Becoming the CEO of Your Life
Many principles of entrepreneurship can apply to your job, career, and life.
Whether you are one or not, acting like an entrepreneur (and an owner) and applying intentionality can take you incredibly far.
What makes someone an entrepreneur?
At times a corporate buzzword, I define an entrepreneur as “a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money.”
While many may focus on the risk piece as the main characteristic of entrepreneurship, I’ve always related more to the ownership and intention aspect. Risk is part of it, but ownership of the result (all results) and intentionality to be successful (no matter what) is key. I am someone who appreciates activity, which is why I respect entrepreneurs—they take action because it’s the only way they know how to operate.
Get off the hamster wheel
Too many of us go through the motions of life: get up, go to work, maybe exercise, make dinner, watch TV, go to sleep. Rinse and repeat. This is an easy routine to get stuck in. Next thing you know, a year has gone by and you feel like you haven’t made the progress you had intended to make.
If you coast through your career in this same cycle, you may never get fired from a job, but you certainly won’t see the results you want. And your dream of owning your own business at some point may just slip away.
If this is you, the first step is being aware of it and recognizing this pattern. The next step is to have the mental, physical, and emotional willpower to make a change, or more likely, many small changes.
I encourage you to see yourself as the CEO of your career and life. Here’s how to do it.
Be an entrepreneur of your career
Treat your career like its own business, just as an entrepreneur would when starting a new venture. What are you investing in? What are you learning?
As an entrepreneur, if you don’t develop your business and grow it consistently over time, you will be out of business. You and your career require the same discipline. Are you constantly learning and growing and striving for success in your venture?
Take your current job, for example. Most of us don’t own the company we are employed by, so how do we feel like we have a say in its decisions and direction? Sometimes we need to take ownership of anything and everything we can. Fake it until we make it.
We need to act like it’s our name on the building and understand that everything the company does is a reflection of us and our reputation. We need to truly feel like the company’s success or failure is directly related to our own. That the company’s bottom line correlates to our personal wealth and success.
Do the work, understand the business, and commit to thinking about the big picture, while simultaneously taking care of all the smaller day-to-day details that are necessary.
Everyone has a chance to do this regardless of title or position. I know it will feel impossible some days, and we all feel like victims at times. But fight the urge. Take ownership. Do something different. Most entrepreneurs are successful because they outwork other people, and dare to do things differently.
As a former leader, sales manager, and CEO, I absolutely noticed the people who showed up to work with this mindset. Also, I personally never asked someone to do something I wouldn’t do myself. Leading by example is another characteristic of being an entrepreneur; the buck stops with you, so there is no excuse to not get things done.
Take ownership of your job and take a personal stake in your company, just like an entrepreneur.
Be the CEO of your life
Let’s now think beyond your work and career and apply this concept to your life as a whole. I’ve shared this line in my newsletter, and I come back to it myself often: Your life is your intention.
Look around you. Whatever you see is what you have created, consciously or unconsciously. This is your intention. Nobody else made it for you, and nobody else is going to change it for you. Take responsibility for all of it: the good, the bad, and the average.
Be accountable for your actions going forward and take ownership of your life. Whatever you want to accomplish is up to you. Be aware of the results you are creating and try to be more consciously intentional. Intend the results that you want. You have a choice. Don’t float through life and pretend you are just unlucky. Create your luck.
Here are some keys to implementing the concept of entrepreneurship into your work and life:
Care! About your job, your coworkers, your clients. Serve others and believe that what you’re doing is making an impact.
Be curious. Put yourself in others’ shoes, try to understand what makes them tick, and figure out ways to solve their problems.
Build a strong team. Make sure you have a trusted network of people around you for guidance and support, just like you would have employees at a company.
Take calculated risks. The key here is the word “calculated.” Don’t do anything reckless, but pick spots where you can try something new—be it a project, class, side hustle, etc.
Establish your own BHAGs—Big Hairy Audacious Goals stimulate progress. Set a goal you think you cannot achieve; if you miss, you’ll still have made a ton of progress and learned a lot.
Take care of yourself emotionally, mentally, and physically. Again, you shouldn't neglect important aspects of your business, so don’t neglect them in your own career and life.
Always be learning and growing. Life is a big school if we choose to treat it that way. Every moment presents us with an opportunity to learn, especially failure.
Have fun. Fun is a choice. Enjoy the adventure of life, and enjoy realizing your full potential.
Realize your full potential at work and in life
Take responsibility for everything that does or does not happen to you. Change your intention if you don’t like what you see.
Here’s a certain fact: One cannot reach their potential if they don’t invest in themselves. Take classes, read books, hire a coach, expand your SEI, better yourself. You need to invest in you.
Adopting the mindset of an entrepreneur and the ownership of a CEO will put you on the path toward making meaningful progress in your job, career and life.
It may just end up being the best thing you ever did for yourself.