Entrepreneurship: A journey from dirt to the clouds
Entrepreneurs are overrated. It’s a cold hard fact of today’s environment. Basically, entrepreneurship is today what rapping was in the nineties. It is a way to portray yourself as a desirable person, someone who is rebellious and brave. And much akin to its old counterpart, there are a lot of wannabes in the market. But if we shred away all the layers of the coolness and the hype, what do we really find? What we find is drive. Passion. Resilience. Truth be told, when you see entrepreneurship as it really is, all you find is a beautiful concoction of these three things.
The dictionary describes entrepreneurship as the activity of setting up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit. However, this definition barely skims the nuances that make up an entrepreneur. In its whole totality, entrepreneurship is about not giving up when you see practically zero hope. It is about the ability to believe in yourself when no one is willing to. It is about willing to stake everything you have and everything you love for something that you envision with all your heart and being. It is about grit. It is about crazy hard work and the tireless pursuit of more.
Sadly, however, entrepreneurship is mistaken to be a lavish lifestyle with jets, sports cars, and the latest gizmos around. Even though the money that comes along is a good add on for entrepreneurs, aspiring to become an entrepreneur just because of the money is not exactly the best plan ever. The road to becoming a good entrepreneur is difficult, to say the least. It is filled with struggle and failure after failure before you see any signs of success.
The most basic job role of an entrepreneur in modern society is to find solutions to problems. And the entrepreneur who finds the most efficient and unique solution to the most complex problems is the one who wins in the long run. Take a look at any leading entrepreneur and you will find this thing constant. All of them solved problems that had been existing for a very long time or had the ability to foresee the future scenario of the market.
Henry Ford saw the problem that people needed a faster medium of travel and came up with the blueprint of the engine. Steve Jobs saw the need for a computer in every household and came up with the Macintosh. Jeff Bezos saw the need for a more convenient method of shopping and came up with Amazon. Elon Musk saw the need for cashless payment and came up with PayPal.
All the people and companies mentioned above are success stories. They are not posed as examples of the people one should envision to become. However, apart from the stellar success which all these people have in common is their past. And by their past, what we mean are their initial days. All of them were ridiculed for their ideas. All of them faced hardships. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple. Elon Musk almost went bankrupt. But regardless of whatever conditions they faced, it was their tenacity of never giving up which got them where they are.
Now that you know what entrepreneurship is, you must have realized that it is no walk in the park. And nor is it all glitter and gold. GaryVee, a serial entrepreneur of today’s generation, often says that entrepreneurship is like Cloud and Dirt.
To us, the Clouds and Dirt analogy seems to be perfect. The clouds remind you where you want to be, what your aim is, what your vision is.
The dirt, on the other hand, is the work you must put in. It is the literal representation of getting your hands dirty and actually grinding it out.
Entrepreneurship is classic hard work. It’s a lifetime of hustle so that you can do what you actually want to do. It’s not something that you should do just because everyone is doing it. Because if you do, you will fail terribly.
However, if you do wish to walk down this path, we would like to leave you with the words of one of the greatest entrepreneurs ever, Steve Jobs; “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.”
Till next time.
Godspeed cretins!
