Just Do You

This week I read some stories about a few entrepreneurs in this article.  One of them opened a pizza shop in Spain because he didn’t want to work for others, one went back to work after her youngest child started school and jumped right into her own business, and one started a business that he blundered through and then worked for a few other companies before trying again and getting it right.  The point is, there is no correct path, so you just do you, ok?

               There are some basic rules that an entrepreneur should follow and attributes that one should have as well, but once that ground work is done, it’s up to you.  The article explains some research from Teresa M. Amabile’s “How to Kill Creativity” on true creativity, where she discusses the three components of creativity: expertise, motivation, and creative thinking skills. (Image from this site) This basically just means the ‘know-how,’ the drive, and the x-factor that make you see things differently than others.  These three things give someone the ability to innovate and improve things in creative ways that others might not, and that’s where the creative ideas come from that start businesses.

               “These entrepreneurs recognized that having an idea was just the first step” the article said, and I want to focus on the idea of that.  We all have hundreds of ideas every day, and I have in mind at least twenty different businesses that I would love to start and that I would be absolutely ecstatic to work at, but I can’t start them all and I don’t, quite frankly.  Why?  Because the rest includes a solid business plan, the technical skills and ability to make it work, the people to push it forward, and the right market entry strategy.  This graphic from entrepreneurship coach, Willo O’Brian’s article indicates ‘the sweet spot’ where we can find entrepreneurial success between what we’re good at, what pays, and what we love.  This article explains similarly that entrepreneurship falls between personal satisfaction, societal needs, and economic feasibilities.  In the end, we all have ideas, and we all have passions.  How we get to one that works and where we find ourselves along the way is a whole different situation, and one that is honestly impossible to chart, so why not just do you?