Why we don't work as hard for the boss, when he is us?

[GordonJ]

Originally Posted by Dien Rice

I think you are right...

Many people are in love with the idea of entrepreneurship - but are they cut out for it?

I have a friend, let's call him Harry. He loves the idea of entrepreneurship... He keeps talking about the next business project he's going to do.

He's friends with me and some other entrepreneurial friends. He's a nice guy. But privately, one of my successful entrepreneurial friends told me, with a smile, "About Harry... he's not an entrepreneur."

That doesn't mean he's not as nice a guy, or that we like him less. He just doesn't seem to have that something that will let him take a risk, to get things moving.

Somehow, it seems when he intends to do something entrepreneurial - he freezes. Step 1 just doesn't get done.

I don't know why that is. I wish I could cure it for him! But... he loves the idea of being an entrepreneur. However, he just can't seem to even get started... This has been the story for a few years...

I really don't know why.

Is it fear of failure? Perhaps he finds it hard to make a decision? You need to solve both of those to take steps on the entrepreneurial path!

(If that's the problem, there are various techniques that can help...)

Thanks... Interesting topic, Gordon!

Best wishes,

Dien

Dien, I can tell you the exact day I stopped being an Entrepreneur. I believe you were there, in Erie, PA. I was on the phone outside with Harvey Brody. Harvey reiterated one of his many fundamentals ( I still listen routinely to those 30 hours of conversations, always find hidden gems).

This was the old, don't build your castles on someone's beach...or as he would put it,

don't stand on a rug when someone can pull it from beneath you. It was the exact moment my Entrepreneurial spirit left me, almost like an Astral body on a midnight romp through the ether.

Over the years I had started a few successful businesses, but not being smart like Fred DeLuca, who used OPM for all his failed ventures, I stupidly used my profits and invested in some real dogs. YIKES, what was I thinking. Back then, I had a tank full of time and an attitude, easy come, easy go, easy come again...and it was, somewhat.

So don't bother calling me an Entrepreneur, no sireee, not this old boy.

It may be the season, turn, turn, turn...to everything there is a time, turn turn turn.

My seasons of start-ups and work ups and build ups and scaling out, yada yada yada, are all behind me now, and have been since 2009. Mostly piddlyling stuff, and at times, not interested at all, until I have to be.

My "students", the few I have left, require no time, a few hours a week of conferring on the phone. I'm putting NO effort into IM, or online and very little effort into selling advertising...and NONE into other people who talk but don't act.

So, with this being said and I freely accept that I am not an Entrepreneur and maybe never was a very good one, or else I'd be running for President...

it is OK with me.

I have put a lot of effort into the business side for a long time, but the creative side has been the one short changed. This has been a focus now for a couple of years. My stand-up comedy needs work, if I am to win America's Got Talent next year (I am adding a ukulele to the act and possibly some tape)...

But I'm having fun with it.

I have two movie scripts in progress, one far enough along I'm putting it on the market very soon and we'll see how good of a copywriter I really am.

My daughter and I are working on a couple of TV shows, writing the pilots and getting ready to take them to market, hopefully when her second book hits the shelves. Timing probably is the key.

My poetry is once again motivating me, and it is very hard work, much harder than marketing.

And the SQ1 book is now a labor of love once again.

Having dollars provided time, to spend with my kids as they grew up, and having a few up on the shelf helps, but, as far as things they might buy, or accomplishment goes, the artist side needs to make his mark too, and although there can be great artistry in business...

my biz skills today, are akin to the Crayola crowd in preschool, fun to scribble in hurricane fashion across the construction paper of my mind, and maybe hung on a fridge or two, but ain't nothing going to the Louvre.

Ain't got time for that, it's story time, and like ol Jimmy Durante would say, I got a million of them.

Gordon Jay Alexander

PS. One for sale right now, spec script, will consider selling shares, but, think FL swamp land circa 1940's....HA!

Wait, some of the highest priced land today was once a swamp, who knew?

There are some people who have made Entrepreneurship a lifelong pursuit and habit, they just keep going and going and going. Some guys just keep creating and acquiring properties as a way to keep score.

It is great, and this country affords an equal opportunity when it comes to taking risks and gaining the rewards from successful leaps of faith.