When it comes to entrepreneurship (a person who organizes and operates a business(es), taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so), I am often asked whether it is something a person is born with or can they learn it over time. It’s a tough question because clearly the evidence shows that not everyone is cutout to be an entrepreneur and frankly most people don’t have the will or drive to become one. So what’s the answer you might ask?
Well, in my 25 years of being one I can tell you that for me it all came down to circumstances. I think circumstances makes people become an entrepreneur. When your back is to the wall and there is no plan “B” and your circumstances are in such a way where you have no option but to make it on your own, that’s when the entrepreneur in you comes out.
It’s an inner drive, a moment of creativity, a moment of clarity, an AHA moment when you decide to go for it because there’s no real alternative that will bring you the satisfaction of this pursuit. Look at all the great ones, they all had there moment of clarity, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney and others, they all had “tunnel vision”, that one moment of clarity that turned them into entrepreneurs in their fields. That one moment where they saw no other option. And that one moment when the opportunity cost to do something else with their lives was not as appealing.
So to me, entrepreneurs “become” not out of learning or genetics but out of circumstances life puts before them, and as a result, they take on the challenge because there is no alternative choice that can make them happier than the pursuit of their ideas, regardless of the outcome.
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