5 Life-Changing Decisions Successful Entrepreneurs Make Early On

 Becoming a successful entrepreneur is first and foremost a mental battle.

Countless factors go into determining how successful you'll be in the world of business. 

Having an unwavering determination, strong willingness to sacrifice, a high level of commitment, and of course the quality of your business ideas. All of these are going to have a very real effect on if (and how) you'll achieve greatness as an entrepreneur.

For instance, Tim Ferriss shared with me over on CreativeLive, that even something as seemingly insignificant as choosing the right friends has made a huge impact on his trajectory as an entrepreneur, investor, and bestselling author.

However, all of these aspects pale in comparison to the most basic requirement that so many would-be entrepreneurs fail to excel at: having the right mindset.

From my interviews with accomplished entrepreneurs and through my own personal experience, here are the 5 most influential mindset changes that successful entrepreneurs make early on.

1. Every Failure is an Opportunity. 

Setbacks are inevitable along your journey to the top. You need to decide very early on that any failures you encounter, no matter how large or painful, won't be crippling to your mental fortitude - they're merely learning opportunities. Nearly all successful entrepreneurs have had tremendous failures. It's their determination to learn from those experiences and continue progressing in their fields, that truly set them apart.

2. Complaining Gets You Nowhere.

When you do (you will) experience difficulties, hardships, and failures, you need to make a very conscious decision to never waste time complaining.

Collect yourself, take adequate time to fully understand why you failed, and pick apart how you're going to avoid the same mistakes in the future. After that, it's time to move on and tackle your next set of goals, otherwise you'll allow your mistakes to define you.

3. Discomfort is Essential to Success.

If you're not regularly pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, you're not growing as an entrepreneur. You're not learning. You're not discovering new and exciting tactics that could help you significantly grow your business.

Even when times are good, it can feel like the smart decision is to keep moving forward with what's been working in the past. However, that's not how you're going to achieve exponential growth. What's more, is that whether you know it or not, you have competitors out there who are willing to push themselves to their limits and they'll uncover faster growth levers than you will, by playing it safe.

4. Take Risks Often.

It almost goes without saying that entrepreneurial success is defined by taking risks--calculated risks, that is. Choose to be curious. Investigate why things are the way they are. Hypothesize how you can make them better. If you're afraid to challenge the status quo, or you're not interested in questioning why inefficiencies exist in your industry, you're not going to forge a path toward meaningful innovations that'll shape our future.

5. Believe in Yourself.

In the end, your success as an entrepreneur will be defined--more than anything else--by how much you believe in yourself and your ability to prevail over all obstacles you'll inevitably face. Don't allow the excuses of lacking an Ivy League education, having inadequate financial resources, and repeated initial failures go on to define who you are. Know deep down that you're going to be successful, commit yourself to making it happen, and nothing can stop you.

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Secret to Home Business Success

The truth is, there is no “secret” to building a successful home business. What it takes is:

Belief

Depending on your level of confidence, it might be better to suggest you have faith over belief. For many home based entrepreneurs who struggle or fail, the thing that gets in their way of success is themselves. Because they don’t believe they can achieve success, they don’t do the tasks that need to be done or if they do, they don’t do them with the right attitude and amount of oomph.
Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.” The truth is, when you don’t believe, you don’t have the muscle to work and overcome. Instead, challenges and set-backs are used as proof that you can’t do it. On the other hand, people who have belief keep striving regardless of the obstacles and eventually reach success. Belief is fuel that will help you stay the course.

Have a Vision

Vision serves two-fold. First, it gives you a mark to strive for. It’s difficult to reach a goal if you don’t know what it is.

Squash Fear

Fear may be the biggest dream killer of them all.

Take Action

Success doesn’t happen without action. Winning the lottery might make you rich, but it doesn’t make you a success. And when you consider that most lottery winners blow their money and end up poor again, easy riches don’t build the skills and character needed to retain it. Action not only moves you toward your goal, but through it you learn what works and what doesn’t, you develop tenacity and persistence, and you build character.

Surround Yourself with Quality People

Just because you’re building a home business, doesn’t mean you have to do it alone. Starting and growing a business is hard work, and sometimes an encouraging word goes a long way to keeping you motivated. Coaches and mentors can be very helpful in giving you the skills and support you need. Mastermind groups can also provide emotional support, as well as feedback and tips to help you build your business.

Focus

Having a vision for your business is a great way to develop focus. The trick is to not get distracted by shiny object syndrome. Shiny objects appear to be helpful initially. They’re the brand new marketing system or get-rich-fast program. Ultimately, they take away your focus, and waste time and money. When you develop your vision, you also create a path to achieving it. Stay focused on your plan and don’t let yourself get sidetracked by shiny objects.

Get Back Up

More than anything, success in home business, or any goal, is the ability to keep striving for success in the face of set-backs and failure. It doesn’t matter what business you decide to start, you’ll experience problems and challenges. Many people bump into an obstacle or don’t achieve the results they want fast enough and view these challenges as stop signs. But successful people view them as problems that need to be learned from and overcome. Study any successful person you admire and you’ll discover he or she endured obstacles and failures. Instead of giving up, they got back up, dusted themselves off, and got working again. 

