Entrepreneurship Is A High-Risk Game: Here’s How Mindset Makes You Win

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Entrepreneurship is one of the highest-stakes games you’ll ever play. To thrive, you need more than business acumen and an appetite for risk—you need a sharp, unshakeable mental edge.

In this blog post, we’ll explore how training your mind can help you achieve peak performance in your role as an entrepreneur, so that you can hit the holy grail of business success: 

– crushing your revenue goals without crushing yourself in the process.

Entrepreneurs As Athletes

The demands of owning your own business parallel those of high-performance sports. In both arenas, decisions made under high-stakes conditions carry significant consequences. 

You put everything on the line to try and achieve your goals, but a single error, poorly-timed pivot or misguided decision can impact your financial future or derail your career.

Once the technical business skills are mastered and you have proven the viability of your product or service in the marketplace, you become one of the critical elements for your own success. 

That’s when mindset can become either the biggest liability on your balance sheet…or your competitive advantage.

For a footballer in the Super Bowl, mental-mastery could be about blocking out the significance of the event to score the winning touchdown with 5 minutes left on the clock. 

For an entrepreneur, it could be about maintaining composure and making effective decisions even after a catastrophic event threatens to sink your business. 

Highly accomplished and wealthy entrepreneurs like Russell Brunson (ClickFunnels), Alex Hormozi (Acquisition.com) and Barbara Corcoran (The Corcoran Group) all have similar stories of major events that threatened to bankrupt them.

But each of these titans were able to conquer the setback.

They succeeded in thinking clearly and effectively and remaining calm under pressure, to safely navigate some of the most devastating of business scenarios: running out of money, being scammed by a business partner and losing half your business to a cheating spouse.

They demonstrated the power of “the mental edge” in practice.

The Entrepreneur’s Mental Edge

Here’s the good news: your mental edge isn’t something you’re born with. It’s a skill set you can develop with guidance and consistent practice. 

Professional sports teams invest heavily in psychologists and mental training experts because they understand that mindset is the margin between winning and losing. Just as elite athletes train their physical bodies, they also use scientifically-backed techniques to train their minds.

For entrepreneurs, adopting the same high-performance philosophy can produce highly lucrative results.

Three Components of the Entrepreneur’s Mental Edge

Your mental edge comprises three core components: mental conditioning, resilience, and high-performance habits. 

Think of these as the heat, oxygen, and fuel that keep the fire of peak performance burning. If any component is missing, your business will fail to ignite.

Just like refining your strategy and updating your brand, these elements require ongoing attention. They’re not destinations to reach but practices to maintain for sustainable peak performance.

A Three-Step System to Sharpen Your Mental Edge

Let’s break down the three components and how you can optimize them using principles from sports psychology.

1. Mental Conditioning

Mental conditioning trains your mind to achieve peak performance. This is where you address issues like impostor syndrome, money mindset blocks, perfectionism and self-doubt. Sports psychology offers a wealth of evidence-based techniques you can apply:

  • Self-Talk and Affirmations: Replace negative thoughts and reprogram your subconscious mind with empowering statements.
  • Visualization: Mentally rehearse successful launches or presentations to build confidence.
  • Goal Setting: Define clear, actionable objectives that increase confidence and motivation.
  • Relaxation Strategies: Use mindfulness or deep breathing to manage stress and anxiety.

For example, my free Affirmations For Entrepreneurs Audio Resource helps program your subconscious mind for business success. Regularly practicing these techniques builds the foundation for mental strength.

2. Resilience

Reaching peak performance once is an achievement, but sustaining it under pressure in the long-term requires resilience. Losses and setbacks are inevitable in entrepreneurship, and how you respond makes all the difference.

Resilience is your ability to maintain peak performance despite challenges. You can use evidence-based techniques to strengthen resilience.

For example, simply reframing your perception of pressure can help you mitigate the effects of it on your business.

Instead of interpreting the paralyzing feeling that accompanies a drop in sales as panic or anxiety, reframe it as excitement—a sign you’re ready to demonstrate your exceptional problem-solving skills. This mental shift can improve focus and execution.

Want to reframe your relationship with pressure? Try my guided meditation resource to profit under pressure. Simple tools like this can have profound effects on how you handle setbacks.

3. High-Performance Habits

Without structure, even the best mental conditioning and resilience strategies can falter.

High-performance habits provide the framework for consistent success. These are the rituals and routines that support you in turning up to your business as your sharpest, unbreakable self, day after day.

Professional athletes understand that their lifestyle impacts performance. For entrepreneurs, factors like sleep, nutrition, stress management, and overall happiness directly influence your actions as the leader of your business.

Taking a holistic approach to your habits elevates your performance (and therefore revenue) to a higher level. This might include incorporating journalling, sleep routines, meditation, daily exercise or even prayer into your daily routine.

One of the most effective habits for entrepreneurs is a mental preparation routine.

Just as athletes use pre-game rituals to get in the zone, entrepreneurs can create a 10-minute routine to achieve an optimal state before beginning their work day.

Here’s a simple example:

  1. Goal Setting: Define your focus for the work day.
  2. Meditation: Calm your mind to reduce emotional reactivity.
  3. Affirmations: Program your subconscious mind for success.

Consistency is key. Over time, this routine becomes a cue for your brain to focus and block out distractions.

As a result, you’ll approach your business performance with greater clarity and control.

The Bottom Line

Your mental edge is critical to business success, but it doesn’t have to be elusive or mysterious.

By leveraging proven techniques from sports psychology, you can systematically train your mindset for peak performance. The principles that help athletes win championships can also help you increase your business revenue while decreasing stress, burnout and overwhelm.

What’s one mental conditioning strategy from today’s article that you’ll try this week?

Until next time,

Créde

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Meet Créde Sheehy-Kelly

Créde Sheehy-Kelly is an internationally-renowned High-Performance Psychologist with over 16 years of experience coaching top performers in trading, finance, professional sports, entrepreneurship, and business. She originally qualified and worked as a sport psychologist before shifting her focus to the trading arena, helping traders and hedge fund managers—with accounts ranging from small to multimillions—to level up and hit higher returns.

A trusted authority in behavior change, she has a proven track record of driving significant results at both an individual and a global level. Notably, she conceived, created and secured multimillion euro funding for the Z Zurich Foundation’s mental well-being flagship program which has been rolled out across 13 countries to date.

As a multi-six-figure business owner prioritizing a life of freedom and autonomy, Créde practices what she preaches. Her deep expertise and lived-experience uniquely position her to help ambitious traders and online entrepreneurs gain a mental edge and perform at the peak of their potential.

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