Читать книгу Ageless Entrepreneur - Fred Dawkins - Страница 4

In business folklore there’s an often told tale that sales managers have shared with new recruits for the last three generations. It seems that back in the 1920s, when business was booming, the owner of a large and successful shoe company wanted to expand his business outside of North America. After much discussion it was determined that Africa looked interesting because there was no competition operating in that market. Management decided to send their number one salesman, Eddie O’Brien, who was approaching retirement, to assess the potential. After just a few days they received a very terse telegram from Eddie stating “situation hopeless — nobody wears shoes.” Needless to say the project was abandoned.

Thirty years later, after the hardships of the Depression and the Great War, the same company was looking at international markets again and Africa was raised as a possibility. No one was keen to go but they had just hired a young business school graduate named George Carmichael who didn’t quite fit in. Off he went, and in about a week George sent back an equally succinct telegram: “Situation fantastic — nobody wears shoes.” There’s several value lessons in this story related to age, enthusiasm, prison thinking, perspective, and perception, but all relate to recognizing opportunity.

Finding opportunity is a huge key to success at all levels, but it’s becoming more difficult. Life is not a dress rehearsal, no matter what your beliefs. Whether you embrace the Abrahamic religions and aim for eternal life in heaven, or an Asian religion that seeks a better life next time around, or you just want to make the most of this one, everything points to specific goals that you need to accomplish in this lifetime. Your beliefs may provide your motivation but it is up to you and you alone to find your way.

Life is about self-determination within the value system that you embrace. Every generation has to adapt to a changing environment that forces individuals to reset goals within revised parameters. Governments change. Religions adjust. Regimes rise and fall. Economies move through boom and bust. All the while we’re immersed in evolution. The main difference today is the pace. The one constant is rapid change. The Dark Ages hampered progress for a thousand years; today the fundamentals of every aspect of our lives shift more than once within a generation. Welcome to the world of Big Data. We can’t possibly know everything.

In this state of near frenzied transformation, the critical characteristics for success, whether economic, social, religious, or political, are resilience and adaptability. These are the traits of an entrepreneur. We cannot think like Eddie O’Brien. Rigidity and blind faith in the status quo are limitations. This mindset is not limited to business. We are seeing increasing social entrepreneurship for a reason. Entrepreneurial ideas apply to every element of your life and will allow you to dictate your defining moments. Entrepreneurial thinking is at a premium. The rebels of the past have entered the mainstream of the present and will define the future.

Entrepreneurs offer a critical resource that finds ways to succeed under any circumstance, whether within democracy, under a dictatorship, in a feudal society, within communism, and even within religion. Free enterprise is but one system within which entrepreneurs flourish. The mindset of all entrepreneurs is to make things happen, focusing on a combination of opportunity and determination. We do not always know the way but we are committed to find a way, solving all types of problems in the process. George Carmichael saw opportunity because he needed to prove himself. Eddie O’Brien had nothing to prove.

Society has much to say about entrepreneurial opportunities but determination exists within the individual regardless of the context. It is a life philosophy that can be taught. The most important skill you can learn in this dynamic world is the ability to create and manage your career and your life, which means constantly looking for and recognizing opportunity, followed by finding ways to capitalize.

This mantra of mine is particularly true if you are in either of the shoulder groups of the work force; whether at the point of starting your career or facing the prospect of winding your work life down while needing to extend it. Both of these groups are thirsting for opportunity. The youth of today are facing barriers to entry that impede the start of their careers. In contrast the reality for seniors is that freedom 55 is one of those moving targets making it a necessity to extend their careers while downsizing, outsourcing, and technology are forcing them to the sidelines. There is no room for prison thinking in this “New Era of Entrepreneurship,” where necessity dictates the need to identify opportunity and each of us must carpe diem.