The Entrepreneurs

America has been entrepreneurial from its earliest beginnings. It could be argued that America is the most creative country in the world. But why?

It has to do with what makes us, us.

The answer lies in the very nature of the first settlers. In a word they possessed four very essential characteristics of entrepreneurs…

1. they had a fierce hunger for freedom,
2. lots of brass to pursue their dreams,
3. tremendous energy,
4. and skulls too thick to feel the pain of running into endless obstacles.

They risked everything they had, their lives, their family’s lives, their possessions and all for a perilous journey, to a perilous land, to seize their prize which they had never seen but in their dreams.
Long before we became a hand-out nation of takers, we were intensely energetic and individualistic. We were the ultimate makers. America was a synonym for entrepreneurialism. Creative, tough and self-reliant. And if they weren’t, then the pioneers would have died out…and many did. Those who survived were the distillate of the toughest of the tough. When you look at our roots, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we became a mighty nation.

The word entrepreneur is derived from the French word entreprendre which means ‘to undertake’. Therefore, there are several types of entrepreneurs:
a)The institutional entrepreneur.
b)The start-up entrepreneur
c)The social entrepreneur

a)The Institutional entrepreneur:

Obviously, these entrepreneurs work inside a company, an agency or a government service. (It is simply not true that government can’t run anything.) They are highly energetic, focused and task oriented. They are the most valuable of any of the employees. They are the ones who bring innovation to the organization. You can track the success of the entire organization back to these creative innovators.

Dangers for the institutional entrepreneurs: The number one danger of ANY institutional entrepreneur is…

ENVY.
But detecting envy is harder than finding a brass set among the humanities faculty at Harvard. Envy lurks behind smiles and good humor…and even compliments. Envy is a close cousin to hypocrisy and its practitioners are Oscar-deserving thesbians. Your only defense is to assume you have at least one superior who is corrosively jealous of you. And if you are young and good looking, it only makes it worse.
Tips;

Envy Inoculation

a) save your best ideas for meetings where there is more than one superior present. That way the word gets out about you and helps to inoculate you against the envy virus.
b) write down your ideas in clear and very precise terms. Don’t go around your superior. You don’t have to. A written document is a very intimidating teammate.
c) even though you are intensely ambitious, work at being one of the team…this is the best tip. Likeable people have a tremendous advantage not just in the workplace and life but also in attracting that most seductive of sirens, OPPORTUNITY. No, she doesn’t come with an amazing rack or curves that would make Le Mans shrink in modesty but she can delight you more than even the swimsuit edition…(I never thought I’d say that).

Heath Cliff

MORE IN THE NEXT EDITION.

P.S. If you would like to expound on this topic, we would like to hear your views
on modern American service.