Discover the Entrepreneur in You

Some of you may have gathered from my last blog post that despite my continued efforts to plan for the future, I seem to be able to only plan one step at a time.

Perhaps this is because the story is continuously changing. My ideas, desires and passions are evolving entities developing and changing through the experiences I have.

What Im touching on is the spirit we all have inside us to discover; to embark on this adventure which is life.

I think it can be a sticky subject. One that doesn’t bode well in our society and generally can make people feel uncomfortable.

A photograph I took from the university of business and economics from after a presentation we made about our work for VSO and the project we are working on the ICSE programme.

Some people, generally speaking stop discovering pretty early on. They stop changing and challenging themselves. And often I think, they dont know why.

That thought makes me feel uncomfortable and makes me sad that people may be lacking a fundamental part of our human experience.

The experience I am talking of specifically is the discovery of the entrepreneurial spirit in everyone.

The same spirit engrained in humanity to discover, to take risks. To walk into the unknown.

Its this spirit that has defined our species. Its a spirit that built our greatest buildings, cities and landscapes. Its the same spirit that has created our greatest music, art and films.

But my time here in Cambodia has also shared a different light on what this spirit means to me, and helped me identify the sometimes confusing feeling of being an aspiring young entrepreneur in the U.K.

To me its also about the means to survive.

Discovering the entrepreneurial spirit in you is not just about building the next big company or reaching great personal highs.

Its about surviving, and carving your own path out for yourself.

In Cambodia, weather you go to university, start your own business or work in the fields as a farmer, you fight for your place. You create your future.

A snapshot from a meeting held at the home of a local man who runs a solar power business. Here we are trying to understand how the business works and the process used to keep accounts.

Its this spirit that dragged a people out of the darkest of times after the Khmer Rouge ended in 1979. And its a spirit that they use on a daily basis selling rice, starting tailoring businesses or opening restaurants.

There are not the same infrastructures that we have become dependant on in the west to fall back on. I feel these infrastructures have hindered a part of our generation in a way where we are now not nurturing young people to think for themselves in the right way. This in turn effects the potential of our overqualified, under experienced youth.

Thats why I have come here to Cambodia. Thats why I and the other volunteers are volunteering. To support people in following their spirit and to cultivate and discover our own.

I hope in return I can bring some of this spirit, of independence and pride back to the U.K and our Youth. In the U.K. we have all of these opportunities waiting for us to pounce on, but for some reason we are not.

I think its because we have forgotten how. We are so used to being told what to do, what to think, where to work, how to feel.

Its that comfort and reluctancy to break social status quo that I feel our generation needs to change. To realise our entrepreneurial spirit again and take it into our lives and future; weather we be at university, starting an apprenticeship, going travelling, or starting a new business.

To ultimately regain an enthusiasm and passion for living. For entrepreneurship.

For me, I am grateful for the experience that VSO ICSE has offered me. Its far more valuable than I thought I would be. Its brought clarity to this feeling that I didn't understand before and given me direction and focus on who I am and what I can achieve.

With this new found understanding I can move forward confidently without continuing to feel confused and so can, I hope, future volunteers of the ICSE programme.

Discover the entrepreneur in you today. http://www.volunteerics.org/

I am on Twitter if you want to talk or follow my story! https://twitter.com/joshuajacobwood