Entrepreneurship - More than an Instinct!

Entrepreneurship

Moving on to the 'Spirit' of an organisation, Entrepreneurship can be considered a learned skill as much as an innate instinct!

Don’t confuse Entrepreneurship with making money! There are lots of people who have made a lot of money but are hardly Entrepreneurs. In reverse, there are many Entrepreneurs who have not made money from their creative ideas and methods.

Entrepreneurship is creating value in the lives of people and within the broader community. It involves forming and developing a creative idea and pursuing a process to make it available to those who need or value it.

I will discuss the mechanics of developing ideas, and being creative, in a later post. Here I want to outline just one aspect of Entrepreneurship that is common in those who have succeeded.

The most important quality of an Entrepreneur is their control of ‘fear’. I stress that it is not a lack of fear that drives Entrepreneurs to success. A lack of fear usually fosters carelessness. If controlled, fear makes people cautious. I first understood the concept of controlling fear when I was a young teenager jumping, for the first time, from a 10metre diving tower.

Imagine you are standing at the top of a 10metre diving tower. It looks a long way down and your fear imagines you hitting the water awkwardly and badly injuring yourself. So, you climb down to the 3metre board and spend the rest of your life jumping from that.

Many would-be Entrepreneurs are like the person who rejects the 10metre tower for the more comfortable 3meter board. They may spend their lives quite comfortably and successfully living within the safety of their comfort zone. And that is good; for them.

The Entrepreneur, however, will seek and accept the challenge of the 10metre tower. They won’t simple plunge without any thought, as that would be risky. Instead they plan out their process and actions. For example, they might research that if they hit the water with a pin-drop jump, they will break through the water’s surface, sink to the bottom and by using their swimming skills, rise to the surface to the glory of achieving their goal and conquering their challenge.

It is the belief in your planning, skill set and ‘yourself’ that enables you to overcome fear and take on challenges.

The Entrepreneur’s business challenges are similar. As an Entrepreneur, your skills need to include research, planning and self-confidence (I see it as a skill), to enable you to overcome fear and, of course, to plan the processes needed to achieve success. Entrepreneurs don’t take risks. They are confident planners.

There are many other qualities that Entrepreneurs have. I’ll discuss them in future posts.

Tim Sillcock