by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
The Entrepreneur Mindset Can Change Your Life…No Matter Who You Are
Let’s start this one with a hard truth:
If you want to live real, you probably need to stop thinking like an employee.
That might sound a tad extreme, especially if you’re already quite content in your job, but this article isn’t just about whether you’re self-employed or on someone else’s payroll – it’s about how you see yourself in a way that’s either unreal or REAL.
It’s about whether you’re passive or active in your own life; whether you wait for instructions before moving ahead or forging your own path; whether you’re following a script or writing one.
The employee mindset is everywhere and it most often leads to what Thoreau called “lives of quiet desperation”:
It’s pumped into our brains at school, made part of our identity at university, and embedded deep in our collective psyche by the time we’re scanning the job boards with sweaty palms and a tidy CV.
We’re told that the meaning of life is to seek ‘security’ (even though they can fire you at any time), stay ‘safe’ (even though your pay cheque is dependent on somebody else’s success), and delay our dreams until we’ve earned the ‘right’ to chase them by being ‘sensible’ first – maybe once the mortgage is paid or after the kids have left home or when retirement finally rolls around.
Just before you, die, of course.
The truth about this standard path is that the script it follows isn’t written with your freedom or realness in mind – it’s written to make sure the machine keeps turning.
And you – if you’re not paying attention – just end up becoming another cog.
If that’s not what you want to be, then keep reading:
What We Cover in This Article
- The Entrepreneur Mindset Can Change Your Life…No Matter Who You Are
- What If You Were Never Meant to Be a Cog?
- A Tale of Two Mindsets: Employee vs. Entrepreneur
- You Don’t Need to Quit Your Job – You Need to Flip the Script
- The Death Grip of Comfort
- Start Being an Entrepreneur Now. Wherever You Are.
- Action is the Cure for Everything
- Practical Steps to Cultivate the Entrepreneurial Mindset
- Final Word: Realness of Spirit
What If You Were Never Meant to Be a Cog?
The majority of ‘normal’ people are conditioned to see themselves as ‘employees’. Though there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with this way of living, when we don’t think real for ourselves we hand our lives over to somebody else.
And, if you wanna live free, you gotta think free.
The moment we internalise the employee mindset, we become psychologically dependent which goes against our natural state of realness:
Dependent on authority figures to tell us what to do. Dependent on structure to give our days meaning. Dependent on external permission to feel like we ‘matter’ or that we’re worthy in some way (because we’re getting results for somebody else).
Over time, this dependency is just a death by a thousand slow cuts that eats away at what it means to be truly alive.
The entrepreneurial mindset, in contrast, is not about being the boss or chasing money – it’s about being the author of your own real life.
It’s about asking yourself “How can I offer something of value to the world?” and then building your a real purpose for yourself around the answer to that question.
In terms of your REALNESS, it’s about being real enough to think for yourself and being active enough to shape your circumstances instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you.
Essentially, it boils down to two different ways of seeing yourself, the world, and reality:
A Tale of Two Mindsets: Employee vs. Entrepreneur
Let’s break it down.
| Employee Mindset | Entrepreneurial Mindset |
|---|---|
| Works for money | Builds systems that make money |
| Waits for permission | Creates opportunities |
| Follows orders | Solves problems |
| Avoids risk | Embraces calculated risk |
| Values security over freedom | Values freedom over comfort |
| Lives for weekends and holidays | Designs a life they don’t need to escape from |
| Does what they’re told | Asks why and how it could be done better |
| Lives reactively | Lives proactively |
This isn’t just about business – it’s about character. It’s about choosing to see yourself as a creative force in your own life, no matter what you’re doing (whether you’re building a start-up, leading a team, freelancing, working in retail, or currently doing anything else).
In fact, if you have a job that you’re currently ‘stuck’ in, then the entrepreneurial mindset might help you more than anyone else. Why?
Because it gives you leverage:
You stop showing up just to get paid and start showing up to grow real, to learn, and to become more valuable to yourself and others.
That shift alone can be the difference between a life of quiet resentment and one of quiet confidence.
You Don’t Need to Quit Your Job – You Need to Flip the Script
Let’s be real (the whole point of this blog, after all):
Not everyone can drop everything and launch a business and not everyone should but everyone can benefit from cultivating the mindset of a creator.
