Apple, Saudi Aramco, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Tesla, Tencent, L'Oreal - these and many other companies are the flagships or, as they are also called, economic growth drivers. Why do we have to call them in this way? Why do we attach so much importance to entrepreneurs and business in general?
In 2012, the famous banker Oleg Tinkov spoke to an audience of MGIMO students and said one remarkable thing:
“Entrepreneurs are the best people on earth, because they change people's lives, they develop society, they create jobs, they dream and they improve.” - Oleg Tinkov
The statement is quite bold, so let's check if this is true. To do this, let's return to the original list of brands indicated at the very beginning.
All of these companies are familiar to you, but familiarity with them is not something mandatory or forced. You yourself, making a conscious choice, buy their products, use their goods and services, perhaps follow their news or dream about working for them. They are an integral part of your life.
But what is a company? Of course, the answer is obvious - it's people.
It is a group of people with completely different functional responsibilities, with different types of thinking, with different systems of views and opinions that together represents one well-coordinated mechanism. But not a single mechanism can work without a leader , manager, boss, a person who will feed it with a certain philosophy, who will lead it in the direction in which it considers right. In a word, behind any company there is a specific person called an entrepreneur.
Let's look at the portrait of this person in more detail.
Who is an Entrepreneur?
You can write for a long time about a set of specific characteristics for the general concept of an entrepreneur or businessman. Nevertheless, it seems to us that it is much more interesting to analyze this topic with specific examples. Therefore, we present to you the three main businessmen of our time:
Jeff Bezos
Jeffrey Preston Bezos - the richest man of our time (according to Forbes magazine), was born in 1968 in New Mexico, (Albuquerque, USA) in a family of a very young couple(mother was 17 years old, and father - 19). From his childhood memories the American businessman most often speaks about his grandfather, who taught him many things. By the way, his grandfather (Lawrence Preston) held a rather high and important position as a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
Once, when 10-year-old Jeffrey and his grandparents were driving in a car, the boy listened to the radio, which gave statistics on smoking. In particular, they said that each puff reduces the time allotted for life by 2 minutes. The future entrepreneur decided to calculate how many years the life of his grandmother, who was an active smoker (also called chain-smoker), was reduced, and immediately tell her the result. However, he didn't expect it to bring tears to her eyes. Grandfather, who was driving, stopped the car, took the boy out of the car and told him a phrase that he remembered forever: “One day you will understand that it is more difficult to be merciful than smart” [ Business Insider, 2018 ].
This and other lessons have become important for Bezos, and, accordingly, the first thing that can be noted among the qualities of an entrepreneur is the ability to learn, to draw experience from mistakes. The ability to perceive criticism, which, by the way, the owner of a large business faces very often, is also an integral feature. In such cases, he recommends “look in the mirror” and decide for yourself what kind of criticism it is, or rather, from whom it comes: from those who want your business to get better and the service to improve, or from those who, in principle, do not wish you well and are prone to fantasies. Thus, dealing properly with criticism is the destiny of any entrepreneur.
Having worked in two of the largest US financial institutions in Wall Street (Banker's Trust and DE Shaw) and having achieved career success in both, Jeff Bezos decided to quit and organize his own business, by which we recognized him, Amazon, originally organized as a bookstore on the Internet, and then became a “store of everything”.
It would seem that the entrepreneur did not create anything very surprising, but think about it: who in 1994 sold books on the Internet? Back then, it wasn't really clear what it was. Can you imagine how many risks the future billionaire took on? However, the willingness to work in conditions of uncertainty with a lot of risk is one of the main characteristics of an entrepreneur.
What also makes Bezos stand out from the crowd is that he always looks at the perspective of 5-10 years. We think that this allowed him to recently go into space on a ship of his own company Blue Origin on a suborbital flight.
Continuing the theme of space research and experimental flights, let's turn to the next hero.
Elon Musk
Perhaps the most famous, most discussed and willful entrepreneur of our time, whose image served as the basis for the creation of " Iron Man " and who is called the inventor of the present.
Elon Reeve Musk was born in the family of a fashion model, who later became a nutritionist, and an engineer in Pretoria (South Africa). After the divorce of his parents, the boy chose to live with his father. As a child, Musk did not enjoy great popularity among his peers, one of them once even broke his nose. But the boy was fond of programming, and already at the age of 12 he managed to sell his own program for the space (you smell the catch?) Blastar game, earning $ 500.
Zip2 is the first serious brainchild of Elon and his brother Kimbal, created in 1995. It was a startup that offered its programming services to the media. They managed to work with such major publications as The New York Times and Pulitzer Publishing. Despite offers to buy the company, Musk turned down deals several times, believed that the potential of his enterprise was not yet fully disclosed. And only in 1999 Zip2 was bought out by Compaq for a considerable amount of $ 304 million. The entrepreneur got almost $ 22 million, which accounted for 7% of the total.
From the early years of Elon Musk's biography, it became clear that entrepreneurial flair and patience were not alien to him. Of course, both of these qualities should go along when building your own business.
