Entrepreneurial Spirit

I love this post exploring the nature of  entrepreneurial spirit. What it does for me is to really embed the notion that we entrepreneurs are a bunch of ‘Doers”. If you have plenty of innovative ideas but you merely expound their possibilities verbally you are not an entrepreneur. Talking about great ideas makes you a ‘dreamer’. Dreaming is fine, but, when that is not backed up by action, then there will be very little to show out in the world for this investment of time.

Entrepreneurs need to be pragmatists. There is only one thing that is harder than getting ideas to actually work out in the world and that is getting NEW ideas to actually work out in the world. It is a real challenge to manage your own doubts at the same time as fending off the doubts expressed by others. And People really do like to express their doubts. It’s almost as if the entrepreneurial spirit presses the envy (?) button and all endeavours must be quashed in service of retaining the status quo. Paradoxically these may well be the same individuals who complain a lot about the status quo….. Perhaps it is easier to complain about what ‘is’, than to step into potency and stimulate change?

Entrepreneurs need to be logical and strategic because unknown territory can only be charted from a step by step approach. Sometimes the next step only generates itself when we stand right where we are, but, we entrepreneurs are nevertheless always looking for the next step, the next action, in service of our goal. We a consistently curious about how to make our goal real.

Entrepreneurs need to be brave. We don’t know if our hunch will work out. We don’t yet know how it will look when we have completed the journey. And, we are willing to take the steps anyway. We need to hold that delicate balance between holding onto our vision whilst simultaneously resisting setting it into stone. To make it concrete would be to atrophy opportunities along the way. It would be to resist that organic growth that makes for sustainable enterprise when it is informed by it’s context as well as our passion.

First and foremost entrepreneurs must confront and quiet our own beliefs and fears that tell us we cannot do this. Like all other people in the world, we too have assumed the beliefs of our family, education, and cultures. Many of the aforementioned tell us that if it has not yet been done, it is futile to try….. Is it courage or is it rebellion that we really need?  I know which one works for me. Perhaps we enterprising souls are more ‘Entrepreneurial Do-It’ than Entrepreneurial Spirit? Only by doing it can we find how it works and only be doing it can we quite the nay-sayers and enable change in the world.

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