Why everyone should have an entrepreneur's mindset
I've spent my whole career trying to start up a business. Not any business, but a high impact business where I can change the life of thousands of people for better. I haven't succeeded yet, but so far, this is what I've learned.
It's all about adding value to others
Not long ago I was talking with a friend about our future and about what would happen after college. To give you some context, my friend has one of the top 10 GPA's of the whole bachelor's degree. He is a very smart guy. Despite that, he was telling me how scared he was about not finding a good job after college.
He was right. Our engineering degree is incredibly general. We learn a bit about all kinds of renewable energy, another bit about mechanics and another bit about electricity. In other words: we learn a bit about everything and we become experts in nothing.
It didn't take me a long time to find out this was a common problem among other students in different bachelor's degree and even in different universities. A lot of students around the world are worried about finding a good job right after college.
This worry comes from the believe that just by having a college's diploma the world is yours. Nothing could be further from the truth. The world doesn't belong to those who can't see beyond the blackboard, it belongs to those who can apply their knowledge and skills to solve real problems. To add value to others.
When you want to become an entrepreneur you force yourself to have a mindset of adding value to others because at the end of the day the value you add (either as a service or as a product) is what will generate the company's revenue.
The only way to be sure you will never fail is to never try.
Steve Jobs is one of the greatest business leaders the world has had. And he knew perfectly well the principle of taking action. It doesn’t matter if you are not sure where you are going. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a perfect plan. Just do it. Just try, fail, learn, and repeat. And when you look back, you’ll be somewhere you never imagine you could be.
"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.” — Les Brown
The reality is, we are afraid of failing. And we know for sure that if we don't take action, then we are out of risk of failing. So we are safe. We are in our comfort zone. The problem is that in this zone there is no real learning, there is no personal development, and there is no growth.
Someone could say my short professional life is full of failures… but wait, it’s not full of failures. Actually, it’s full of lessons. Every time I have failed, I have learned something valuable. Something that I wouldn’t have learned in a different manner. And this knowledge has helped me become who I am today.
The entrepreneur’s mindset is to fail fast or win big. Don't get paralyzed by fear. Don't try to be perfect. Be open to get feedback. Be humble to recognize you can always do something better. Be agile to try new ideas. Always be in constant growth. Even if that means to fail often.
The most important factor: Have a "why"
My family and my friends think I'm weird. And they are right, I'm a weirdo. I love working from 8am to 8pm everyday. Why? Well, because I see a world where Mexico is a renewable energy world power. I see Mexico leading the energy transition among all developing countries. I see Mexico as an example that the world is changing for better.
Mexico is blessed with its geographical location for solar and wind power. Currently, solar power is cheaper than fossil fuels. So Mexico has broken the economic barrier. That makes it very interesting to investors. And that’s the reason why renewable energy projects have grown so fast in the last five years.
Still, there are other two barriers to be broken if we want Mexico to be 100% renewable energy powered:
- Public policies barrier
- Technology barrier
The first barrier is being broken little by little thanks to the fact that Mexicans are waking up and demanding clean energy. The people and only the people is the solution to this problem.
The second problem consists on a big technological challenge: the energy generation intermittence. We have to figure out how to still generate electricity when there is no wind or sunlight.
Here is where my hard work comes in. This vision is what keeps me working so hard everyday. And I’ve got it because as an entrepreneur I believe you can have more impact, thus, accelerate the change.
Conclusion
I know that not everyone wants to become an entrepreneur. But I’m sure that everyone can work to make this world a better place. And, at the end of the day, isn’t that the goal we should all have?
