The world is full of problems, and most of humanity’s perspective towards the problems around it usually looks for people to solve the problems (economic, social, or any other type) for them. Then what about the remaining minority of them? They do not think about the problems, or they do not face any problems.
Let us think from another dimension: Do these people look at problems to solve for themselves and others? Who are they?
The answer is that they are the people who see the problems as an opportunity to learn and provide solutions by thinking out of the box. Whom we refer to as entrepreneurs/innovators/disruptors. Yes, these people live with us and are one among us, but the way they see the world around us is different from many of us.
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, there are over 582 million entrepreneurs globally, which is expected to grow by 15% in 2024. What makes these people or clans of entrepreneurs different from ordinary people? Are they blessed ones with no challenges or no issues in life?
The answer to a few such questions is the growth mindset. These people are juxtaposed as fixed-mindset people who avoid challenges, cannot accept failure, and are reluctant to learn and experiment with new things. A Growth mindset believes that people’s intelligence and other abilities improve through effort and practice. People with a growth mindset view challenges as learning opportunities and believe they can succeed with enough work.
According to Carol Dweck (2006) in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, the characteristics of Growth mindset are:
- View challenges as opportunities
- Embrace Constructive feedback
- Learns and grows from failures
- Believes in skills development
- The experimental mind prefers to try new fields of knowledge and skills
- Resilient and problem-solving with curiosity
- Humbleness and humility
People with a growth mindset are innovators, and they see the problems from their root cause and explore possible alternative solutions with an iterative approach. Innovators are also a set of people who believe in collaborations and build teams that work towards the problem with trust and believe in the ideas of the innovators.
Now, the next question for which we can look for answers are
Are these entrepreneurs born with the skills, or can they be made?
Again, the answer is that entrepreneurs can make a methodical approach to nurturing the growth mindset with the right attitude and skills. A few methods are mentioned below:
- Building confidence and resilience by training the mind to embrace challenges
- Continuous learning – prioritize efforts over success, learning over acknowledgment
- Cultivating curiosity
- Network with a positive mindset; people
- Nurturing problem-solving skills
People with a growth mindset do not necessarily need to start enterprises to become successful entrepreneurs. If we follow the statistics from various sources, about 7% of the world’s population are entrepreneurs. This means that the remaining 93% see the world as full of problems, and others should solve their problems. This question, or such, made policymakers, educators, and visionary leaders break the barriers of formal education and skill training.
Today, Entrepreneurship education is a core academic course offered for all disciplines across tertiary institutions worldwide to train young minds on growth mindset and entrepreneurial mindset to enable the youth to be self-employable and intrapreneurs to address the company’s challenges and provide feasible solutions.
It’s all about how one can view the challenge as a problem or an opportunity, which is the differentiator between ordinary human beings and growth mindset individuals.
References
Mavuri, S., Chavali, K., & Kumar, A. (2019, November). A study on imperative innovation eco system linkages to map Sustainable Development Goal 9. In 2019 International Conference on Digitization (ICD) (pp. 142-147). IEEE.