Welcome to our first blog post as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. We’re delighted to take part in many activities and events during the week, details of which can be found here.
For our online channels, thought we would use our vast expanse of user stories from the If we can, you can community to dispel some common entrepreneurial myths that currently exist, working with Enterprise UK’s five themed days.
On Monday we’ll tackle the myth that entrepreneurs are born and not made (see below)
On Tuesday it’s the myth that entrepreneurship is a solo activity
Wednesday we’re combating what a stereotypical entrepreneur is
On Thursday we’re challenging the myth that entrepreneurship is only about profit
And finally Friday’s theme is taking on the myth that you need a lot of money to start a business
This year’s Global Entrepreneurship Week, more than any other, is taking on increased significance.
During Global Entrepreneurship Week we’ll be sharing the thoughts of Entrepreneurs’ Forum members, their guest speakers and those who have put their support behind the Ifwecanyoucan campaign on the various myths that surround entrepreneurship.
And if you have a story to share, please leave your comments below, or visit our Facebook page to take part in the debate. We know there is more than one side to every story so if you have an experience or opinion about some of these myths, please do get involved and air your voice.
The myth that entrepreneurs are born and not made:
Richard Mairs: “There’s always a debate to whether entrepreneurship can be taught or are you born with it? In my opinion it’s a mixture of the two. Although I feel you are born with something special inside you, it takes the correct support or situation to bring it out. My friends, family and loved ones have always been very supportive. In particular my parents who have both helped me massively in helping me realise my dream of running a business. They've given me the support, advice and odd nudge in the right direction towards me achieving my ambitions.
To be a truly successful entrepreneur is different. It takes hard work, determination...and a little bit of luck.”
Video Clip: Paul Callaghan, Chairman of Leighton Group takes on the subject here
Ali McLean share his defining moment of becoming an entrepreneur: “I never had a vision to be self employed, but that was before I realised I was in actual fact, unemployable. You hear about Peter Jones setting up his own tennis academy when he was sixteen. It would never in a million years have occurred to me to even sell sweets to my classmates in school or something. But there does come a time when you realise, you just can’t work for anybody but yourself.
Sat in my parent’s house with no money, no job and no prospects. I decided to get a blank piece of paper and just write down what I liked doing. I was thirty years old and thought my destiny should be defined by now.
On the top of my list were travel and adventure sports. I enrolled on a travel and tourism management course at Northumbria University, after which I got a couple of jobs with some local tour operators.
I had a great boss; he was a brilliant energiser and a fantastic ideas person, but a bit frustrating to be his right hand man. One day he called me into his office and started scrolling on these post it notes saying do this, do that, and I kind of snapped. I told him to stuff his job and I walked out.
I went home to a really quite unhappy wife, then woke up the next morning and surprise surprise I was unemployed. That’s when I sat down and really thought seriously about what the hell I was going to do with my life. I realised that I was unemployable; quite simply, I couldn’t work for anybody else. So I set up my own travel firm in Newcastle in 2000.”
Nickie Gott: “It’s up to the individual to make it happen. You can go for all the advice and support in the world but unless you believe it and are willing to take the ups and downs which comes with being an entrepreneur, it won’t.”
You’ve got to think, as I did, right, I’m going to do this and just go for it, and make sure the people around you share that belief because they’re the ones who will pick you up if things get hard and remind you of why you’re doing it in the first place.”
Carol Metcalfe: “I really think that if you can do the household budget, you can do business finance. If you can make a Sunday dinner and all the time and preparation that goes into that, you can project manage, simple as that.”
Video clip – Paul Campbell offers some words of wisdom here
Tony Trapp spotted an opportunity: “I know some people have a clear vision to set up their own business from when they’re in school. I wasn’t one of them.
I was a University lecturer for five years and although it was working out pretty well and I enjoyed it, I couldn’t see myself doing it for the rest of my life. But at the time I felt locked into the system . I looked round one day in the senior common room and I could see my whole life mapped out in front of me. It wasn’t the life I wanted.
It was only when I gave up my lecturing gig and went back to Newcastle for a temporary research job that business started to feel really interesting to me. This was the start of the North Sea oil boom when people were looking at how they would put pipes on the sea bed and how they would trench them.
Very little was known about it at the time, and huge amounts of money were available to develop the technology, and there were big opportunities for people to develop it, along with new schemes and new patents.”
Remember to add your opinion – click here to leave your comments below or visit our Facebook page.
Video clips are also available on our GEW Channel on our TV website - click here
3 comments:
Sitting on the fence I'd say a bit of both.
Having 2 older brothers who are both high achievers and entrepreneurial I'd have said 'nature' but our parents and grandparents were all risk averse so that doesn’t fit with the entrepreneurial mindset...however we are all competitive and that is indeed in our nature as well as nurtured by one of our grandparents very strongly which without doubt made us who we are today.
Ahh... the nature vs nurture argument. I've always thought its best to assume its all nurture and keep pushing the boundaries until nature intervenes.
Science, particularly Epigenetics, supports this view also. Even if entrepreneurs are born, genetics are far too complex for there to be a simple one gene link.
Much more likely that it is the environmental factors that trigger aspects of gene activity - epigenetics.
So, in practice, your parents, school, religion, peers all have a great effect on your genes.
They also influence your beliefs - whether you think you can or think you can't be an entrepreneur. I know I've been struggling with a severe self-judge for a long time.
So one way to increase entrepreneurship is to help people identify and overcome the limiting beliefs that stop them. Easier said than done but this is a large part of our work on the Wellbeing Journey.
I feel that entrepeneurs are born , and that they somehow manage to break free from restrictions they often find themselves in. Sometimes it takes a few months, for others many years... but I think that ultimately E's find their niche and away they go !
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