On my entrepreneurial path there were several pivoting moments: 1. Kwawsaki's "The art of the start" 2. PG essays 3. Hacker News 4. Four steps to the Epiphany 5. Mixergy.
Amazingly, I also went 1, 2 and 3 (and have stayed here for two years without progressing my entrepreneurial path much at all).
Am now ordering a copy of Four steps to the Epiphany; it may be the missing link between having Mixergy and Andrew Warner bookmarked, and actually using them to change my life.
I'll tell you what helped me - I started doing something as I was reading the Kawasaki's book. It is embarrassing to recall now, but had I not done that stupid stuff I would not have gotten in the habit of doing. As you do things your successes will embolden you and you will have a larger pool of experience to draw from. You need to find something that you can do with limited commitment and demonstrable results, which will in turn embolden you to take on a slightly larger thing next time. I recommend a market that is quick with feedback (which excludes enterprise), and has monetization potential (which rules out large segments of consumers web plays). For example, find a small business with a small problem and solve their problem in a scalable way - you will feel a lot more brave after that especially if you make some sizable money along the way.
It's funny to realize that courage is the only thing that stands between someone like you or me and their entrepreneurial success, yet I don't see a way to short-circuit that simple problem. It seems that working through it step by step is the surest path. Oh well, whatever works, right?
Simply put, Andrew is changing lives.