When you decide to start your own business, the most common thing is for the entrepreneur to focus squarely on growing the business. It’s logical, and you could even say sensible. But what happens when we add personal development to business growth? Some very interesting things happen. What if I told you that focusing only on your company’s growth isn’t the most effective way to make it grow?
This is where personal development comes in, because let’s start from the premise that without you, a company doesn’t grow. In fact, without you (the entrepreneur), the business doesn’t even get started. Which brings us to the first conclusion: “If a business depends on you, the more you work on yourself, the better the chances that your business will grow.” I’ll go further: if you don’t reach your full potential, your business won’t reach its full potential either.
Working on your own personal development so that you keep improving will teach you to be more efficient and effective in all kinds of situations and in many areas of your life, and that way you’ll also have more energy and time to devote efficiently to your business.
The first premise of personal development for entrepreneurs
Sensible personal development draws on many ideas from Stoicism, which starts from the premise that most things are outside our control. So the first thing we need to learn as entrepreneurs is to set goals focused on our personal development rather than on numerical achievements, because numerical achievements are never one hundred percent within our control.
If we do everything right, the numbers will be the consequence of a series of processes done well. All of this takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it calls for effort on the good days and on the bad days.
6 personal development keys that will drive business growth
1. Accept that it could all go to hell, and dive in anyway
Being positive is fine. It’s perfect. But thinking only positively isn’t the best thing an entrepreneur can do. This is where we’ll apply Stoicism. An entrepreneur should do the exact opposite of thinking positively.
Entrepreneurs should picture the worst possible scenario for their business: the one in which it fails spectacularly, they lose all the money they put in and are even left in debt. Once they have pictured that scenario, they should ask themselves: “If that grim scenario actually happened, could I carry on with my life, or would I sink?”
See also: Three inspiring stories of how big companies got started
If the answer is that you’d never get back on your feet if that failure happened, then you should probably accept that entrepreneurship isn’t for you, or look for another idea with less risk and less potential reward.
If, on the other hand, your answer is that you could take that failure and your life would go on; if you’re sure that failing at this business wouldn’t affect you psychologically and that you’d be willing to try again with another venture, then you’ve accepted the worst-case scenario. And once you’ve accepted it, you know you can live with it. Now, yes, be positive and go all in, knowing that the risk is worth it because of the reward. You’ve already discounted the failed scenario from your emotions. It’s still a possibility, but at least it’s one that won’t hit you any harder than you’ve already anticipated.
2. Have the right mindset
Closely linked to the previous point: as an entrepreneur you need to take risks and feel comfortable doing so. The famous comfort zone should be something people talk about but that you don’t know, because your comfort zone is in the middle of the chaos that comes with the early days of entrepreneurship.
Being in uncomfortable situations is what teaches you things about yourself. It’s what helps you get to know yourself better and grow a thicker skin. A person who has never faced problems is, in practical terms, defenceless, because any problem will knock them down. A person who has faced many problems will be much better prepared to deal with adversity.
That’s why you shouldn’t run away from uncomfortable situations. Seek them out, because the rewards are found in discomfort.
And to face adversity with the right mindset, it helps to:
- Meditate (if meditation is your thing)
- Exercise (at least 30 minutes a day)
- Eat a balanced diet and drink plenty of water
On top of that, learn to be grateful for what you have. Remember that success means starting with what you have to get what you want. So start with the resources you have right now. Don’t complain about what you don’t have; just be thankful for what you do have, because that’s what will get you what you want.
See also: Lessons from Will Smith’s life story
Surround yourself with people who add to your life, people who bring solutions, people who push you forward rather than hold you back. This is useful both in life and in business. If you want your business to grow, surrounding yourself with excellent people and good professionals is vitally important.
See also: The secret of success lies in giving up and quitting
3. Understand your “why”
In personal development we tend to stress the importance of having a purpose in life, because a person without a purpose usually ends up lost along the way. The same thing happens in business. As Richard Branson put it, a business that only makes money isn’t a good business.
When difficulties show up in your business, remember why you started it. When tiredness sets in, remember the why. And hopefully that “why” goes beyond money, because otherwise, even when the business is turning big profits, sometimes it isn’t enough.
In the business world, the word “mission” is often used to refer to a company’s purpose. In its day, Facebook’s purpose and mission was to connect people. Amazon’s mission was to improve the lives of its customers and suppliers. Steve Jobs’s purpose was to change the world.
So, as an entrepreneur, find your “why” so you can remember it when adversity strikes, because having a purpose bigger than ourselves can bring out the best we have to offer.
4. Broaden your knowledge
You should always be curious. You should always be learning and growing. If you’re going to start a business, my biggest recommendation is to read books by other entrepreneurs: the biographies of great business people. That way you’ll be learning from the mistakes and lessons of people who have achieved great success.
The more information, knowledge and ideas from other people you have, the higher you’ll rise in your own success. The day you stop growing, you start shrinking.
What’s more, the business world today changes fast, so you’ll need to keep learning all the time.
5. Identify your blind spots and bottlenecks
Although some authors say we have no limits when we really want something, the truth is that we all have limitations in some area. We also have strengths. It’s on our strengths that we should focus, because getting even better at what we’re already good at is what leads to excellence.
See also: The 8 types of friends everyone needs
The same goes for business: as a company we’ll have strong points and weak points. Be aware of them both personally and as a business, so that you know what to delegate and where to focus your energy.
Remember that there are things you know you know, things you know you don’t know, and things you don’t even know you don’t know. Do a self-awareness check so you can start making adjustments.
6. Overcome your fears
One of the hardest parts of personal development is overcoming fear. And to overcome our fears, we first have to recognise them. You need to be fully aware of what your fears are. Both personally and in business, the two biggest fears tend to be the fear of failure and the fear of not being accepted.
On a personal level, the fear of failure often makes us bring about our own failure, a failure we caused rather than one that came about on its own. The same happens in business. Fear of failure keeps a company from making certain crucial decisions in case they end in failure, and not making those decisions is precisely what can lead the company to fail.
As for the fear of not being accepted, on a personal level it can make us insecure. In business this fear is no different from the fear of failure, because if customers don’t accept our products or services, the business heads towards failure.
If there’s one thing we know about fear, it’s that there’s no humanly possible way to get rid of it. It will always be there. That’s why, cliché as it sounds, the only way to overcome fear is to do things in spite of it. The coward is paralysed by fear, while the brave person, feeling exactly the same fear, acts in spite of it.
And those are six concepts from the world of personal development that apply perfectly to the world of business.
See also: Adding a single word to my thinking helped me succeed
Featured image: Stephencdickson, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
