[MUSIC] Hi, welcome to our course on getting the right mindset. The first course in the specialization of how to start a business. >> In this lesson, we're going to give you an overview of the goals and objectives of the mindset course. >> In this course, our goal is to introduce you to the transformative process of creating a business. The mind is a very powerful tool. Our goal is to help put you in a position so that your mind is not your enemy but becomes your friend along this journey. >> So what can you expect to gain from this course? Well first and perhaps foremost, confidence. This course will provide you with evidence that would counter most of the arguments that have perhaps been presented to you on why you can't succeed in business. This course will helpfully reinforce your confidence that in fact you can succeed. Next, it's often been stated that business is as much of a mindset as it is a set of circumstances. This course will help provide you with the tools to help you function much more effectively in terms of what we call an entrepreneurial mindset. You'll be able to recognize, exploit, and capitalize on opportunity. Having an entrepreneurial mindset allows you to operate much more effectively and what we will refer to as kind of a new paradigm on how businesses operate in a very competitive environment. All business owners need to think entrepreneurially, but not all business owners are entrepreneurs. There are different types of businesses and there are different types of business owners. At the end of this course, you'll be much more comfortable deciding exactly what type of business do you want to start. And what type of business owner do you want to be? >> So the first question you need to ask yourself is, what's a mindset? Well, a mindset is a way of thinking, it's not the actual thought itself. It's a level of processing that guides that thinking. It's a way of making observations, looking at facts, coming up with assumptions that determine one's outlook on an opportunity, on a risk, on things that you can think about in order to subsequently to impact your behavior. It's also important to realize that a mindset is kind of a state or condition, really. Sometimes you're in a position where your mindset will allow you to see an opportunity you didn't see before you. You respond to some sort of external event, or maybe you notice something for the first time in passing that is a problem or an opportunity you've seen many times. But if you're not mentally prepared to take action on it, then it's a failed opportunity. >> One often hears that he or she thinks like a lawyer. Lawyers generally think in what we might call an adversarial mindset. Lawyers create a fact pattern, a selection of evidence and facts that they galvanize together in order to present some thesis, to present some hypothesis about what may or may not have occurred, what may or may not have been legal. With these legal fact patterns, they establish precedence. They present in front of an audience, typically a judge or a jury, to make their case. >> One of the things we want to establish in this mindset course is how to start thinking like a scientist. You might say, but I'm not a scientist. But it's not so much that you work in a lab or that you're an engineer. The point of the process is that you don't make decisions willy-nilly. Things require actual fact to move forward on. So what we're going to walk through is how do you begin processing information in a way where you develop a hypothesis, and find a way to test those hypothesis so that, one, you can take action, or two, you can decide it's not an idea that's worth your time or pursuit. >> As Ken and I have said, having a mindset is a process or way of thinking that forms and guides behavior. Thus, an entrepreneurial mind set is a way of thinking that sees opportunity in the midst of change or great chaos. Uses creative problem solving to create value, regardless of resources that benefits themselves and society, while at the whole time mitigating risk. >> Various professions or disciplines, through their training practice and traditions, you adopt a certain mindset, or a way of thinking that goes into your problem solving capabilities. Just as lawyers are characterized for adversarial thinking, and scientists are characterized by critical thinking, business owners should be known for their entrepreneurial thinking. >> An entrepreneurial mindset is a way of thinking common to different types of business owners. >> Only one of which, as we'll see later in the course, we describe as an entrepreneur. >> In this course we'll cover four topic areas with respect to an entrepreneurial mindset. First, we're going to spend time dispelling the myths associated with mindsets that contribute to so many people not taking action or attempting to start a business. Next, we're going to talk about the characteristics and perspectives associated with an entrepreneurial mindset. And ways in which you can acquire and enhance them. Further, this course is then going to turn to describing and giving examples of new models and frameworks for approaching and operating a business. And finally, we're going to outline the business startup process and present it in guidelines to help you make the right steps in your decision process. >> So with the decision to take this course, you've taken the first step towards changing your circumstances. How? Well, by changing your mindset. We encourage you to be open to new ideas. To be proactive by actually putting in the action, the steps and exercises outlined in the course. Business is a contact sport. It depends much more on adaptive execution than on contextual understandings. The course is designed to provide you with a number of small victories against various business challenges. You're able to build confidence in your capabilities to succeed. All of this hopefully will lay a foundation for you to be convinced that this is something that you can do, and much more importantly, for you to be committed to doing. [MUSIC]
