An entrepreneur who earns up to $170,000 a month shares the first step to take before starting any type of business

During the 2008 financial crisis, Pat Flynn got laid off from his job at an architectural firm.

In the days before his job ended, the then 25-year-old found a way to generate income from a website he had created on the side to study for an architectural exam.

Flynn's accidental entry into the entrepreneurial world quickly turned into a lucrative online business built around passive income. He made $200,000 within one year of going into online business; after six years, he had earned $3 million in passive income; and today, his business can earn up to $170,000 a month - or more.

Building a successful business all starts with changing your mindset, says the founder of "Smart Passive Income," a resource designed to help others run an online business and optimize it for passive income, and author of "Will It Fly?"

"One of the first things that people do is try to figure out their number one business idea and look for business opportunities," he tells Business Insider. "That's great, but even before that, you have to understand what it takes mentally to become an entrepreneur."

Specifically, you have to get comfortable with failing, he explains: "Failure is part of the process. You have to be willing to try things and put yourself out there and get uncomfortable, knowing that you're potentially going to fail. Mistakes are going to happen - failure is an option - but as long as you're always learning from those failures, you're actually going to be making progress."

Once you've grasped the entrepreneurial mindset, what's a more tangible first step to take? "If you have an idea, talk to as many people as you can about it," Flynn emphasizes. "When you share your idea with other people - strangers, friends, family - you're going to get an idea of exactly how they feel about that product before you even start to put money and time into it."