s how most entrepreneurs think.

Nearly 30% of the American workforce is self-employed, and when people lost their jobs during the pandemic, more people started working for themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if that number is higher now.

But 22.5% of these small businesses fail within the 1st year. And the failure rate increases every year someone is in business.

The truth is that there are many struggling entrepreneurs. Maybe they’re making barely enough to cover their costs and pay their employees. Or they can’t live off their business and need a job to support themselves.

It’s a rough spot to be in. And I get it because I’ve been there too. By adopting the following ideas, I’ve turned that around.

1. Learn from the best

When I look back on my struggling years, this is the biggest mistake I see: Instead of learning from the best in the world, I would take advice from my peers. From people at networking events. People who were mediocre at best.

It’s like learning how to create YouTube videos from a person with 1000 subscribers. Sure, they might have technical skills about filmmaking, but they can’t talk about what it takes to build an audience on YouTube.

The moment I stopped listening to advice from people who weren’t successful, I started making more progress.

I applied the same strategy to investing. When I started investing in 2007, I lost nearly 60% of my money within a year. I took stock tips from friends and co-workers. But after losing money for years, I only listened to the best investors and traders in history: Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Jesse Livermore, Paul Tudor Jones, and so forth. I haven’t had…