Entrepreneur Daily Change the way you think

A few months ago, my wife and I were brainstorming ways to market our novel. (It’s a romantic comedy called Mr. Nice Guy, about two people who each week sleep together and then critically review each other’s performance in a magazine. Out October 16!) Selling books is hard, as any author knows. So we stared into the air for a while. Then I thought, What would happen if I stopped looking at this like an author, and started doing it like an entrepreneur? With that, a new world opened up—partnerships, promotional swaps, even product placement in the book!

I don’t see entrepreneurship as a career choice. It’s a mindset. That’s the thing I marvel at most when spending time with brilliant entrepreneurs, and it’s the skill I think we all should continually hone. When we think like an entrepreneur, it’s like wearing augmented reality glasses. We see the same things as everyone else, but we see them differently. They appear as inactive opportunities, just waiting to be activated. All we need is to find a new way for something old to be useful.

As I’ve learned recently through my book launch, this thinking is equal parts thrill and anxiety. There’s the thrill of finding opportunities, and the anxiety of never possibly finding them all. But I’ve found a solution: Make this mindset a habit. Do it until it becomes second nature, until you can’t remember what it was like to not see opportunity everywhere. You’ll see more every day.

I hope the stories below, and the magazine we put out this and every month, help you build that habit. It’s what’ll carry us all forward—whether we’re launching a book, a company or an entirely new career.

Jason Feifer
jfeifer@entrepreneur.com
@heyfeifer heyfeifer