Entrepreneurs need to find their ‘inner game’ to stay ahead of the pack

Have you ever made business decisions that adversely affected your relationships and health? Do you know how it feels to have your energy completely drained while your competitors grow past you? If you’re an entrepreneur, these scenarios are all too familiar.

A few years ago, I experienced a colossal burnout. It’s not that I didn’t spend time with my family, I did. While I was physically present with the people I love, I was emotionally absent. My energy was completely drained.

There are many lies we tell ourselves as entrepreneurs. You think that if you work harder or play the game smarter, you could have better business success. While that may be true in the short-term, it’s far from sustainable. After much introspection, it dawned upon me that the business behind an entrepreneurs’ business is their ‘inner game’.

Ever since I discovered the inner game and started going deeper into embedding it in my life and business, I’ve performed at a level I’ve never been able to access in the past. Wondering what the game is? Simply put, your inner game is the conversation you’re having with yourself. It’s your belief structures, your self-esteem, your confidence. It’s the story you tell yourself — and the constant chatter in your head. These are pieces of code that run the technology that is you.

Well, not mastering the inner game may lead to an endless pattern of self-sabotaging your success, which will lead to a depletion of your willpower and energy. You will continually feel stuck in the process and not know how or where to start or pause.

Get ready

Mastering your inner game and taking your business to the next level requires you to take your thoughts, self-image and self-esteem to the next level. You’ll be required to rewrite the code, in other words, the language you use.

CEOs and entrepreneurs often ask me why they need to work on limiting beliefs, unprocessed emotions, anxiety and self-doubt. As an entrepreneur, I have experienced first-hand that your mindset as an entrepreneur/CEO is the only sustainable competitive advantage. In fact, it adds more value than our corporate culture, strategy or any market-driven force.

Small steps

I’ve observed that when entrepreneurs are not getting things done effectively, there is some area in their life which needs to be reassessed. I’ve also observed that at any given point in time in our life, we have anywhere between 40 to 50 problems, from small ones all the way to big ones. Some we are conscious of, while some we are not. As entrepreneurs, when we’re faced with adversity in life and business, our tendency is to take on too much.

We end up making several changes in business or lifestyle all at once. We try to do it all, and in the process, we get nothing done. In my coaching practice, I strongly advise participants to identify the one habit that they would like to change. And the reality is that taking action against one habit could fix a majority of the problems they’re currently facing. It could potentially solve 50 problems. Start small, employ the power of one and watch it elevate your Inner Game.

Stay ahead

The inner game is the only sustainable competitive advantage. Everything else can be replicated and diminishes over time. By mastering the inner game, winning the outer game becomes inevitable.