Owners and Everyone Else
Owners are not like everyone else. Without people who think like owners, there would not be opportunities for everyone else. As Peter Drucker said, “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” There are great rewards in being an owner. The challenge is in the mindset.
Different Thinking
People with a low tolerance for risk, whose behavior is guided by fear, have a low propensity for success. – Keith Ferrazzi
This was a comment by Keith Ferrazzi in Never Eat Alone and it has been our observation through thousands of hours in business coaching. People do live either by fear or by belief. You can hear what guides a person’s decisions just by listening carefully to how they talk. If you hear a lot of excuses, justifications, or focus on the negatives, it is likely rooted in fear. However, we do not walk around telling people we are fearful. Life is not that candid.
There are many people who think they can start a business, but they lack the mindset to ever succeed. They have an employee mindset. They will never succeed unless they can grow. Typically, they:
Confuse Involvement with Commitment. Many people have had jobs. They perform for a corporation or an owner. They play with house money, not their own money. They make decisions and enjoy structures, resources and customers that are not their own. Martina Navratilova said it best, “The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed.” If you have never been committed, then it is easier to stay an employee and just be involved.
Focus on Cost Not Investment. The person handles any discussion on spending as a cost rather than thinking in terms of return on investment. It is funny. We live in an ecosystem. People have an interdependence on each other’s goods and services. These people expect everyone to buy what they have because they see value and think it would be a good return to a person. The blind spot is that they do not assume the same behavior they expect of others when dealing with buying. They are thinking in scarcity rather than abundance. Do you invest in yourself? Or again, does it first have to be house money?
An Unforgiving Reality
"If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability." — Henry Ford
Our economy is increasingly playing to the person with the owner mindset. While we all seek security, the question is whether a person seeks it in being an employee or an owner. To transition, you must be able to transition your security and belief system to an owner’s mindset; otherwise, it is better to be someone’s employee. Life is very short. You are who you have been becoming.
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Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.
Allen Taylor