We'll only ever see potential and opportunity if there's a genuine will to Start and to Grow. Never stop moving to get started, and never settle for a good result, always keep searching for a better one.
This is about how to turn scrap into “gold.” Change how you see things. Change how you think. And completely overhaul the old-fashioned rules around managing people, marketing, and running a business.
Our willingness and our ability to spot opportunity, to bring innovation to life, and to keep a constant eye on the risks and challenges right in front of us, that's what will lead us to “gold.”
Before we go any deeper, answer this question: what are our hopes and dreams right now, if all the wealth we have is a diploma and one used two-wheeled vehicle?
No need to answer that just yet.
Lester C. Thurow, an economist and former Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, said that without entrepreneurs, an economy's condition would turn poor and weak.
If we look around and see a lot of unemployment, goods that aren't selling, or even find that we ourselves can't afford the things we want, that's a sign we're short on business owners with a real entrepreneurial spirit, what's known as Entrepreneurship.
For those already employed, that same entrepreneurial spirit, applied in an employee's thinking and actions, is known as Intrapreneurship. It's the same concept; the only difference lies in who bears the capital responsibility when the venture starts.
The spirit of Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship is needed today across every business sector, to keep the number of businesses growing, and to make sure existing businesses keep surviving, growing, and turning into giant companies.
Beyond that, it's worth knowing that not every micro and small business owner falls into the category of Entrepreneurs, according to Peter Drucker. The person in question might just be a trader, or a business owner simply taking a profit margin from an activity that's been running the same way for a long time.
Without thinking about innovation, without applying a way of thinking that opens up opportunity, without adding any real value, without trying to turn “just an ordinary thing” into “something extraordinary.” If that's the case, it doesn't yet count as having an Entrepreneurial spirit.
So what does Entrepreneurship have to do with that earlier question about hopes and dreams?
Because each and every one of us has the potential and the opportunity to help bring down poverty, to help others in a real way by creating jobs, and of course to contribute to regional and even national economic growth.
We'll only ever see potential and opportunity if there's a genuine will to Start and to Grow. Never stop moving to get started, and never settle for a good result, always keep searching for a better one.
That's called the spirit of “Entrepreneur Inside”.
Bringing Entrepreneur Inside to life has to start with a willingness to explore. Searching, and continuing to search, even after finding something, still searching. That's what exploration means. And exploration lives in the mind, through constantly asking why and how. So the tool for it isn't just one sense, but every sense, gathering information as the mind's main “food” so it can keep working.
So imagination emerges, born out of creative thinking. Imagination is a gift from Allah SWT that has no weakness. Logic still has its shortcomings. Imagination doesn't. It's imagination that has let humanity today map out the vastness and the names of the stars in the universe, that lets people travel by airplane and high-speed train. A gift we should always be grateful for.
Ok?
Stop.
Hold on.
Let's remember again: our only capital was a diploma and a used motorbike. Are we poor? Are we struggling? Is our situation pitiful? NO. As long as we keep using our mind creatively, our capital is more than enough. Truly, MORE THAN ENOUGH.
A creative mind can pull us out of monotonous activity, activity that may no longer even be capable of solving the problems in front of us. The greatest recognition for someone who can think creatively is to be called an entrepreneur or intrapreneur. J.A. Schumpeter stated that an entrepreneur is an Innovator, someone capable of bringing about at least one of the following:
- A New Product
- A New Method
- A New Market
- The Use of a New Raw Material
- Re-Engineering/Re-Organization of Business Management Processes
Even if we can't manage a single one of the definitions above, we're still obligated to put in our full effort and thought to move toward it. Because striving to innovate is fuel, fuel that can burn away our fear and turn it into the courage to start and to grow. Anything at all. It could be starting and growing our own abilities. Or starting and growing a new method at the company where we work.
An Innovator is someone who carries out innovation. Business owners and workers who can turn gradual change into extraordinary change, that's an Innovator.
But to be clear, an innovator isn't defined here as someone with plenty of wealth, plenty of connections, or plenty of interests and talents. Because none of those three things guarantee that person can become an innovator, let alone an entrepreneur.
Why? We'll look at what principles have to be met to turn interest/talent, capital, and connections into an Entrepreneur.
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