10 Mindsets and Habits Every Business Owner Needs

What sets a successful business owner apart from those who fail?

Well, it can be a number of things. But more often than not, what it all boils down to is the mindsets and habits a person chooses to cultivate and live by.

Having the right mindset and the right habits is more powerful than you can imagine.

I could honestly give you a list of 50 mindsets and habits you should adopt as a business owner, but we don’t have all day, so I’ve narrowed it down to 10.

If you take these 10 things seriously and implement them into your life and business, you’re going to be successful.

I guarantee it.

In no particular order:

#1: Set daily, weekly and quarterly goals.

Each and every day, we wake up with 1,440 new minutes to spend. That’s how I look at time.

Time is the most precious thing we all have. We have to think about how we’re using it. Knowing how we want to spend our weeks, days and minutes—and then making it happen—is a huge key to success.

I’m at my best in the early morning hours. I do all of my critical thinking and planning before 8 a.m. I plan out blocks of time for getting everything done that needs done.

When it comes to planning the day, one of the things that helps me tremendously is to take an entire year and break it down into 13 weeks at a time.

Develop that discipline, then look at those goals and ask yourself: What’s the overarching theme here?

I write down that theme, that goal, every single day. Something about writing it down every day helps me focus on it and points me in the right direction.

Then I write down my top three goals, or objectives, for the day.

When I write them down, I’m communicating to myself that regardless of what happens today, as long as these three things get accomplished I win the day.

Click here to read more.

#2: Build a team.

I’ve written a whole, informative blog post about building the absolute best team you possibly can, so I won’t belabor the point here.

But the bottom line is: you can’t do this on your own.

And why would you want to? Trying to do everything on your own is not only a recipe for disaster—and burnout—it’s also a sad way to live your life.

You don’t want to spend hours and hours every day doing tasks you don’t like—and aren’t good at—when you could be delegating those to someone else and using your precious time to do what you ARE good at.

So check out that blog post and start building your dream team!

#3: Improve your skills and keep adding new ones.

I’m a huge believer in always learning new skills and adding them to your repertoire. And, of course, this is on top of honing and refining the skills you’ve already got.

Some jobs during this economic crisis will change. New skill sets will be required. The marketplace determines which skill sets are valuable and how much they’re worth.

What new talents and/or skills are you going to add to the marketplace? As you gain new skills, you’re preparing for the new version of the marketplace that’s coming. There will always be a marketplace, an economy. We will always find ways to buy/sell/trade with each other.Ask yourself: In this new marketplace, what will I be?It’s like a fresh chance to answer an age-old question: What do I want to be when I grow up?Taking time to invest in your skills and talents will lead to new relationships, new opportunities.

It’s so worth it.

#4: Be patient.

Raise your hand if patience is one of your strong suits. Yeah, me neither.

But I strongly believe it’s the one skill you need to develop as the key to mastering all other skills.

I understand the urgent need for income and all of that, but when it comes to starting and running a successful business, you’ve got to till the soil, plant the seed, water it, give it sunshine and wait. If you’re not patient during the beginning period when you’re nurturing you and your business, you’ll get frustrated and quit.

Your job is to develop patience with yourself until. Until when? Until you’re a master.

Will it take 10 failed tries? Maybe 200 failed tries? Will it take two weeks? Ten years?

No one knows. But you can do this. Believe in yourself. Be kind to yourself.

It will be tough. You’ve gotta want it. You’ve gotta want it bad.

And you’ve got to have the patience to take it all the way, no matter how long it takes.

#5: Be flexible and teachable.

Another way to say “be flexible” is “get comfortable with pivoting.” We all know “pivot” as the #1 buzzword in business for 2020, but it’s being (over) used for a reason.

You’re not going to survive this year—or the years to come—without it.

A pivot is necessary when there’s a crisis of some kind, or even just when revenue isn’t what you hoped it would be. Pivoting can take your business from where it is to a new plane of existence.

You have to be willing to change your business in some fundamental way. When there’s a problem—either in your business, or out there in the world, or both—you’re not going to be able to solve it with the same level of thinking in which it was created.

Hold fast and stay true to your vision for your business, but don’t be afraid to try new tactics and strategies to get you where you want to go.

Take the words “but this is how we’ve always done it” out of your vocabulary immediately.

You need to be open, adaptable, flexible and willing to make uncomfortable changes.

#6: See change as an opportunity.

Speaking of changes, NOW is the time to see change NOT as something big and scary, but as something exciting, even magical. An opportunity to do something new and big and potentially amazing.

Change is an inevitable part of life. We’ve all had to make some pretty big changes lately, whether we like it or not.

And those changes are going to keep coming.

So, we really have two options:

Fight that change with everything in us.

OR

Embrace it, welcome it, invite it in—with a big smile.

Take a minute to stop and imagine all the possibilities and opportunities just waiting for you on this new path you’re taking.

Magical, I tell you.

#7: Never stop learning.

I don’t understand people who don’t have a desire to learn.

I have this insatiable hunger for knowledge and information and tips and resources of all kinds. I seriously can’t get enough.

Every single day I’m reading and researching and watching and listening, filling up my brain with all kinds of good stuff.

Find some business podcasts to listen to (here’s a good one), blogs to read (like this one), YouTube channels to subscribe to (try this one), websites to get news and information from (I check this one every day).

Use your mind. Fill it up and put all that learning to good use in your business.

#8: Share what you’ve learned.

But don’t keep all of that valuable knowledge and information to yourself.

A big part of why I keep learning, is so that I can pass what I’ve learned on to all of YOU.

I do that on my podcast, my YouTube channel, my blog, and in my Cashflow Diary Facebook group.

I wouldn’t be where I am today without a lot of people sharing their wisdom and knowledge with me, and I’ll keep paying it forward for the rest of my life.

I hope you will, too.

#9: Master the art of failing.

The “art” of failing? Seriously?

Yes, seriously. There really is an art to it.

I don’t want you to ever stop because you’ve made some mistakes, are still in a learning curve, or you had a couple of big, bad failure events.

Like they say, so what? Now what?!

My failures have taught me to be a better entrepreneur and investor. They didn’t stop me from moving my needle forward, and there’s no way I’d ever let them stop me from participating in real estate investing.

One of the most important skills you need as an entrepreneur and business owner is the ability to fail fast, fail forward and fail frequently!

Being okay with failure events is critical to your success.

Check out this blog post (and this one) where I get specific about some of my (really big) failures in the past and how I’ve learned from them.

#10: Give back.

This one is so important to me.

Once you’ve started achieving some amount of financial success, the best thing you can do is give back to your community.

This can look however you want it to look. You can invest in your neighborhood, in the schools, in your church, in local organizations for young people or the homeless or immigrants.

Who in your community could benefit from your help?

The sky’s the limit.

Just find a way—several ways—to serve and love your fellow humans with what you’ve been given.

Your time, your money, your self.

A life lived just for yourself, is no life at all.

And there you have it—10 mindsets and habits that will set you on the path to success! Join our free Facebook community help you stay on track as you build your own short term rental business.

The post 10 Mindsets and Habits Every Business Owner Needs appeared first on Cashflow Diary.