There's a commonly held belief that one becomes an
entrepreneur by going into business, or going out on one's
own.
I don't subscribe to that belief.
In fact, not only don't I subscribe to that belief, but I
hold strongly to the opposing belief--with overwhelming evidence to
support my position--that to go into business, or out on one's
own, in the belief that by so doing you'll be an entrepreneur
will result in tragic consequences of the greatest magnitude. In
short, it's a very, very bad idea!
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So then what exactly is an entrepreneur? Let me share my view
with you, and then let me give you three exercises to do to help
awaken the entrepreneur within you.
An entrepreneur is not a person, but a personality, the
personality living inside of each and every person on the face of
the earth, the personality who dreams. The entrepreneur inside of
you, of me, of your friends, of your relatives of every shape, size
and dimension, no matter what they do for a living, no matter how
bold or how shy, no matter where they live or what their education
may or may not be, the entrepreneur in each and every human being
is the dreamer who sees life as it could be, not as it is. It's
the dreamer who sees mountains where only flat land exists; who
sees great buildings and cities and countries arising with enormous
energy where no buildings or cities or countries live as of yet;
who sees the sweet juice of opportunity around every corner, in
every nook, cranny and claptrap yard, in every square or rounded
inch of misery. To the entrepreneurial personality living in each
and every human being, there is a life larger than life, a beauty
larger than beauty, a promise larger than any promise could hope to
be. The entrepreneur in each and every one of us is the inventor,
the creator, a lunatic of the most profound dimensions, the
inconsolable pursuer of the impossible who sees visions where
others only see work.
The entrepreneur in you and in me is holy, truly holy, and not
to be believed.
Which means that Walt Disney knew who his entrepreneur was, as
did Sam Walton and Ray Kroc, as did Steve Jobs and Debby Fields,
and yes, even as strange as it might seem to you, as did Einstein
and Chopin and Rumi and every "imagineer" who ever dared
climb a mountain that wasn't there, reach the summit, and hold
up his hands and head and scream to those who didn't see him or
her--or even the mountain--until they came into view, "I'm
here!" And there was no "here" until they said it.
And there was no "there" until all the others saw it. And
there was no summit until they created it. And that's what the
magic of your entrepreneurial soul does when you invite him or her
to go climbing.
The First Exercise
Stop thinking about what you want to do. Stop doing what
you're doing. Go to a place, any place will do, where activity
ceases, where there is no itinerary, no schedule, no agenda, no
responsibility, no work of any kind, no expectation, no result
you've set for yourself, no goals, no objectives, no action
plans whatsoever. Go to such a place to empty your mind.
And that's the first exercise to awaken the entrepreneur in
you: to empty your mind. To dream and to create, there needs to be
both space and energy. The entrepreneur in us wants to play with
the idea of things, without constraint. To write without purpose,
to imagine without an end game, to live fully and completely in the
moment of his or her experience, now. Not in the past nor in the
future, but now.
To prepare yourself for this exercise, try sitting down where
you are, closing the door, telling everyone who might bother you to
give you ten minutes without a disturbance of any kind. Unplug the
phone, turn off your computer, sit down, face a wall, close your
eyes, place your hands in your lap, breath deeply and just stay
there, just like that. You'll see immediately what I mean, and
why that's important.
You must do this first exercise every single day!
The Second Exercise
Get a blank piece of paper. You have nothing in mind. Sit with
the blank piece of paper, and let whatever comes to mind go to the
paper. Whether it be a sentence, or just three seemingly unrelated
words. Whether it be an entire paragraph, a thought, a concern, a
conclusion, let it write itself down. The key here is to let
"It" speak. To let "It" say what "It"
wants to say. To let "It" have the room to breath.
My saxophone teacher once said to me many years ago,
"Michael, you don't make music; music finds you." You
need to let "It" play its music. That's what the
entrepreneur in you wants more than anything: to play
"Its" music.
You'll be amazed what appears on the blank piece of paper as
you do this second exercise.
Do it for only 10 minutes. Do it once a day. And save those
pieces of paper, with the date on the top right hand corner. Save
them in a box, or a file folder, and know that that box or file
folder is a sacred place. Because your dreamer has created it. Your
entrepreneur has become vulnerable. Your creator has expressed
himself or herself, and you've been a witness to it.
The Third Exercise
Maintaining an entrepreneurial journal is a daily process, and I
highly recommend it. Buy yourself a journal, preferably with
leather covers, a rich-looking journal, a journal that impresses
you because it looks so rich, so permanent, so significant. Write
in that journal what you learned that day. Write in that journal
what you felt that day. Write in that journal anything that came to
mind that day, as you sat with a blank piece of paper, as you sat
in your chair facing the wall for ten minutes with absolutely no
interruption at all, as you felt your feelings come up, your
feelings of being blocked, your feelings of being ashamed, your
feelings of excitement, your feelings of despair...whatever came up
that day, record it, even though you may not think you're an
accomplished writer--or even if you think you are. Your
entrepreneurial journal is not about the writing; it's about
the recording. This is your life, someone once said. This is your
life, and if you don't take it seriously, who will? This is
your third exercise, and it will feed your first exercise and your
second exercise, and you will know it.
Believe me, you will know it.
Write me and tell me what you find out.
Michael Gerber is the "Leadership" coach at
Entrepreneur.com and is the author of the
mega-bestseller, The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses
Don't Work and What to Do About It. He is also an
entrepreneur himself, having spent the past three decades building
his coaching company, E-Myth Worldwide, around the idea of empowering
business owners to gain more freedom, more money, more time and
more life.