The founder of Tesla always dreamed of three things:
- Make Internet banking accessible and simple;
- Turn the human species into an interplanetary one;
- Stop global warming.
Looking at the list of these ambitious goals, one must admit that, in principle, the entrepreneur is confidently walking along the intended path. Musk has already co-founded the PayPal system, which made it possible to make payment transfers using e-mail, to promote the system of electronic payments.
In 2002, SpaceX appeared, a developer of private launch vehicles, a commercial operator of space systems. The company's global plans include the colonization of Mars and the exploration of other planets. And finally, the third brainchild of a businessman is Tesla, an enterprise specializing in the production of electric vehicles that can protect the planet from harmful environmental consequences .
As you can see, Elon Musk is not just a man who dreams, but a man who paves concrete ways to achieve his goals. This is another clear distinction of a man with an entrepreneurial mindset.
The latest projects of the Canadian-African entrepreneur are related to the use of solar panels that generate electricity (SolarCity), which can provide more than 40% of all electricity in the world, as well as the introduction of high-speed pipeline passenger transport to quickly move large numbers of people (Hyperloop).
Thus, the main thing that can be learned from Elon Reeve Musk is the ability to think globally, on a large scale, far ahead of the current time, and, of course, not to forget about the problems that the inhabitants of planet Earth face, i.e. be socially responsible.
Another most influential and wealthy businessman of our time is our next hero.
Bill Gates
Who doesn't know William Bill Gates?! Of course, every person at least once in his life heard about this man as the founder of Microsoft .
Gates was born into a very prosperous family of a lawyer and a school teacher, part-time chairman of a charitable organization. The boy was educated at a privileged private school in Seattle. Already at school age, Bill was fond of programming, and he managed with his friend Paul Allen to earn 20 thousand dollars by creating a program to regulate traffic. This friend will play an important role in the life of young Bill.
Enrolled at Harvard University, the aspiring entrepreneur , uninterested in the legal career his parents insisted on, decides to join his friend Paul at Honeywell Corporation. From this segment of the life of an entrepreneur, we can conclude that it is never too late to abandon the ideas imposed by family, friends, acquaintances and listen to what is really interesting.
From here begins the path of Bill Gates as the founder of Microsoft, which sold licenses for computer manufacturer software. The young programmer went a long way in several years and significant projects , and already in 1986 he managed to become a billionaire at the age of 31 thanks to the high value of the company's shares on the stock exchange.
Since 2006, the entrepreneur decided to partly move away from business, devoting most of his time to charity. Bill Gates owns several charitable and investment funds. He was recognized by Forbes magazine as the richest person 18 times. He was also repeatedly included in the list of the most influential people.
Thus, we got acquainted with the career paths of the three most famous entrepreneurs of our time, and now we propose, based on them, to talk about what entrepreneurial thinking is, how it differs from other types of thinking, whether it can and should be developed.
How And Why To Think Like An Entrepreneur?
I work as a gardener, mow gardens, periodically decorate the landscapes of wealthy houses, quietly and calmly go about my work day after day. Why should I think like an entrepreneur?
Well, of course, you can safely work for any company that provides these services, but it should be understood that we live in an age of a market economy, where people show initiative, strive for independence, and more and more emphasis is placed on business processes. Self-employment is a modern trend, which is proved by the appearance of freelancing, self-employment , etc.
Let's take a look at those stories again. After all, Bill Gates invests in various funds to combat Alzheimer's disease, participates in environmental protection projects, and Elon Musk put forward an initiative to develop solar panels for a reason. These people set the vector of progress by introducing innovative, best practices. It turns out that an entrepreneur is a person with a mindset who is not alien to responsibility, caring for a whole generation.
A modern person cannot fully fit into the current life without having an entrepreneurial mindset, because in these days it has become a way of life. It teaches how to deal with problems, cope with stress and difficult situations. So, even if you don't plan on reaching your potential as an entrepreneur, this type of mindset will allow you to develop many qualities that will undoubtedly come in handy in life.
In general, entrepreneurial thinking is a set of beliefs, values that set the trend of an individual's behavior in an entrepreneurial way. This definition very clearly demonstrates the connection between thinking and behavior. Indeed, how we think determines our actions and deeds. Accordingly, the development of thinking is a paramount task, the key to a conscious existence.
Answering the question of what constitutes entrepreneurial thinking, I would like to point out the characteristics and features inherent in this type of thinking. Let us list them below:
- Independence;
- Responsibility;
- Ability to think strategically ;
- Purposefulness;
- Willingness to take risks;
- Perception of feedback, including criticism;
- Ability to cooperate;
- Expansion of the comfort zone;
- Adaptability;
- Practice orientation;
- Determination.
What would you add to this list? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Having found out that entrepreneurial thinking is a useful and important skill of our time, we suggest you now look at exactly how to develop it.
From Words to Deeds
Even if a person does not feel an entrepreneurial vein in himself , he has every chance to find it, or rather, develop it, and here's how you can do it:
#1 Listen to your complaints
But don't just listen, turn them into opportunities.
