Humility Goes Before Enterpreneural Success

A few days ago, I had a chat with a highly respectable personality in business and I had the opportunity to pick up a few points on the requirements for a successful adventure into enterpreneurship. I would be sharing one of these with you as I consider it a major trait that determines whether you are enterpreneur potential or not.

Humility. If you want to be a succesful enterpreneur, you need to humble. In other words, check your arrogance. This is particularly important because it appears to be in conflict with another major requirements for enterpreurship success, confidence - which I will discuss in a future post, and because it is not a topic that is taught in MBA classes. This is strictly 'grit from the streets'.

Enterpreneurs, generally, are high flyers. Not necessarily in terms of academics or skills or talents, but in terms of the ability to visualize - to see where others are only looking - and take advantage of that. This quality comes with a bit of self assurance and in many cases arrogance. This is what makes the topic of humility very important to enterpreneurs.

It is impossible to succeed as an enterpreneur, especially with a start-up, without inputs and aid from many stakeholders. These stakeholders could be actual/potential clients, partners, suppliers, employees, regulatory bodies, government agencies etc. A successful enterpreneur must have a high level of humility to appeal to the good nature of these persons/groups/entities in order to achieve set objectives.

You may be wondering, does he want me to become a 'kiss ass' all in the name of becoming a successful enterpreneur? Not necessarily in that light, but you would have to display a high level of humility in order to get people to respond to your projects so you can ultimately achieve set objectives.

If you find this difficult to do, it is only normal. Afterall, it is against human nature to belittle oneself before others. However, it is only the fews ones who can 'live a few years of their lives like most people won't, so that they can spend the rest of their life like most people can't!' that would succeed as enterpreneurs.

I will continue to elaborate on the traits that would help you determine if you would be a successful enterpreneur or not in subsequent post. Until then, try humility...it works!

Your Comfort Zone And You

Call it stability, security, guaranteed or whatever, most of us just want to stay where we are sure of getting something. In order words, it is human nature to be risk averse. This term is referred to as 'survivor instinct'. Why walk into the rain and get wet when you can stay indoors and remain dry? well, welcome to the continuation of my series on traits that would help you determine if you are an enterpreneur material or not.

What is your comfort zone? your comfort zone is that place or thing or job or career that bears the minimum risk for you. It is the zone where, though you may not achieve greatness, but are guaranteed of sustenance. It could be your parent's house or company, your place of birth, your job, your local business etc. In this case, it is most likely your job! Your job would guarantee you a monthly pay that covers your bills and other incidental expenses and that's it. This is guaranteed however and many would reason that 'a bird in hand is worth two in the woods.

If you reason along the 'bird in hand' line, you are definitely in your comfort zone and that is a clear indication of whether you would be a successful enterpreneur or not. There is absolutely nothing wrong with preferring the comfort zone, like I said earlier, it is human to prefer a safe bet. What it implies however is that you are unwilling to 'live a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't!'

Think about this for a moment, most of the groundbreaking enterpreneurs of all time have either walked away from a lucrative career, job, education, school, family, country, company etc. to become the succesful enterpreneurs that we all celebrate. If you have inertia with respect to walking from a sure bet proposition into a risky, even if more rewarding, scenario, that is your comfort zone holding you back.

If you desire to be a successful enterpreneur, you need to identify your comfort zone and device strategies to exit that zone. This is in line with my believe, which i will cover in a future blog post, that great enterpreneurs only take calculated risks. Identify your comfort zone and device an exit strategy. The implementation of such a strategy might take years or months or days, whatever or however it takes, the day you make a definite decision to exit your comfort zone is the beginning of your enterpreneural success.

If you desire to become a successful enterpreneur, then deal with your comfort zone.  

Do You See The Big Picture?

Today, I would be dwelling on the topic ‘Big Picture Enterpreneurs’. This is a continuation of my series on the criterias that define successful enterpreneurs which I have captioned ‘Are You An Enterpreneur’.

A big picture person, as opposed to the average person, is someone who prefers to take a bird view of things rather than going into some details. Just think about the perspective that you get when you look at a car from a high rise building and when you look at the same car while standing in front of it. In the first scenario, you see the end from the start. Even though you do not get all the details, for example you don’t see the colour of the seat and so on, but you get to see the car in full.

