Why Your Entrepreneurial Mindset Sucks (And How to Fix It)
Let’s ruin a couple of delusions: Entrepreneurship isn’t about “manifesting abundance” or “trusting the universe.” It’s a daily lab experiment where you’re both scientist and lab rat, testing hypotheses while dodging explosions. After mentoring founders who’ve scaled and others who’ve face-planted, here are the mindset mistakes founders often make:
1. You Think The Grind Is Glamorous
What You See: Hustle culture reels, “CEO vibes”, blockchain bros on lambos, and “boss babes” on their laptops in Bali.
Reality: Entrepreneurship looks like success stories and milestones, but it’s mostly managing setbacks and uncertainty.
The Fix: Chase boring. The real magic happens in unsexy spreadsheets, automated email sequences, and Metric Mondays where you track actual growth—not Instagram likes. Keep your “hustle” private and your growth public.
2. You Confuse “Hustle” with Self-Sabotage
What you think: “Sleep is for the weak! Grind now, brunch later!”
Reality: Posting “Rise and grind” stories while gulping down 5 cans of Redbulls isn’t strategy—it’s a cry for help.
The most successful founders I know don’t work themselves to death. They outsource, automate, and delegate like lazy geniuses. Meanwhile, you’re hand-coding invoices because “no one does it like I do”.
The Fix: Replace hustle mindset with “strategic laziness”. If a task doesn’t require genius, pay someone $5/hour on Fiverr to do it. Use the extra time to nap or, God forbid, think.
3. Your Passion is a Liability
What You Think: “If I love it enough, money will follow!”
Reality: Passion is gasoline. Without direction, you’re just a flaming dumpster rolling toward a cliff.
The Fix: Pair passion with preparedness and strategic thinking. Love your idea? Good. Now assume it’s wrong. Build redundancies for every assumption. Still standing? Add more. The goal isn’t to avoid failure—it’s to fail small and often that it guides you to success.
4. You think confidence = success
What You See: Keynote speeches, TEDx bravado, LinkedIn humblebrags.
Reality: The best founders are quietly paranoid. They see apocalypses everywhere—market shifts, cash droughts, that weird cough the intern has.
The Fix: Channel paranoia into prep-work. Hoard 6 months of runway. Have a Plan B, and C. Sleep soundly knowing you’re ready for chaos.
5. You Obsess Over Revenue
What You Think: “Revenue up = winning!”
Reality: Revenue is Monopoly money(it tells you nothing). Profit is alright. Cash flow is the oxygen mask you fight for when the plane’s going down.
The Fix: Worship your cash flow statement. If money’s never moving in faster than it’s leaking out, you’re not a business—you’re a hobby with invoices.
What You Should Do
Think like a pessimist (Assume everything will break)
Plan like a control freak (But stay flexible enough to pivot)
Work like a robot (Systems > motivation)
Entrepreneurship isn’t for the “strong-minded.” It’s for the stubborn, the skeptical, and maybe even the slightly insane. Now go update your mantra: “I might fail. I might cry. But I’ll outlast the idiots.”