663. Q&AF: Regaining Confidence, Evolving As An Entrepreneur & Innovating In Business

We are surrounded by people who seem more successful than us and who earn more money than we do. We may think, “What do they have that I haven’t got? Are they just smarter?” In The Magic of Thinking Big, author David J. Schwartz says it’s a matter of mindset. Successful people “think bigger” — they believe in themselves, have a grander scale of imagination, and see bigger possibilities. And they behave accordingly — they have magnetic attitudes, prefer action to waiting, and learn from every setback. Learn the strategies and techniques that successful people use.

The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy offers simple tips on achieving success and living the life of your dreams. The idea is similar to compound interest in finance - small, everyday decisions add up to huge returns over time.

While the concept is simple, that doesn't mean it's easy. Hardy presents six strategies for successfully and carefully directing your choices to shape your destiny in a positive direction and offers a plan of action for improving your results.

Brené Brown believes that the key to fulfillment is pursuing wholeheartedness—a way of life that fosters self-worth and emphasizes being brave, caring for yourself and others, and cultivating meaningful relationships. Living wholeheartedly requires you to embrace and express your authentic self. However, doing so makes you vulnerable—you may face painful experiences like rejection, loss, and heartbreak. If left unaddressed, these experiences cause emotional setbacks that can keep you from living wholeheartedly. In Rising Strong, Brown explains that to rebuild wholeheartedness after setbacks, you must recover emotionally.

In this guide, we’ll start by explaining why it’s important to take control of your recovery. Then, we’ll explore the three stages of Brown’s recovery process—confronting your strong feelings, exploring why they occurred, and identifying how you can change your thoughts and behaviors to cultivate resilience and rebuild wholeheartedness. In our commentary, we’ll add context to Brown’s research and advice, referencing books like Hans Rosling’s Factfulness and Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s Burnout.

If you’re looking to break away from your current work arrangement and start doing something that you’re passionate about, consider starting your own microbusiness, a business run by one person. Where you once needed to have a fair amount of funding to get started, Chris Guillebeau suggests you can now do so for as little as $100.

In The $100 Startup, Guillebeau breaks down the process of starting your own business. He covers everything from finding your target audience to creating a development plan, explaining how you can find success without loaning a cent from the bank.

Many people dream of quitting a job and becoming their own boss by starting a business. A million new businesses are started each year, but 40 percent fail within the first year and 80 percent fail within five years. Underlying the high failure rate are persistent romantic notions about how businesses are born and what it takes to succeed.

In The E-Myth Revisited, Michael E. Gerber explains how focusing solely on the product undermines new businesses and just trying to work harder undermines new businesses. The right approach is to view your business like a franchise—to systematize operations so that it no longer relies on you. This thirty-year-old classic is a part-practical and part-philosophical guide to conceptualizing and starting a business.

What do master chess players and master businesspeople have in common? Both always plan five steps ahead. In Your Next Five Moves, entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David argues that what distinguishes exceptional business leaders from average ones is their ability to anticipate future events and plan effectively for them—ideally by thinking five steps ahead. To turn you into a master business planner, Bet-David presents five strategic steps you must start taking now: learn about yourself, improve your problem-solving skills, create a winning team, expand your business, and position yourself as an industry leader.

In each step, we’ll describe how you can enhance your ability to strategize for long-term success. We’ll also connect Bet-David’s ideas to those of other entrepreneurs and business leaders, such as Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) and Gino Wickman (Traction), so you get the greatest insight on how to build a successful long-term strategy for your business.