This example illustrates the big picture traits of successful enterpreneurs or would be enterpreneurs. The curious thing though is that it is difficult to be both a big picture person and a detailed oriented person, you are either here or there. Most big picture people think and talk of big, sometimes seemingly impossible ideas. This same set of people may have difficulties in finding their way to a destination even though they have been there a couple of times. In most cases, others find these ‘big picture’ persons to be strange and may even think that such people engage in fantasies. Needless to say the big picture people are in the minority and are the ones that have been responsible for the fundamental shifts in man’s evolution to date.

Take a moment to consider where you belong, do you think big, out of the box and able to see far beyond others or are you even afraid to dare. Do you usually think and consider how things would end or do you fail to even consider the next steps, where you classify yourself here would help you determine if you would succeed as an entrepreneur. Big picture persons are more likely to be successful enterpreneurs.

In my next post, I will discuss another trait that implies 'living a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't'. It is title ‘Your comfort zone and you’. Until then, ponder this question: can you see your life’s big picture?’

Enterpreneurs Sparkle In Creation

Yesterday I commenced a series on my thoughts about the traits that would help anyone determine if she/he has the ability to become a successful enterpreneur. I used a popular inspirational saying 'Being an enterpreneur is living a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't' to kick the ball rolling. You can read the full post here. 

I also mentioned, briefly, the fact that enterpreneurs sparkle in creations. In other words, successful enterpreneurs tend to be fascinated at the prospects of creating things that did not previously exist. I intend to expand on this first trait in this blog post while I will discuss the other traits in my subsequent posts as part of the series 'Are You An Enterpreneur'. 

Now, how does being excited by new creations correlate with 'living your life the way others cant'? and thus make you a prospective succesful enterpreneur? To  answer this, I will reference a school of thought led by Dr. Ken Robinson, the author of the book titled 'The Element - How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything'. 

This school of thought claims that "although creativity is good and desirable, there is a dark side to creativity because it represents a 'quest for a radical autonomy apart from the constraints of social responsibility'. In other words, by encouraging creativity, we are encouraging a departure from society's existing norms and values. Expectation of conformity runs contrary to the spirit of creativity".  See video below for Dr. Ken's views (video credit - Al Jazeera English):

It can be inferred from the above that overt excitement at the prospect of creating something new is not the norm in the society and those who exhibit this trait are radicals departing from the way things are normally done. The phrase 'Expectation of conformity runs contrary to the spirit of creativity' captures it quite aptly. 

If you are overly excited at the prospects of creating new things, well the news is that you are in the minority  but then, dont forget:  'being an enterpreneur is living a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't'. What you are doing is sparkling in creations.

Watch out for my next blog post in this series titled 'The Big Picture Enterpreneur. Until then, sparkle!

Are You An Enterpreneur?

A few days ago, I spent a couple of minutes deliberating on a popular saying in one of my late night solo brainstorming sessions. By the way, I find myself mostly late at night or early in the morning while lying on my bed contemplating, or should I say arguing with myself, different topics and or ideas. I jokingly refer to such sessions as my 'solo brainstorming sessions'.

The topic on that night was this popular inspirational saying that 'Being an enterpreneur is living a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't '. If you take a moment to consider this saying, it could go a long way in helping you to know if you would succeed as an enterpreneur or may be you should just continue with your 8 to 5 routine or job search as the case may be.

Now, what are the inconviniences that constitute 'living the way others cant' against which you should measure  your 'Enterpreurship Quotient'? these are my thoughts.

Do you sparkle with creations? This is my way of saying are you excited, no, super excited about the creation of a brand new thing that did not previously exist and now will be because of you? I am referring to the kind of excitement that a prospective father would have at the conception of his baby knowing fully well that if it were not for him, the expected baby would not be.

Needless to say that this kind of excitement tends to make one restless and probably uncoordinated for a while and other people may find this strange. This is not to be confused for some old fashioned, professor-like craze but  a truly destabilizing excitement at the prospect of a new creation and the product potentials of such new creation.

If you do not already know what I am referring to, I think we can safely conclude that you do not sparkle with creations. In my opinion, if you do not sparkle with creations, then you probably are living like every other regular employee and may not be an enterpreneur material. Of course I may be wrong and there is nothing wrong with that because enterpreneurs still need great employees to achieve their objectives.

If you sparkle at creations however, do not miss the continuation of the topic 'Are you an enterpreneur?' in my next blog post. In the meantime, go create something!