Being an entrepreneur is not about having a business.
In fact, this is a myth that needs to be busted quickly. To be an entrepreneur you need to have attitude, take initiative and take risks.
When I was six I had my first business, in a story that my mum loves to tell everyone who comes round the house - I sold flowers to buy “gamas” (as we call chewing gum). In the Azores, most houses have a backyard, usually with flowers. Mine was no exception. So, in my eagerness to buy chewing gum with the filling that was going to be released in the next few days, I plucked the flowers from the yard, made several bouquets and went door to door selling them. At the end of one afternoon I had enough money to buy a whole box of gum. Today my mum tells this story with a laugh, but at the time the worst thing was when she got home and saw the state of the yard... it put me out of business and I got beaten up! But today I laughed. Less bad.
Since then, the bug to make things happen has never left me. I've sold cheeses door to door, recorded CDs for friends, organised international events... I've even given round the world talking to entrepreneurs!
Over the years I've realised that there's a lot of confusion about what “being an entrepreneur” means”. So now I'm going to try to explain my vision of “the thing”:
Being an entrepreneur isn't about having a business. Yes, I know that's the idea you've been given, but it's wrong. It's a myth that needs to be busted quickly. Not everyone who starts a business is an entrepreneur, nor does everyone who is an entrepreneur “have a business”. To be an entrepreneur you have to have attitude, take initiative and take risks... You don't have to have a business!
Being an entrepreneur implies:
1) Be proactive/have an attitude. To be someone who, in that discussion of the glass half full or half empty, wastes absolutely no time. Instead, you worry about filling the glass!
2) Innovate. In your project, in your business, in your life, you have to introduce something “new”. You don't have to invent the wheel, but you do have to be someone who does new things, who opens up new paths, new processes, both globally and locally.
3) Take risks. Entrepreneurs need to be able to take risks. Being an entrepreneur means, among other things, taking risks and having the ability to manage them. Basically, the risk that entrepreneurs take is that their initiative, whatever it may be, will not be accepted by the market/community, and that it will therefore not be successful.
That said, we can be entrepreneurs by creating a business.We can be entrepreneurs within an organisation (the technical name for this is “intrapreneur”, someone who takes the initiative to create, innovate, act and look for new opportunities for the organisation in which they work - increasingly necessary in companies and sought after in the job market).
Finally, we can be entrepreneurs and make things happen in our lives, in our personal projects. Look at my case: I undertook the round-the-world expedition, I didn't set up a business, I didn't work for anyone... it was clearly a personal project, but to get there and to achieve it I had to be an entrepreneur.
Above all, I like to think that being an entrepreneur is as simple as being someone who “makes it happen”. A proactive individual who takes risks, who innovates at every step and who makes things happen, wherever and in whatever situation. For me, being an entrepreneur is a lifestyle and a way of being.
That, at least, is my view.
