As an entrepreneur you may not have all the answers, but continuous learners find people who can help.

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One of the questions I often ask my children at dinner is what they learned today to reinforce the importance of continuous learning. I was also recently speaking with an entrepreneur about constantly learning in a startup. Here are a few areas we discussed.

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Mindset of continuous learning

Some of the best entrepreneurs I know are always asking questions and evolving their mindset. They have a natural curiosity to understand things and see how the world works. They are more in tune with learning how to improve than being stubborn trying to find confirmation why they are right. One of the only things constant in life is change; if you are not preparing and adapting to how things are changing then you will soon be left behind. This allows an entrepreneur to keep learning and pivoting into must-have problems with true authentic demand from customers.

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Overcoming “failure”

In startups and in life, there will be many “failures.” But a failure only truly occurs if you do not learn anything from the situation. Learning and then applying those lessons to the next opportunity is how you build perseverance and keep moving forward. Furthermore, overcoming those obstacles after struggling makes the process that much more rewarding.

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Surrounding yourself with great people

As an entrepreneur you may not have all the answers, but continuous learners find people who can help. In the process of getting advice, you can build genuine relationships with future investors, advisors, and employees. Hint - people love giving advice, so don’t be afraid to ask for it from trusted sources.

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I also find it helps to reflect daily/weekly/quarterly/annually (pick your frequency) on what you have learned and how you can apply it to what you are working on. This reflection period helps put things into perspective and forces you to spend the time to synthesize all the many things you have encountered in that time period.  

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