There are a lot of posts out there talking about failure as an entrepreneur. Bet you a dollar if you go to google you could find thousands of posts, hundreds of books, and maybe even a few poems about why you suck at being an Entrepreneur.

Seriously, it sucks when you want to do your own thing – run your own business, and you keep failing.

Basically anyone who’s uber successful pretty much sucked at being an entrepreneur first. [Also side note, i’ve never learned how to spell entrepreneur… thank you auto correct]. They’ve failed dozens of time, but you just don’t hear about the time Warren Buffett nearly lost all of his friends money; or the time Bill Gates decided the Zune was a good idea (ok maybe you did hear about that one). Or the time, well yea – you get the point. BILLIONAIRES mess up a lot. But that’s not really what I’m going to be sharing with you.

Here’s the problem – “Entrepreneurs” think taking major risks is a required part of success. Yes you do have to take SOME risk, but you can hedge that risk. You can set “stop order” on a project or idea. They may also consider the unique idea to be the most important part of the equation. Guess what, wrong again, idea’s are worth about the paper they’re suppose to be written on. Most of the time the idea doesn’t even get out of your head, much less executed.

Action! Right? That’s the key ingredient you say… Well, kinda. We’ve all heard that hustle is the magic word when it comes to getting things done, and you’d be partially right. But if you’re trying to start a revolution to get people to start replacing their cars with horses, you’re going have to face the reality that no mater how hard you work – it’s not going to happen. Sorry.

Ok action, plus a good idea right? Getting really really close. You do have to have both of those key ingredients to succeed as an entrepreneur. But here’s the real kicker for success, and all the top self made billionaires are billionaires because of this one thing.

Mindset.

Get this, it’s not even about having an entrepreneur mindset, or a disciplined mindset, or an action oriented mindset. It’s about having an investors mindset.

“But I’m not an investor! I don’t put money into things and wait for a return, that’s boring!” You’re silly coffee companion might say. And to him I’d say… of course you’re an investor! We all are, whether we want to be or not.

Yes a traditional “investor” as we think of the term adds money into a venture for a return on his investment. Every minute of your day is worth something, and you’re investing it into something. Every conversation is an investment, every time you decide to do, or not do something, you’re investing. See how this is a about mindset?

An example of how investing works with your time: If you decide to do something on your own when you should be delegating it, you’re investing poorly. The time you spent doing that item, you could have spent working on something more important.

Investing works with ideas too. You should be focused on the idea that is going to help you reach your main objective, focusing on ideas that don’t is a waste of resources. As an investor, you don’t want to waste time and resources.