entrepreneur_matters

Articles on Entrepreneur Matters:

Action Achieves Results

Success in any entrepreneurial endeavour is contingent on a simple truth: Learning does not always require thinking. Actually, thinking often hinders learning.

As children, we are often repraoched when we made mistakes: "You just weren't thinking! Don't you ever think about what you are doing?" Then there is the most successful personal development book of all time telling us to Think and Grow Rich.

True, it is a fantastic book and a must read for success-minded people. But many of us get so tangled in thoughts that we can't get out of our"heads" and take the action required for success.

Socrates, one of the greatest "thinkers" of all time, said, "Action equals knowledge". Action,not thinking, is how we achieve results.

Take playing the piano for instance. We could think about playing the paino but we will never become better until we start pecking away at the keys. If you were to ask an accomplished pianist to think about what they are playing in the middle of a rapturous concert, the music would probably fall apart into a series of painfully disconnected notes.

Thinking hinders execution. Thinking can hinder success. The fact of the matters is we can intellectualise all we want, but until we take action, we will never accomplish anything.

There is a mantra in the martial arts that simply says "Ready, Fire, Aim". Simply put, this means take action and correct that action as you go. It is quite probable that many businesses never get out of the starting gate because of over thinking and over analysing.

Most people want all their ducks to be lined up in a row before they begin. This will never happen. The time will never happen. The time will never be perfect. The key is to get started and then "keep on keeping on".

In martial arts, students practice moves over and over and over again. They train their bodies to transcend thought and take action at that moment. Imagine a trained martial artist getting attacked on the street thinking, "Hmm, okay I'm being attacked. Should I turn my body this way or should it be the other way? Now I have to trap the assailant's arms, tighten my fists, pull back, and strike..."

Of course this is not what happens in the martial arts. The key teaching in the martial arts is to "act now" in spite of the mind's tenancy to analyse the situation.

The worst kind of thinking is fear of failure. The "what if" disease. "What if I fail? What if people laugh at me? What if I lose all my money?"

Fear is paralysing. It stops the movement necessary for success. Fear weakens our resolve, cripples our creativity and ultimately stagnates our progress. Conversely, movement overcomes fear. When struck by fear, move. Do something!

So don't wait to explore your entrepreneurial spirit, take action now. When those pesky thoughts creep up, and they will, scare them away with the mantra, "Don't think, don't think, don't think", and watch your dreams and goals cascade towards you.

So finally, what isthe bottom line?

"Don't think and grow rich".

Shiv Prasad
Malaysia
16 Jan 2007

This article was abstracted from the New Straits Times, December 15, 2006.

What is Intrapreneurship? How Different is it From Entrepreneurship?

Well, it is true that turning into an entrepreneur could be one of the most satisfying things for any person but have you ever thought that if everyone were to turn entrepreneur, who would work for others? For every firm that has been a sterling success, there has been some entrepreneur and then there have been people who actually made real the planning of the entrepreneur or made some innovations of their own. Yes, we are talking about the intrapreneurs.

Intrapreneurs could be understood as entrepreneurs that work within a big corporation. The term intrapreneur was first time used by Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot. They developed a model in which a person who wants to develop an intrapreneurial project would risk something like his salary and then would sell the completed project for cash bonus or capital which could be used to develop further projects. They met with enough initial success to start a school for intrapreneurs and came out with their first book Intrapreneuring in 1985. Pinchot and Company still specialize in training people for entrepreneurship.

Intrapreneuring is all about innovation. All the organizations need intrapreneurs to function well and if you thought that only entrepreneurs can make good money, think again. Intrapreneurs are making lots of money in big corporations. You can actually get very rich by turning intrapreneur for some big corporation. There is no limit to how far you can go as an intrapreneur. It all depends on your particular skill set and how hard you work for the things you want.

When it comes to skill sets an intrapreneur needs skill sets that are in no way less than what an entrepreneur needs. So, an intrapreneur would surely need to have leadership qualities. Intrapreneurs would have to have innovative qualities as well as creativity. It is true that not all are born with all these qualities. But anyone can actually learn these qualities, if one is willing to work for it. There are a number of training facilities that could teach you all these qualities.

