When it comes to entrepreneurship, making money is the end goal. Some businesses have no issue generating profits while others struggle to keep things afloat. It may seem that some business owners have a secret formula for achieving success or access to resources that others don’t have. Though each entrepreneur’s journey towards success is different, successful business owners have one thing in common – the right mindset. Having a growth mindset is crucial for success and personal growth. Mirela Sula, CEO & Founder of Global Woman Club and Global Woman’s Magazine, Eric Partaker, CEO, Coach & Mentor at Peak Performance Expert, Judith Germain, Founder of The Maverick and Shalini Khemka CBE, Founder, Chief Executive & Board Director at the E2Exchange sat in a panel at Elite Business Live 2024, speaking about how to cultivate a growth mindset and embrace failure in business.
Firstly, what does it mean to have a growth mindset? A growth mindset means you are always learning and evolving, Judith explained. “For me, a growth mindset is recognising that anything is possible. Everything is possible, and you’re not held hostage to what you failed in the past. It’s all about moving forward. It’s all about how to hack the brain. So, if you understand the way your brain works, you can hack it so that you can grow infinitely.” Failure is part of the journey. But how does one embrace failure and turn it into a positive? We should take our failures as lessons, Mirela said, and continue to strive towards greatness no matter the weather. “Whatever happens, it’s important that you take ownership of failure,” she said. “There is no limit to what we can do every single day. We have the opportunity to reprogram, to reset, to recreate, to reinvent, to forgive ourselves. The biggest mistake we can make is to not forgive ourselves. We need to learn to let go. We must surround ourselves with the right people, and once you surround yourself with the right people and you have the right mindset, then good things will come your way.”
Failure can be the greatest business lesson, Shalini added. Failing gives you the opportunity to learn from mistakes and reframe negative thoughts into positive ones. It is important to invest time and effort into cultivating a strong mindset, as this is key to spearheading growth in your business. “I think we should celebrate failure,” she said. “There’s a lot of learning. I think the greatest learning comes from the toughest times that you go through. One of the things that I think is very, very important is mindset, but also to allow yourself the time to invest in going on external training. It is very important to keep investing time to building and strengthening your mindset.”
There are many business coaches and mentors out there who can guide you and help you cultivate the right mindset. It is one thing to learn the skills and tools, but another thing to implement them. The most important step is to take action, Mirela said, and practice what you have learned from your mentors and coaches – rather than just sitting and waiting on a miracle. “I think coaching is great,” she explained. “But often, I do see ladies in my mentoring group go from one course to another, from one coach to another. How about we take some action? The Global Woman Club that I run is all about bringing people together, encouraging them to share their stories, express themselves and believe in their vision. And for me, that is very important. It’s all about unlocking the fear and the psychological blockage that we have deep inside us. Coaches definitely help with that. But it’s not about making one big move, because there is no such thing as immediate success. It’s about taking consistent actions every single day. When you wake up in the morning, no matter what you feel, inspired or not inspired, you go and do what you are meant to do in this world.”
What do you do when you reach a hurdle in your business, and it seems that all hope is lost? Eric Partaker shared his experience facing a drastic knockback in his entrepreneur journey, and how he bounced back from the trenches. Failure enables you to build resilience, or as Eric describes it, ‘anti-fragility’, so that you come back wiser, stronger and ready to take on any challenge that comes your way. “You think it’s all over, and it’s so hard to mentally pick yourself back up, but you have to go through the trenches before you can get to another peak,” Eric explained. “How do you build an immune system? You expose it to germs and bacteria. You don’t will it into action. How do you grow a muscle? You stress it. That’s what causes it to grow. And so, when you start to recognise that your body is the perfect temple for anti-fragility, whereby the more stress and hits you take, the stronger you become. It enables you to cultivate. And once that happens, then things explode for you. You have to just keep standing up after you fall, which is what I did, and you will see more success. That is how you bounce back in a big way.”
