RELENTLESS PURSUITS

Can They Sputter and Flip Into Reverse?

 

The crazier you become about an entrepreneurial venture, the better it is IF you are (actually, and against all odds) a true entrepreneur.

If, in other words, you  work yourself into a frenzy because you have what you think is a great idea, you start thinking about applying to “Shark Tank,” you’re ready to bet the farm on your brainstorm because friends and family encourage you, and you know in your heart you’ve got what it takes to revolutionize the marketplace.

But–in the end– you don’t have that magical,

mystical entrepreneurial INSTINCT:

Prepare to Crash!

“Entrepreneurship” is NOT what all the universities and

colleges and entrepreneur centers are actually teaching.

• Just because some disillusioned government leader rewards the dreams of an aspiring faculty member a wad of grant money, doesn’t mean you, the student, will learn how and be able to become an entrepreneur. 
• Just because some misguided instructor thinks that “teaching entrepreneurship” will generate increased personal income for her or his family vacations while simultaneously being able to ignite the community economy, doesn’t mean you, the student, will learn how and be able to become an entrepreneur.
• And just because campus administrators are dancing in the board room because one of their faculty has just generated grant money into their building fund, does not mean that you, as a student, will learn how and be able to become an entrepreneur. 

Neither does any of it mean that what you learn can be turned into a cash cow for you or your friends or family or community–all of whom, because of your genius and your wonderful entrepreneurial training will be able to live happily ever after.

B e c a u s e :

No one can TEACH you

how to become an entrepreneur!

 

You can learn about how an entrepreneur thinks and acts and makes things happen, and you can convince yourself that you can muster what it takes to follow these guidelines into Entrepreneurville.

You will hopefully discover in time to save your savings that entrepreneurs are NOT the risk-takers most of society would have us believe. Risk-taking is NOT a trait of entrepreneurs. Real entrepreneurs take only REASONABLE risks.

But you can’t and you won’t fit the elusive entrepreneurial “mold” (if there is such a thing) unless you were born with the instinct — the will to succeed at all costs and, the most crucial characteristic: the ability to take the intuitive steps necessary to make that happen.

Lectures and textbooks and “hands-on” activities can give you a sense of what it’s all about, but they cannot instill instinct. 

Does not having this deep-seated sense of intuition —the inherent ability to have innate, inherent, inbred, spontaneous, consistently productive hunches-– mean that you’ll fail?

No. It simply means you are not an entrepreneur. But not being the entrepreneur you thought you were doesn’t mean you are doomed to failure.

You may simply need to rise to the occasion of being contented with being the best you can be instead of trying to be something you’re not. You may need to settle with the notion that success translates to hard work that produces steady long-term business growth, and to having to struggle through setbacks you never saw coming. Above all, you need to accept and work within the framework of reality. Yes, reality!

As with the critical 5 criteria of effective goal-setting (being specific, flexible, realistic, due-dated, and in writing), true entrepreneurship is marked first and foremost by being realistic!

And just as not meeting all five goal-setting criteria produces nothing more than a wish-list ticket to Fantasyland, so too does a reckless charge at entrepreneurship end up producing failure by cultivating a business-life platform based on make-believe.

All the time? No. Nothing is always, including the word “nothing.”

 

So the bottom line IS:

If you’re entrepreneur material, you’ll know it and so will others (including savvy investors).

If you’re not a true entrepreneur, welcome to the vast majority of businesspeople and the reality that –even though you may have missed the “E” Ship– your odds for business startup and growth success are measured exclusively by: how hard you’re willing to work at making your venture productive for yourself, your family, for those who work with you, and for your community.

Your actions may need to be more calculated than spontaneous, but that doesn’t mean they will end up having any less impact. What’s important is that you start out by being realistic and by measuring the steps you take with a reality yardstick.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that some educational venue or individual can teach you how to launch your interests into outer space… to become another Steve Jobs, or Lori Greiner, or Mike Lindell, or Mark Zuckerberg, or Oprah Winfrey, or Donald Trump, or Beyonce, or Mark Cuban, or Frank Purdue.