Seeing yourself as an active entrepreneur, instead of just a passive employee, will help you regardless of your situation. Any ‘job’ you take should be one that can teach you something that benefits your real life goals and values.
This is the key: see every experience as training for the real life you’re creating – not the one you’ve settled for. Not the one you were handed. But the one you’re shaping.
Even your worst job can be used to refine your vision, toughen your character, and teach you skills that will serve you later – if you’re willing to look at it through the eyes of someone who’s building something and constantly engaged in the process of bringing that vision to life.
The Death Grip of Comfort
I totally understand how seductive the idea of ‘security’ is but here’s the irony: the safety we chase is mostly an illusion.
You can lose your job. You can lose your savings. You can even lose your health. The only real security lies in your ability to adapt, to grow, and to continually offer value to the world.
You can’t have happiness without freedom and you can’t have freedom until you fight for influence over your own life.
Comfort is the enemy of growth because it tells you that stagnation is okay as long as you’re not suffering.
But suffering isn’t the only thing to fear:
Regret is worse and it comes when you realise you gave up your life for the illusion of safety and now there’s no time to change it.
Start Being an Entrepreneur Now. Wherever You Are.
You don’t need to change your career overnight, but – if this article resonates with you – you do need to change your perspective:
You need to see yourself as someone who creates value and find ways to start doing that instead of just being somebody who trades time for money.
Your time is your LIFE (because death is coming and time, energy, and attention are the most important assets you have). When you trade you’re time, you’re literally giving your life away so make sure you’re trading it for something real.
Here are a few questions to get you thinking like an entrepreneur – regardless of your job title:
- What value do I currently bring to the people I work with or serve?
- What problems do I notice that I could help solve at work, at home, or in my community?
- What skills do I need to develop to become more real?
- What would I create if I stopped waiting for permission?
- What am I doing right now that feels passive and how could I flip the script and turn it into action?
These are all questions that move you out of stasis and into growth – that move you out of the realm of ideas and into the world of action.
Action is the Cure for Everything
To grow in REALNESS, we don’t deal in empty abstractions:
If it isn’t actionable or experiential, it isn’t real; if it doesn’t eventually take root in your behaviour, it doesn’t matter.
And here’s one of the most important truths of all: no one’s going to do it for you.
Most people think that the way things are is the way they will always be; if you see the world as unchangeable, then you will most likely end up stuck in a job that you hate for the rest of your life.
So stop waiting and start building. Whether it’s a side hustle, a product, a community, or simply a new way of thinking – start.
You real life is unfolding right now.
Practical Steps to Cultivate the Entrepreneurial Mindset
- Audit your week: Where are you spending time on things that don’t serve your bigger purpose? Where can you reclaim time? If it’s not real, then don’t do it (as much as that’s possible in an unreal world).
- Start a ‘value log’: Each day, write down something you did that created value for someone else -even if it’s small. Keep your focus on the problems that you’re solving for people and how you’re actually improving the world around you.
- Learn something that will help you grow real: Read a book on creativity, persuasion, systems thinking or marketing – not for trivia, but to get better at whatever it is you’re already doing and what you want to eventually be doing.
- Create an offer: This could be offering to help a colleague solve a problem, or pitching a service, or creating a resource to share online. Start packaging up what you can do for people and find people that want you to do it.
- Speak to people who are doing what you want to do alrady: Find your tribe and let their example pull you forward. Iron sharpens iron.
- Create before you consume. Each morning, spend 10–30 minutes making something – writing, drawing, planning, building – before checking social media or emails. Make this part of your morning routine and commit to it daily. You’ll see your results compound over time (if you write a few hundred words a day, you’ll have the first draft of a book by the end of a year, for example).
- Reflect weekly: What did you do this week that moved you closer to the life you actually want? Keep checking in with yourself and refining the path you’re walking on.
Final Word: Realness of Spirit
Entrepreneurship isn’t a job description – it’s a spirit:
It’s the attitude of someone who knows that life is not a rehearsal and that the only security worth chasing is the kind you build as an expression of what’s already with you.
Whether you’re working a 9–5, running your own gig, or somewhere in between, choose to be real by choosing to be active:
Create something. Offer something. Become something.
You don’t need to have all the answers – you just need to stop waiting for someone else to give them to you.
Stay real out there,
*Based on ‘Revolution’ number thirty one in Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness
P.S. If you’re interested in coaching and want to work on changing your life, then book a free call with me and get started right away.
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