Alexander’s focus is not so much on one approach over another as it is about an inner-strategy. As the motto of the book says, “First your mind…then your business.”
Alexander says, “I came to writing this book after years of working as a business coach, first with the legendary small business coach and entrepreneur, Michael Gerber, and later as founder and CEO of my own coaching business, the Full Spectrum Coaching Company.” Gerber, as you may know, is the author and think-tank founder of “The E-Myth” book and subsequent series of books and lectures. Gerber’s aim was — and still is — to help business owners focus on entrepreneurship and not just working a business.
Alexander takes a different approach. He’s found that it all starts in the mind, not in the business. Entrepreneurship is truly all about thinking and and developing entrepreneurial habits of mind. In other words, learning how to create a mind-to-business connection.
As he told me in our chat. “It’s all about thinking. For instance, the ability to take an honest look at one’s feelings is a topic I cover extensively. You need to know yourself first,” he said, “because as a person in a new business, all information you take from the marketplace will have bias.” “How does a business owner identify his own biases and look past them to get to the truth?” That is one of many questions Alexander asks…and answers.
Over decades of coaching thousands of small business owners, Alexander has learned a surprising fact: most small business owners don’t really know how and why they make their decisions. Even more surprising, most of them don’t even know why they’re in business in the first place.
Yes, it’s about profits and making a good living, but it’s actually about much more than that. This book, and Alexander’s teachings, are as much an inner discovery process as they are a school for entrepreneurship.
Alexander upholds that at the center of all the introspection is a deeper understanding of core values. “A core value or purpose has deeper motivations. It’s much more than just making money,” he said. Alexander believes that at some point making money will begin to fall apart as a motivator, even if the business is successful. “Your subconscious impulses say one thing, but your formal thoughts and ideas often say something else. That inner conflict, unknown to you, is the cause of most of your problems in business…actually most of the problems in your life. You have to know how to stop, look and listen to to yourself,” he said, “and I can help you do that.”
He describes feelings as something not to be judged so much as examined. “Look at them, he said. Find out why they’re there and why they have an impact on you and your business. When you’re angry, don’t give in to the anger. Look at it and learn from it. When you’re worried or fearful, look at the worry or fear, don’t give in to them. Look at them and learn from them.”
The ability to look at feelings and impulses is crucial and will provide valuable insight when doing business. “My business book is unusual in that it starts where all problems start…in the mind,” said Alexander.
Then the next question is…what is the right frame of mind for business? For Alexander the right frame of mind starts with “the core value and core purpose.” Naturally, each person will vary in what they hold as a core value or purpose. But as Alexander noted, to be true to that core value and purpose will give one’s business a dynamic that will be authentic and empowering.
Looking back at the failures and disappointments of your life and your business can be constructive if you use it to create new habits of mind. Obviously a younger person in her or his 20’s will see things differently than someone older and wiser. “That is not to say I have not met some very wise 20-somethings,” said Alexander. But he reiterated that success in business is more about the thinking and attitude than it is about the profits. “The principles expressed in my book are more about human thinking and motivation. It is not so much about entrepreneurship in the profit sense. It’s about thinking and wise decisions. Money is really never the absolute objective,” he said. “Money is a by-product of clear thinking and good decision-making.”
As we finished our conversation Alexander mentioned the analogy of an onion. ‘peeling the unconscious, like an onion.’ “If you pay attention to the subconscious and stay open to all the possibilities, even those that don’t inspire you, then your unconscious mind will process it all as it was designed to do. Your mind will come up with the right answers.”
And as Alexander says, “all you are doing is getting out of your own way so your marvelous mind can do what it was made to do.”
The Entrepreneur’s Edge is available in print via Amazon.com and in Kindle format.