Do you know the difference between an entrepreneur and a layman? For example, if you go to a café and you don't like the fact that you have to wait a long time for your ordered food/drink, you might want to think about how to solve this problem. It is possible to develop a special application for visitors, where they can place an order online in advance, and when they arrive at the establishment, they will find the order already on the table. The next stage is the sale of the developed application to the café owner and receiving a well-deserved reward. This is called thinking like an entrepreneur .
Now imagine the reverse situation: you come to a café, you have to wait for what you ordered for a long time, you endure, remain dissatisfied, and finally eat food that takes longer to digest, you may even express dissatisfaction to the waiter, thereby spoiling the mood for them as well.
Remember Elon Musk. Of course, he could send endless aggressive letters to polluting companies, threaten them with legal action, deal with international organizations to protect the rights of everything in the world ... But instead, he used his capital as a physicist-engineer and created a mega-innovative technology of environmentally friendly electric vehicles.
A constructive approach with an emphasis on optimism and practical problem solving is the key to understanding entrepreneurial behavior.
Our next recommendation sounds rather pompous, but wait before jumping to conclusions…
#2 Dream
And be bold in your dreams !
Do not listen to other people's opinions (just hear), especially people who are used to living by the standard and with the philosophy of conformism . Let friends who are different from others into your circle, draw ideas from them, learn from someone else's experience, imagine, think, develop creativity, fill in the empty gaps of reality with your projects.
Returning to the mentioned Elon Musk, let's remember his dreams related to ecology, Internet payments and interplanetary travel. Who would have thought at the end of the 20th century that people would be able to fly to other planets? However, this businessman is already ready to launch his ships and is waiting for the moment of successful implementation of the project.
Without bold, daring, sometimes abnormal ideas, our society would have developed much more slowly and without interest. By the way, perhaps you have some crazy idea, bordering on a dream, but you just don’t dare to voice it. It would be interesting to hear about it in the comments!
The next recommendation is directly related to dreams.
#3 Stay in constant development
What did you think? If you're dreaming big, you need to have the right resource to make your dreams come true.
Tracing the path of education and self-development of the heroes we have considered, it becomes clear that they all received a decent education. Jeff Bezos, for example, read a lot of literature since childhood, which played a role in choosing the direction of the first business (online bookstore). In addition, an entrepreneur, without a doubt, is a person who is open to knowledge, new experiences and new ideas. After dealing with Amazon, he decided to move towards the space industry. Who knows, maybe later we will hear about his new enterprise?
It is also very important to understand that everything you let into yourself is a means of inspiration. It is possible that if little boy Jeffrey had not watched the Star Love series, he would not have been the creator of Blue Origin and would not have flown into space. So try to consume the material thoughtfully and analytically.
The following advice never loses its relevance.
#4 Understand yourself and find something you like
It is no secret that many contemporaries spend time in jobs that are not interesting to them, spend resources on something that does not develop them and does not bring pleasure.
Do you know at least one successful entrepreneur engaged in an unloved business? It is unlikely that Bill Gates left Harvard University to engage in unloved programming ... Of course, any work eventually turns into a routine, but if you enter an industry that brings joy and arouses interest, then, firstly, this will happen much later, secondly, you will look for new facets of your business, thus becoming a specialist in it, and thirdly, it is never too late to start a new business if the old one has become boring.
Do you enjoy taking care of flowers? Why not open a flower boutique with some original marketing strategy? Love the smell of coffee and are great at tea? Learn as many varieties and ways to buy them as you can and go for it! Love to travel so much that you would like to turn it into your job? You know what to do!
Study yourself, the main book of your life, and highlight its main thoughts, underline them and draw conclusions, everything else is not so important.
#5 Connect human resource
Recall that your environment has an incredible impact on the formation of your personality. Accordingly, if you surround yourself with people who have achieved the success you aspire to, or at least share your dreams, it will be easier for you to achieve your goals . It will be great, of course, to communicate with businessmen with a developed entrepreneurial mindset, so try to look for fruitful acquaintances.
Summary
If you implement the above practices into your life, you will immediately be imbued with an entrepreneurial philosophy. Remember: business processes are all about action. Until you start making some effort, no change will come.
Finally, I would like to point out the literature that will be useful to you if you are interested in developing entrepreneurial thinking:
- "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill (an attempt to derive a formula for success based on a survey of many successful people).
- Good to Great by Jim Collins (Factors and Conditions Needed to Move to Outstanding Enterprise Performance).
- Delivering Happiness by Tony Shay (story from the founder of Zappos, a customer service company).
- Rework. Business without prejudice, Jason Fried, David Hansson (advice on starting or developing a business with the justification that high risks and significant resources are not always its direct companions).
- "Customers for Life" by Carl Sewell, Paul Brown
We hope you have learned the main message of the above material for yourself: act, dream, cast aside fears and doubts, and then life will sparkle with new colors and bring much more vivid impressions.
And as always...
...many thanks for reading!
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