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5 of Our Favorite Ways to Make Money From Home

Working from home in pajamas is the dream of many out there trapped in the rat race. The great news is that it's not hard to get started. Below are some of our favorite ways to make money from home. 

Find a Passive Income Stream

What's "passive income"? It's simple -- finding a way to earn money while you sleep, of course! 

There's a saying in the corporate world: "Don't make yourself irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted." As an entrepreneur, this is still true in its own way.

Let's think of "being promoted" as earning more and working less. You can raise your prices, but until you can remove yourself from being directly involved in doing the work that generates the income, there's always going to be a limit to how much you can earn, and it can only increase very slowly.

More on passive income here. 

Do Affiliate Marketing the Smart Way 

Affiliate marketing is sometimes touted as "get rich quick schemes" by shady sites offering pyramid schemes that promise quick cash for little effort. Make no mistake -- successful affiliate marketers put in a lot of effort toward building an audience and quality content that will bring in sustainable passive income. Expect to do a lot of legwork up front -- but if you play your cards right you can build a solid source of revenue over time

Learn to be a successful affiliate marketer here.

Build a Blog on a Speciality Niche 

If you create a speciality blog that brings in a reasonable amount of traffic, you can enjoy income on ads you place on the site.

One good way is to craft a speciality blog with product reviews and recommendations. Be sure to pick a topic that you enjoy and know something about. If you can't stay passionate about the topic, that will show, and it also won't hold your interest. Choose a narrow enough niche to be distinctive, e.g., bands from your city, left-handed guitarists, music for a certain kind of dancing, authors of a certain religion, books about arts & crafts, etc.

More here. 

Make Money Doing Something You Love

You don't have to be a professional photographer to sell your photos for money. People are constantly in need of stock photography for websites, presentations, brochures and so on, and are willing to pay for the right image. People generally search for images on stock photography sites by keywords, not by photographer, so you have the same chance as anyone else of having your image picked. Just be careful that you don't have images of trademarked brands, copyrighted art or people's faces that are readily identifiable (unless you have a model release), but just about anything else is fair game, and I promise - you'd be amazed what people need pictures of, so don't make any assumptions. If it's a decent photo, upload it. Some sites to get you started include Fotolia, ShutterStock, Dreamstime,  and iStockphoto. The great thing about this is that it's truly "set it and forget it".

More ways to make money online here. 

Build an Information Products Business 

If you have a knack for teaching or making complex material more digestible, consider the field of information products.

You can create your own webinar or ebook using low-cost tools, such as Camtasia, YouTube, and Powerpoint. If you are interested in using the resources of a larger company, new educational startups like 

Udemy and Skillshare allow anyone to create and sell classes through their platform. Though they take a small percentage of your profits, you can take advantage of their built-in communities and marketing lists.

How to get started: Read our guide to information products.

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How To Create Opportunities In Life And Business (And Make The Most Of Them)

 I went and had lunch with Russell Simmons!

It was an incredible experience – and then he chauffeured me down to this place called Cryo that he was raving about.

You get into a pod which is kept at -180˚C, for two minutes. It was scary because it’s like dry ice and it looked like a padded cell. And the whole time I was thinking ‘Why are you doing this?’

I took the opportunity to try Cryo because it gave me a unique connection to Russell Simmons.

So that leads me into what I want to talk to you about in this post, which is how to create opportunities for ourselves.

I want to share with you why I think it’s so important to get out of your comfort zone and take those opportunities

When we are open to all kinds of experiences, and when we listen, amazing things can happen for us. I believe that most of the opportunities I’ve ever missed in my life were because I wasn’t paying attention, because I wasn’t listening and because I was too scared of taking that opportunity.

If we are really honest with ourselves there have been moments in all of our lives where, for whatever reason, we didn’t take opportunities.

Lots of you reading this go to events all the time. But how often do you really, really make a massive effort to make connections with people?

Whenever I go anywhere I make a massive concerted effort to listen to people and to make connections with people – but genuine connections. I’m not interested in who’s the most powerful person in the room, who’s the most successful, or who’s the richest.

What I’m interested in is who I can truly connect with over the long term, and that requires active listening.

We are going to miss 100% of the shots that we never take

It sounds like a cliché but it’s true. How often have you had an opportunity and you were too scared or you didn’t want to step out of your comfort zone and you missed it? How many things have we looked back on in life and thought ‘I wish I’d done that’?

You have to step out of your comfort zone. When you find yourself in any situation where you can put yourself forward, you have to do it. Otherwise you look back and regret what you didn’t do. In my first book Stop Talking, Start Doing I say that regret weighs far more than fear, but fear appears much scarier.

Because we’re afraid of what will happen, we decide not to do something. How many times have you decided not to go for a promotion or pitch for a new client because you thought you wouldn’t get it? That’s our biggest challenge in life. It’s to push fear out of the way and recognise that regret is always going to weigh far more than fear ever does.

