Developing an Entrepreneurial mindset Part Two

Your income will only grow to the level of your own self-esteem.

One of the biggest challenges that entrepreneurs face when entering into business is when their past habits, beliefs, or personal philosophies follow them in their businesses. Even though these habits, skill sets, and beliefs can sometimes be great assets to a business, they can often be very limiting.

When compounded with the fact that they may not have a lot of business knowledge or experience, budding entrepreneurs can often be primed for failure from the start. Just because someone is very good at something or has a next-big-thing idea doesn’t mean he or she should jump into business. There is a learning curve that an entrepreneur has to experience. It’s far better to start this process at the beginning before one has a lot of time, money, and energy invested into a new business.

Now, granted, you can always hire a consultant to come to the rescue later. But, as the saying goes, “When a person with money meets a person with experience, often the person with the experience will leave with the money, and the person with the money will leave with the experience.” I have done this dance many times throughout building my own businesses. Even though I walked away with many great lessons learned, my bank account suffered. .

Learning the lessons I’m going to share in this Blog series has easily cost me more than a million dollars over the course of my developing a healthy entrepreneur's mindset. I hope you pay close attention to the ideas, stories, and concepts shared/

A mentor once told me, “You should become a millionaire for what it will make of you to become one. It’s the journey from which the greatest benefits will come.”I took those words to heart, even though making a million dollars seemed like a large task—if not an impossible one—at the time. I had three failing businesses, a $100,000 line of credit that was totally maxed out, and $80,000 in short-term credit card debt. In addition, two of our newer limousines were in default, and the bank had just told me that they were going to come and repossess them by the end of the week...and I had a family to support.

Yes, making a million dollars seemed like a great idea. However, at the time, I would have settled with getting my two limousines out of default before the bank's tow trucks showed up. To make things worse, my three businesses had combined monthly expenses of $15,000 and monthly revenues of $8,000. On the home front, $7,500 a month was going out in personal expenses, with only $4,500 of stable income coming into cover those expenses.

I was so far off-track that I thought my working capital was the available line of credit on my credit cards. Needless to say, the concept of making a million dollars, no matter how exciting it sounded, seemed close to impossible. My goal at that time was to make $100,000—and I didn’t even know how I was going to accomplish that. Now my mentor was suggesting that I set a goal to make a million dollars. Sure, it was a great idea, but let's get real. Me, make a million dollars? But on the other hand...why not me?