Resilience for Global Entrepreneurship Week
I got the opportunity to share some thoughts about resiliency and growth mindsets for entrepreneurs today as a part of the programming for the Small Business Development Center at Longwood University. I really enjoyed the opportunity to contribute to a group that has helped me so much this fall… and to test out some new material on a willing audience!
Entrepreneurship presents unique challenges to the decision making processes of the brain. A successful entrepreneur must be able to embrace challenges, learn from mistakes, view setbacks as opportunities and otherwise reframe difficult situations to maintain hopefulness and enthusiasm. In this conversation we explored the concept of a growth mindset from a neuroscientific perspective, drawing from research to create new strategies to build resilience and to make the most out of the thousands of decisions we make daily.
What is an entrepreneur? One of the definitions I found and liked was: “an individual who creates a new business, bearing most of the risks and enjoying most of the rewards”. There are several elements to this short definition that I like. First, the term “individual” reminds us that entrepreneurship is often a solo adventure. you search for pictures related to entrepreneur or entrepreneurship and every pic is a person standing alone, either triumphant or hard at work, in their place of business. Now, don’t get me wrong, it definitely isn’t a solitary endeavor. We all need people and can’t accomplish anything on our own (mental note to write more about that one day soon!). But my point here is that we’re describing a person and it’s the person who’s driving an initiative and making things happen and we want to know more about that individual. From this definition we know this person is creative, innovative, bold, and motivated. Those are powerful terms.
Beyond this, there’s more to defining the entrepreneur and their spirit. This person has tenacity and grit, vision and passion, focus, courage, imagination, self-confidence, direction, and many more characteristics. One of the most important elements of the entrepreneurial spirit is resilience.
Resilience is that ability to get knocked down and get back up, perhaps repeatedly. It’s the capacity to bounce back from injury, to face down stress and trauma and come out fine on the other side. Some people have the ability to continually avoid the many negative consequences of stress and to maintain their psychological and physiological well-being. are they just lucky? Born that way? No.
Resiliency is an active, adaptive process, according to a 2012 Nature Neuroscience paper. People aren’t just good or bad at dealing with stress as a lifelong personality trait. We can create resilience.
Create or enhance your own resilience through one of my “Build Resilience” coaching package or customize a training package for your team. Mention the Longwood SBDC for a special discount.
