From Entrepreneur to Enterprise — Sustaining the Spirit of an Entrepreneur

To be an Entrepreneur is to tackle a challenge outside of your comfort zone with an energy that is derived, quite possibly, from the depths of one’s soul. It is a roll-up your sleeve attitude that will allow the entrepreneurial spirit to move any mountain to achieve their desired objectives. It is taking the risks that will lead to either greatness or great frustration. The journey promises huge rewards, financial and otherwise, that at times may seem more like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. That success may come at the cost of a thousand failures with each failure etched as a permanent scar — a chapter in that success’ entrepreneurial story.

The entrepreneurial spirit does not limit the Entrepreneur to their own business but instead represents the out-of-the-box thinking that is a crucial attribute of leaders that can take on new challenges and come up with innovative ways to address those challenges.

“An Entrepreneur looks at a wet box of matches knowing one of those suckers is dry. They continue striking those matches because the key ingredient in success is the persistence to achieve it.”

Striking Matches

Whereas a practical approach may be to acknowledge that a wet box of matches may represent the impossibility of starting a fire, the eternally persistent optimistic Entrepreneur will continue striking in search of that dry matchstick. A dry match represents the one hypothesis amongst countless that sets the stage for success albeit never guarantying it. There is nothing wrong with the practical and possibly logical approach of viewing it as a wet box of matches. Entrepreneurs need those pragmatists, that do not attempt the wet box of matches, to not only execute on their ambitious entrepreneurial visions but also to be their Chief Devil’s Advocates and turn their dreams into realities.

A great analogy as an example of an Entrepreneur is Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway. Armed with the need to get a fire going against the threat of the failure to do so, his character tries everything from banging rocks to violently rubbing a stick against some dry straw. Once he gets a little spark, he does what any Entrepreneur would do and throws anything he can at it to make the fire bigger and bigger still. He then proudly proclaims, when there may be no one there to hear him, about the greatness of HIS fire. To anyone else it is nothing but a simple fire, but to him it is THE fire!

That single dry match represents the first successful idea amongst many failed ones in an unchartered sea of impossible obstacles. The subsequent fire then represents the validation of that idea. This fire may be the business concept that is working, it may represent the novel approach that is proving results, or it may represent the breakthrough needed to then leverage other existing concepts to further that success. The Entrepreneur was born an entrepreneur and they will die as one and it will become equally as important to grow that fire as it may have been to start it in the first place. New challenges to sustain the fire will always remain. The resulting fire, or business, needs the entrepreneurial spirit to continue growing.

Entrepreneurial Idea to Enterprise

As momentum grows so will the business. With every growth milestone, the Entrepreneur will find themselves standing at the decision fork of expanding the vision or getting caught up in managing operations. Their business may even reach market dominance in their respective industries and become the likes of Apple or Amazon or Facebook or Walmart or any of the other giants of today that began as entrepreneurial visions.

It is important to understand that what got these giants to where they are can only partially be credited to their product or their service. The successes can partly also be credited to the validation of their skills or knowledge and of course the great people they were able to hire to help them achieve market dominance. The success may also have come because of the financial backing they received or were able to earn. It may also partly be because of the clients they got or some fad they started. It probably even had a lot to do with some luck.

Those reasons combined or individually because of any one of them, all are certainly factors that contributed to the entrepreneur’s ascension to success, but they are not the key reason for that success. The most important reason for the transformation of an entrepreneurial vision to a global enterprise, is the entrepreneurial spirit in that continued striking those proverbial matches. That constant need to challenge any and all existing norms and to ensure that complacency did not set it. Once the Entrepreneur stops striking matches, complacency sets in. Complacency or the decision to not challenge an idea that seems to be working, is the death of entrepreneurship and of innovation. It stifles growth, it stagnates the entrepreneurial spirit and it allows for the competitors to catch up on a road that the Entrepreneur had, up till now, been paving.

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” -Will Rogers

The annals of history are rich with the tombstones of those market leaders that were run over at the expense of their complacency by others who were still striking matches. Blockbuster, Kodak, Blackberry and countless others all represent the has-beens that once dominated their industries and seemed bulletproof at the time against an eventual demise.

“Apprehension to challenge success, conformity to perceived norms, risk averseness, superiority complexes and the death of innovation are the symptoms of a complacent outlook built on the ego of yesterday’s successes.”

The entrepreneurial journey is less about the race, against outside competitors, towards a solution and more about the race against oneself in a constant desire to solve new challenges.

Entrepreneurs are looking to challenge any and all norms that represent the status quo. If they were born 500 years ago, they would be building ships to prove that the Earth was, in fact, not flat! They would be pinned against the masses, labeled heretics and burnt at the stakes by those who benefit from the status quo. In spite of the ridicule, the rejection, or against all the adversities, an Entrepreneur must continue to plunge forward and set sail.

“When people seek to undermine your dreams, predict your doom or criticize you, remember that they are telling you their story, not yours.” — Cynthia Ocelli

Rising from the Ravages of Failure

Every storm that challenges the entrepreneurial journey, at every stage of that journey, will chip away at the sanctity of the hull of the enterprise that that entrepreneur has built. These storms will test the resolve of the Entrepreneur and the entrepreneurial spirit and present new challenges that will require new approaches. To weather these storms and rebuild while the ship is in motion, is a testament to the perseverance of the entrepreneurial spirit.

Sometimes though, the storm is stronger than the ship and the resources at hand just may not prove enough to repair the ship in time. It is at this time that the ship needs to make it back to the harbor to rebuild and regroup. It does not mean that the dry match that created the fire that allowed for success was by any means a misdirected effort. Only time in the harbor will allow the entrepreneur to reflect on the lessons learnt and even though the inevitable told-you-so’s await at the dock, only the acceptance of failure by the Entrepreneur will give the critics any credence.

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” ― Rob Siltanen

The harbor may represent a paycheck or a conformity to regularly travelled pathways that may be more predictable. It may even bring a much needed reprieve to normalcy and a family life that had previously been robbed of the dedication it required by the entrepreneurial parent. In bad times that normalcy can be great, but in good times that normalcy may be just that…too normal.

The Entrepreneur needs to strike matches to appease their own restless soul. That spirit may need time off but cannot be turned off. It needs much patience from the loved ones around them for a collective success. It needs to be harnessed by those who employ it. It can get bored easily in the harbor, but it flourishes in adversity. It needs to be constantly challenged and it needs to be provided with constant challenges.

“A ship in harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for.” — John A. Shedd

Kory Farooquie is CEO of iNVATERRA (www.invaterra.com) and a public speaker and podcast host from his NextGen.Ninja (www.nextgen.ninja) platform.

iNVATERRA engages clients to become future-focused Digital Enterprises by:

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