Five Mental Models of Successful Business Owners
There are a lot of examples out there of mental models for marketing, mental models for success, mental models for decision-making… the list goes on. There are examples of mental models for just about everything!
If you’re already lost and wondering, “Anne, what on earth is a mental model!?” Allow me.
Mental models are a fancy way of saying FRAMEWORK. They’re the frameworks we use to make sense of the world around us, understand how we as individuals fit into the larger context of society as a whole, and see reality more clearly.
Mental Models Definition, by James Clear:
“A mental model is an explanation of how something works. The phrase “mental model” is an overarching term for any sort of concept, framework, or worldview that you carry around in your mind.
Mental models help you understand life. For example, supply and demand is a mental model that helps you understand how the economy works. Game theory is a mental model that helps you understand how relationships and trust work. Entropy is a mental model that helps you understand how disorder and decay work.”
The more mental models you have in your wheelhouse - the more awareness you tend to have, and the more easily you’re able to make strong decisions.
I’ve been exploring this topic and decided to put together what I see from working with successful business owners as the mental models for excelling in business and as an entrepreneur.
Before we get into it: remember that mental models are not simply “mindset” shifts. They are lenses through which to view life, problems, solutions, and growth. It’s up to YOU to do the mindset work (or hire someone like me to help you!) that you need to apply the mental models for yourself.
Five Mental Models of Successful Business Owners:
Beliefs
Successful business owners are open to examining and upending their beliefs when called for. They get radically honest with themselves and look at whether or not their belief is self-limiting, whether or not it's true, or harmful to others.
Example:
If an individual has the belief that in order to be successful, life has to be difficult. Maybe they believe business is about winning and never losing, and all they have to do is follow a strict set of rules, and it will lead to success. This individual might spend an exorbitant amount of time working and slogging away. Perhaps they even create a hustle-and-grind workplace where long hours and no days off are rewarded. They’ll strive for a win at all costs and when they experience setbacks, it might be harder to reckon with and leaves them like a failure. They might limit themselves by never thinking outside the box, believing that there’s a clear right and wrong way to do things.
See how our beliefs about success itself can actually get in the way of being successful?
Examine your beliefs around success:
Do you believe that you must behave or follow a certain path to achieve success?
Do you believe that you have to work more and work harder to be successful?
Do you believe money is the only way to be successful?
Do you believe you can be successful even if you fail?
Knowledge
“Knowledge is power” is a famous phrase often attributed to Francis Bacon. While knowledge can be a very good thing to understand concepts, generate ideas, and do your work well, it too needs to be examined if we wish to be successful business owners.
It’s important to realize that gaining more knowledge, doesn’t mean you have control over situations, people, and outcomes. It’s fundamental to look at where knowledge is coming from, and whether or not the source is reliable. What kind of knowledge we’re building - is it going to help us achieve the results we’re looking for?
Simply acquiring knowledge, ideas, concepts, and new information is not success. It must be put into action and applied in order to translate into the makings of success.
Look at your mental model around knowledge and gaining knowledge and as yourself:
Am I obtaining knowledge that will help me reach my goal?
Am I using learning as a way to procrastinate doing?
Is the source of knowledge trustworthy and sound?
Where am I lacking in the knowledge I need for growth?
Values
What do you value? Are you clear on what you value?
When your values are in misalignment with how you’re living your life, you will feel friction and it will impact your success. Your values shape the culture of your business, they influence the paths you take to reach your goals, and they can be a way to gauge your success as an individual. A successful business owner must regularly review their values and hold them up against their actions to check for cohesion. What you often find is that when you’re not operating in accordance with your values, success and happiness feel much harder and further away.
Example:
Let’s go back to our workaholic from the previous example. If an individual’s values are “family” and “community”, but their measure of success is solely about WINNING and working harder… they’ll spend their days building this vision of “success” at the sacrifice of what’s most important to you.
If instead, they recognize their values are family and community and then choose to act on those and structure their business around these, the marker of success in their business takes a much different form.
How do I know my values?
Your values are individual to you and will look different for everyone. They are the core of your identity, personally and professionally and when you live in alignment with your values, it will help define your own unique vision of success.
Ask yourself:
What are my top five values?
Am I operating in alignment with these values?
Which value am I sacrificing at the cost of something I don’t value?
Strengths
Building a business takes more than simply determination and strong coffee, it takes a willingness to look deeper and see the coin from both sides. When looking at your strength, you also must be willing to look at your weaknesses.
Strengths are the things that you and your business uniquely do better than most. They are part of your brand story and identity and they are likely a huge part of the reason people choose you over your competitors.
What are the strengths that are helping you to be successful as a business owner? Is it your organization, your company culture, or your efficiency? Strong leadership skills, innovation, speed?
Conversely, what are your weaknesses? Where do you need to grow? Poor customer service? Lack of self-awareness? Poor planning or weak strategy?
Take time to become aware and list out your own. Then you can harness your strengths and bring in tools, individuals, or resources to help you build on the areas in which you’re weak.
Biases
When we don’t stop to see our own blind spots, we can unconsciously act on biases and let them run the show. Over time, biases can have a big impact on our beliefs and behaviors.
You may have biases towards or against yourself, others, attributes, policies, laws, and more.
Start paying attention to what you think and why. Educate yourself on what biases exist and begin to identify them in yourself if you hold incorrect assumptions or sweeping generalizations that you project onto others.
Biases can hugely hold us back on the journey to success when we don’t stop and realize why we think the way we do. Allow yourself to challenge your own assumptions and question.
Questions to ask yourself:
How might my biases limit me or others?
How do I react when someone disagrees with me? What assumptions am I holding about who they are or what their viewpoint is?
Do my words and actions reflect what I think?
Am I able to empathize with others and what they’re going through?
Am I able to open up to seeing new perspectives?
When you decide to explore each of these mental models and examine your beliefs, knowledge, values, strengths (and don’t forget those weaknesses too), and biases, you may feel uncomfortable. You may realize things you thought were true are not true and it may come to light that you weren’t living in accordance to what you believe and value.
Awareness often comes with letting go. Letting go of what’s holding us back and keeping us from achieving our definition of success.
Don’t run from the discomfort and awareness, lean into it and get curious so you can learn more about yourself and others and grow as a leader and business owner.
Need help shedding light on some of the blind spots you have around your own business?
I can help!
If you’re looking for a professional business consultant who will help you to see clearly what’s holding you back, I’d love to invite you to book a Discovery Call with me HERE!
My strategic advice and encouragement have helped my clients achieve their goals and make important improvements.