Accept yourself for who you are,

but never settle for who you are

capable of becoming.

Courses on entrepreneurship may help shed some light on the directions and kinds of decisions that produce entrepreneurial success stories, but choosing those directions for yourself and making those kinds of decisions will not make you an entrepreneur anymore than a new car or suit of clothes will make you into another person. They may make you feel good, but they won’t change your skill set.

Work at and stick to

what you know best,

and what you do best,

and what you like most

. . . and you will succeed!

TRUST YOURSELF!

 

# # #

Hal@Businessworks.US             931.854.0474

Guidance to Over 500 Successful Business Startups

If you think you have an 

                               

entrepreneurial mind,

                                            

it’s probably because

                         

you have no mind left!

  

Anyone in their right mind would hardly choose an entrepreneurial career path if, indeed, any sense of logic was to prevail on the ultimate decision.

Those who go to college and major in entrepreneurship, imagining themselves as the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Mary Kay Ash or Henry Ford should instead imagine themselves as job candidates for Disney World.

                                                    

Entrepreneurship is not an academic pursuit, and any college that offers it, pretending that it will produce graduates capable of changing the world should have its legs kicked out from under it.

I graduated from The New School for Entrepreneurs. I have taught entrepreneurship in college and university classrooms, and in private training facilities. I’ve written books and articles on it.

Entrepreneurship is an instinctive, gut, behavioral attitude that is more often inherited than learned.

 

It comes with the territory of growing up in a family or home where some influential person (father? mother? uncle? brother? next door neighbor?) has made a living by exercising an innovative spirit and taking reasonable risks in pursuit of a burning desire to make an idea succeed.

People can learn ABOUT entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ventures and enterprises and mindsets, but people cannot be transformed into entrepreneurs out of thin air simply because they can complete some egotistical business flunkie professor’s course outline with flying colors.

Wouldn’t that professor be a successful entrepreneur instead of a has-been academic?

At one weak point in my corporate life and academic existence that followed, I actually bought the theory that entrepreneurs could be made as well as born. It’s not true.

Entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs, and those of us who are not entrepreneurs should stop pretending we are.

The pathway to independent business success is becoming irrevocably clogged and impassable. Legitimate entrepreneurs are being denied access to big-time success by the tsunami of incompetence being churned out by so-called “higher education.”

Hey, who can blame those struggling academic administrator types? After all, the promise of delivering entrepreneurial graduates sounds delicious to the communities-at-large.

 

The implied promises of happiness that accompany the freedom of working for oneself are expounded upon.

The local media rise to the occasion of making it all look like an admirable life pursuit, and even sponsor entrepreneur award programs (no doubt as investments in future media advertising paybacks from the soon-to-be business successes).

The saddest fallout is that naive parents –who want to see Susie and Charlie Jr. succeed at any cost– swallow the whole enchilada.

Their kids see a clear opening all the way to the fifty-yard line without interference, and four years of partytime capped by an office or store with their names in lights and lots of free time.

They see themselves reporting to no one, and having the wherewithal to pursue other life challenges, like travel and sports and surfing the Net and dating and all that other stuff that respected well-to-do business owners do.

And all the time, they are with dollar signs in their eyeballs.

The trouble is no one thinks about the surprises of needing collateral to get a bank loan or the realities of venture capitalists offering only a sliver of interest in a highly narrow field of business interests . . . and then wanting 65% ownership plus immediate return of their investments.

Little if any thought is given to who’s going to support whom during the years of startup or of (ahem!) unexpected parenting realities (Hmmm, some do manage to make time for some non-business endeavors). 

Not a pretty picture. Nine out of eleven businesses fail in the first five years. It takes six years just to break even. It’s no wonder that people opt for thirty years of brain-dead government work, at higher pay than any comparable position in the private sector. You think some thing’s wrong with this picture? Maybe you should think about voting for a government with business experience next go-round?

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!