We want to embrace fear

I’m so grateful for all the opportunities I have and I’m conscious that I’m living an incredible life filled with opportunities. But it didn’t happen overnight. This is the culmination of years and years of hard work from my part, putting myself forward and not being afraid to fail.

We could fail at anything. But we could also succeed at anything. So why don’t we succeed at making the most of opportunities. Why don’t we succeed at creating opportunities?

I would rather take more shots

There’s some fantastic research into the field of sports. The players who score the most shots in basketball are also the ones who take the most shots.

Making a genuine connection with my business hero

In the end I made a real, genuine connection with my business hero. But a lot of that came from the fact that I did a ton of research before I met him.

I didn’t just do the superficial research – I had 26 pages, then I picked out all the things I felt were most important to me, and where I felt I might be able to build a rapport with Russell. Then I went online and watched every single video where he talked about those topics.

I decided, in that moment, this was 90 minutes I had with him and I wanted to make the most of it. I brought up his ADHD, from my research, and I asked him to turn his phone off. I recognised that if I didn’t, I was never going to have his attention over that lunch. And he did put his phone down, and then I found every chance I could to actually connect with him.

I said to him ‘You know what, Russell, I bet you have to do these kinds of lunches all the time. So why don’t we talk about something different? What’s exciting you the most right now?’ Then he launched into this passionate five minute conversation around the new business he’s starting.

Instead of going off into a spiel about my bio, I just told him a little bit at a time, when it was relevant. When we were talking about filming I said, ‘Well, actually, I’m in the content industry.’ Then we talked about the work I do, and my books.

Then we started talking about meditation. He said ‘It’s been proven in sports and business to impact your ability to focus.’ And I thought ‘Okay, this is my opportunity to segue in and talk about how I used to be the only licensed female boxing manager, without seeming like I’m showing off’.

Then we started connecting across multiple levels. I waited and actively listened, and then about three quarters of the way through lunch I felt like we had an actual connection.

That’s why, at the end of the lunch, he said ‘I’m going to take you over to Cryo. I want you to message me tomorrow morning and tell me you’ve tried my app. Take my number – I really want to know what you think about what we’re doing.’

So, instead of being focused on getting attention, focus on giving attention to other people.

I promise you it pays you back tenfold… a hundredfold.

Actively listen to other people, put yourself out there, make the most of opportunities, and you can create opportunities from nothing. I promise you, you can. But you have to show up.

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How to Become a Millionaire in 3 Years or Less?

Found Out What The Rich Are Doing?

5 Great Tips on Successful Small Business Branding

We all understand how important brands can be.  There are brands that signify all over the world.  Nike.  Harley Davidson.  Starbucks.  These are companies that are more than just the products they sell.  They’re lifestyles.  They’re statements, both about the company and the consumers who choose them.

If you think bold, memorable branding is only available to big companies with massive marketing budgets, think again!  No matter your industry, you can cultivate a unique brand that resonates with your clients.  Want to know how to do it?

Small Business Branding Tips

1. Clarify Your Company’s Purpose

For a brand to be meaningful, it must connect to your company’s reason for being (which, incidentally, assumes you have a reason for being above and beyond simply earning an income.)  Why did you start your company?  How do you think you’re making the world a better place?  Without a firm grasp of your purpose, you’ll never be able to communicate what’s unique and important about your company.

2. Enlist Your Employees

Along with clarifying your purpose, you must also ensure that every single member of your staff understands that purpose and knows how and why to communicate that purpose with every customer.  In a perfect world, your purpose isn’t something that’s pounded into your staff.  It’s something you hire for.  When you hire an employee who shares your values, then you’re on the right track.  Effective branding isn’t an afterthought.  It infuses everything you do!

3. Create a Rallying Cry

So for my company, Profit First, our purpose, our rallying cry is “We want to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty!”  We say it, and we mean it.  Every morning huddle (our quickie standing meeting) reiterates our purpose and the steps we’re going to take that day to accomplish it.  Our rallying cry lets us communicate our purpose and values quickly … to anyone and everyone.  That’s our brand.

4. Enlist Your Customers

You know your purpose.  Your staff knows your purpose.  But do your customers know your purpose?  Letting your clients know that they’re buying more than just your goods or services is key to enlisting them in your brand building efforts.  Consider the Life is Good brand.  When people don a t-shirt, they’re making a statement about a lifestyle, rather than just getting dressed.  Folding in what makes you unique and worthwhile is a big part of successful branding.

5. Hire a Pro

Sometimes we think we should be able to do it all, but no matter how talented you are, you need help in the areas that aren’t your strength.  If marketing isn’t your thing, consider hiring a consultant or agency to help you crystallise and evangelise your brand.  Professionals can help you avoid spinning your wheels and wasting money on ineffective tactics.

Your brand is more than just your company name and a slogan.  It’s the expression of your values, your quality, and your unique vision.  Branding done right cements you in the minds of your customers.  It makes it easy for people to understand who you are and what you do.  Branding differentiates you from your competitors, and it speaks to your ideal customer, resonating with the people who will most appreciate your work.

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