The Characters of an Entrepreneur
A friend of mine has recently been sacked - no, the Huns didn't do it, one of the Baby Bells did - but they called it "downsizing". And as millions of us have, upon being sacked he decided to start his own small business.This guy has always been pretty wired, but now, faced with the opportunity (and the challenge) of living by his wits instead of being adopted by an employer, his personality has powered up from 110 to 220 volts.
I remember those days. You don't know whether the rush you're feeling is excitement about the possibility of success, or stark terror about the possibility of failure. Truth is, it's a little of both.
I have been told that when the word "crisis" is written in Chinese, two characters are used: the first signifying danger and the second, opportunity. Leave it to the Chinese to deliver maximum message with minimum words.
I don't know what the Chinese word for entrepreneur looks like, but if they asked for my opinion I would tell them to take the two characters I just mentioned and wrap them around three other characters, like this: danger/vision/courage/energy/opportunity. Let me explain what I mean.
Danger
Danger is an abiding element in the world of entrepreneurs. Frankly, I'm not sure you can have the latter without the former. Sometimes entrepreneurialism is created by danger:
1. My friend lost his job, and the danger of being unemployed caused him to consider taking entrepreneurial action as one of his options.
2. Facing the danger of new competitive pressures, the leaders of a company create an entirely new method of serving customers which might not have happened otherwise.
Sometimes danger becomes part of the process once it begins:
3. An entrepreneur believes a new product or service is needed. Since it is something that doesn't currently exist, she is in danger of losing her entire investment if her assumptions are wrong.
Paraphrasing Orson Welles, thirty years of warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed in Italy under the Borgia family produced the Renaissance, including Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. In Switzerland, five hundred years of brotherly love, democracy and peace produced the cuckoo clock.
If necessity is the mother of invention, I believe danger may be its grandmother.
Vision
For entrepreneurs, vision is the zoom lens of our desire. Some spark of necessity, fear, or creativity causes us to fix our focus on one particular subject and, gradually but steadily, bring it into closer and clearer view.
Zooming in, our perspective will change with information acquired at each new focal length, and we make adjustments to the plan we've developed for the object of our entrepreneurial affection - our dream, our baby, our business.
Vision is such an interesting part of entrepreneurialism because even those who have it don't see everything. You could have put a thousand of the world's best entrepreneurs in a room for a year and they probably wouldn't have seen what a bespectacled, baby-faced, nerdy college dropout saw when he envisioned Microsoft.
Vision is very personal and it comes from deep inside of you. It seems that making humans more productive through software solutions was Bill Gates' vision. Mine is to create a multi-media platform from which a community of experts can deliver the best information available to small business owners, and make it available on-demand, 24/7. Yours might be to create and market a new way for businesses to manage inventory, or for individuals to manage their time. It's personal, and therefore, limitless.
Just as you can hear without listening, not all sighted people have vision. Which is why it can be tough sharing your vision. If you know someone whom you consider to be generally capable of vision, you might be able to explain yours enough to benefit from another perspective. But trying that with someone who lacks vision is a frustrating and disappointing episode waiting to happen.
Courage
As you decide to deploy your vision, opportunities for action will present themselves, putting the danger issue front and center:
• Your research has provided the information needed to create your "widget", but the next step must be to invest capital and other resources if your vision is to become reality. Can you say "gut check"?
• You've identified a window-of-opportunity through which your dream has the best chance of succeeding. If it's now or never, are you ready or not?
Entrepreneurialism without courage is like religion without faith. You just can't have one without the other. If you are becoming frustrated because your business plans aren't coming together, look inside yourself. You may not have the courage to risk the danger inherent in crucial entrepreneurial steps. If that's the case, congratulations, you may be one of the most valuable forces in the marketplace: an employee with vision.
Energy
I know lots of entrepreneurs, in all sizes, shapes, colors, and both genders. But I don't know any lazy ones.
Remember my friend? He was no slacker as an employee, but now that he's driving his own dream, step aside when he comes through. There's just something about working without a net that gets your adrenalin pumping. You will never feel more alive than when you own your own business, and you certainly won't nod off in the middle of the day.
But entrepreneurial energy is more than BTUs. It's also the manifestation of your spirit, which becomes very evident when you are following your dream. It's exciting to know that everything you are doing belongs to you - warts and all. You will even find yourself quicker than ever to recognize and claim your mistakes, because they become precious elements of your next successful step, which you will definitely want to claim.
Entrepreneurial energy may be the most powerful force in the marketplace. If you have it, use it wisely. If you are an observer of it, the awe you feel is justified.
Opportunity
Finally, there is the other bookend of the entrepreneurial character, the Holy Grail of entrepreneurs, opportunity. And as Adam Smith might have said, the "invisible hand" of entrepreneurs seeking the fruit of opportunity create it not only for themselves, but also for millions of marketplace pedestrians.
My sacked friend could be moving toward the opportunity of his life. One day he may look back on his years as an employee and wonder why he didn't hitch his wagon to his own star sooner. And the company I mentioned that took action as a defensive measure may be creating a watershed breakthrough that puts them into an orbit of market dominance and financial success previously unimagined.
In terms of entrepreneurial motivation, if danger is the stick, opportunity is the carrot.
Write this on a rock... You don't have to know Chinese to be an entrepreneur, but you do need to understand the characteristics of entrepreneurialism. Write those five characters down to help you recognize them when they are in evidence in your life. Recognize them, embrace them, use them, and benefit from them.