There are number of Executive Training Programs that lets you develop intrapreneurship qualities. These Executive Education programs teach you a lot about how to function within a corporation and how to get across bureaucratic systems that are inevitable in most of the bigger corporations. Executive Training programs are meant to let you learn about best business practices and planning and also about developing an intelligent organization which could work for the benefit of the corporation as a whole.

Now, what are the reasons why a person would think of turning into an intrapreneur rather than an entrepreneur? Well, the very first reason would the freedom that it gives you. After all when you turn into an intrapreneur, you have a limited liability where the performance of the corporation is concerned. The another benefit that one gets out of turning intrapreneur is that one actually enjoys all the benefits that one has when one turns entrepreneur sans the liabilities that it is accompanied with.

So, if you are thinking of making something out of your life, turning into an intrapreneur is one of the best options in front of you. But yes, you would have to prepare yourself for the responsibilities that you would have to bear.

Steve Seah
Singapore
15 Feb 2007

Steve Seah is a corporate business manager learning entrepreneurship. Grab free reports and ebooks from this site http://www.entrepreneur2b.com and http://www.mywealthcreationstrategy.com

The Six "F" Words Every Entrepreneur Should Know

Start your own business, and soon enough, you find yourself in a situation where there are many things you want to say, all of them unprintable.

It happens to every entrepreneur – a moment of extreme challenge that causes you to wonder why you started the (expletive) business in the first place. I’ve had my share of those moments since starting our public relations firm in March 2002.

But while trading notes with a fellow entrepreneur recently, I started to think about all the moments of extreme challenge I left behind when I decided I no longer wanted to be somebody else’s employee.

That got me thinking about what really matters to me as an entrepreneur. As I shared my thoughts with my friend, a new list developed – the “F” words I believe every entrepreneur should know. They’ve done the job for me so far, keeping me rooted, married and talking to my kids while we build a successful business. I hope they have the same effect for you.

1. Faith: I’m not a street corner preacher, but I have a deep and abiding faith that starting my business is what I was meant to do in life. I also have a strong faith that I’ve been given the tools to do the job – even in a moment of extreme challenge. Without faith in yourself, in your business and in your purpose, how can you succeed as an entrepreneur?

2. Family: My wife and daughters are the most important people in my life. Starting my business has enabled me to put them at the center of my life, where they belong. Oh yes, I work long and hard, but today, it’s with a clear purpose. The generations of entrepreneurs who built this country understood this principle. Their businesses often bore the family name, and generations of people who were born, lived and died together managed to build great businesses together.

3. Friends: Fortune 500 companies have boards of directors. Entrepreneurs have friends. When no one else will listen, friends will. When others fail to see the beauty of the product or solution, friends will. And when no one else will talk straight to you about a dumb business move, friends will. And they won’t send you a bill.

4. Focus: It’s nice to say you’re an entrepreneur, that you are your own boss. But do you have the commitment to turn that idea into true success? The ultimate measure is your ability not only to set a goal, but stick with it, despite those moments of extreme challenge. You may have to change course along the way, but like a good sailor, you focus, keeping your business pointed to the right shore.

5. Finances: Let’s face it – most of us strike out as entrepreneurs because we believe we can improve our financial situation. I know I have not missed the constraining limits and miniscule salary increases of corporate America. How much do I want to make this year? There is only one answer: How hard am I willing to work? And there is only one reason to ask that question: to make good on my commitment to all the “F” words that rank ahead of money on my list.

6. Freedom: This may be the greatest gift of entrepreneurship. But it is the one that comes only after you can act on all the other “F” words in your entrepreneurial vocabulary. So many entrepreneurs strike out to find success, which they define as freedom from all the things they hated about working for someone else. Unfortunately for these folks, they lack a true entrepreneurial vision – they’re merely running away from something. True entrepreneurial freedom comes from a vision that encompasses what’s really important to you.

Are these the only “F” words an entrepreneur needs to know? Obviously not. But in moments of extreme challenge, remembering these “F” words may help you weather a moment of extreme challenge without resorting to the unprintable variety. And if you’re like me, they may also help you remember why you started the business in the first place.

Paul Furiga
28 Mar 2007

Paul Furiga is president of WordWrite Communications LLC, a Pittsburgh-based virtual agency. He is the former editor of the Pittsburgh Business Times, and has also covered Congress, the White House, edited magazines and written for publications ranging from Congressional Quarterly to Frequent Flyer magazine.