All business activity in the
United States and its territories
began as entrepreneurial
adventures. Trace any corporation
back to its beginnings, or the beginnings
of its parent corporation, or the
beginning of its parent's corporation,
as is sometimes the case, and you'll
find it began as an idea that would fill
or help fill a need or desire on the part
of human beings who would become
customers.
We look today at a complex multinational
organization like IBM and forget
that the company began in the
mind of a single human being. Anyone
who starts or causes to be started a
business venture, is an entrepreneur.
The entrepreneurial adventure is
endlessly attractive to those endowed
with entrepreneurial spirits, adventurers,
in varying degrees, whose
visions of the future tend to be hopeful
and enthusiastic, rather than defeatist.The entrepreneur is the person who
says, "I think it'll be a big success."
The non-entrepreneur says, "You're
going to lose your shirt."
A survey taken many years ago of the
most successful people in a large
American city turned up the fact that
most of their ultimate success depended
in large measure on the jobs they
had lost; whether they had resigned or
had been fired wasn't all that important.
And under questioning, those very
successful people thought about that
interesting fact for perhaps the first
time and shuddered to think of what
their present lives might have been like
had they clung to one of those early
jobs which, at the time, seemed so
important to them and their families.
Now they're not all entrepreneurs, of
course, but they were people with faith
in themselves and their ideas, which is
the mark of success, wherever it's
found. During those important steps in
their careers, they were no doubt
warned by well-meaning relatives and
friends to hang on to that job they had
held, and lectured on the dark and dismal
pitfalls of venturing off on something
as ephemeral and evanescent as
an idea. But of course, good ideas are
not as ephemeral or evanescent as their
status in thought might indicate to the
more fearful. They're the most important
things on the planet earth, and it's
producing ideas that raises the human
being to his or her highest levels of
achievement.
Ideas solve problems and make our
lives infinitely more interesting and
rewarding, less dangerous, better fed,
better employed, richer in countless
ways, and wonderfully more comfortable.
Without ideas, we'd still be sitting
in the trees grooming one another.
All the creatures on the planet have
life-saving techniques. Some are fleet
of foot, others sharp of claw and fang.
There are fish in the deep, dark trenches
of the ocean that dangle tiny
lanterns above their waiting jaws. But
for the human being, there is the brain,
the idea producer, to save his or her
skin in a myriad of ways. And the
United States, the first nation in history
with the word happiness in its official
chartering papers, offers a number
of options to those desiring to share in
the good life. One of those options is
the right to go into business with little
more than an idea and the determination
to succeed.
The idea that results and a person running the risks of starting his or her
own business depend strictly upon the
person — regardless of background,
education, previous level of accomplishment,
and aspirations. For most
of us, going into business is a pursuit
beset by many problems, irritations,
headaches, sleepless nights, long
hours, and low pay. Ah, yes, being in
business for one's self does not necessarily
mean an inordinately high
income. On the contrary, it often
means very little or no income at all
for long periods of time. But once the
business hits, whether it takes five
years or 15, you've got the world by
the nether parts. You decide what
you're worth in the salary and bonus
departments. And the company can
pay for much that would ordinarily
come out of an employee's pay.
America's top executives working
for large multinational corporations
usually earn more in salary and perks,
stock options, and bonuses than the
great majority of entrepreneurs. But
the entrepreneur has something else.
He has control. And once the business
is truly successful, which means it's
probably in a state of happy expansion,
he or she can hire the best executives
to run things while he or she
takes a few months' rest in Hawaii or
Greece or plays golf in Nairobi and
does a bit of deep-sea fishing in the
Seychelles.
You say it might take 15 years for
that kind of success? Yes, I do. But
how long would it take you if you
worked for IBM or Chrysler, 15 or 20
years I suppose, if ever, right? And the
15 years aren't all pain and suffering
and sleepless nights. There's a lot of
joy in there, too. There's the joy of seeing
your own ideas in action and of
watching your own ideas and efforts
win against the competition. There's
the joy of watching the money pour in
along with the orders. There's a, sort
of, kind vindication in that.
When I resigned from CBS, my
friends told me repeatedly what an
idiot I was. I had reached the top. I
went to work in the beautifully paneled
brass-trimmed elevators of the
world-famous Wrigley Building in
Chicago. I rubbed shoulders with the
rich and famous, and I earned top dollar
in my profession. Man, I was on top
of the heap. I had it made, and I was
only 28 years old. But I dreamed to be
an entrepreneur — in total control of
my destiny — and as my friends
learned, it does little good to remonstrate
with an entrepreneur.
Christopher Columbus, brilliant
navigator that he was, could have
spent his life in peace navigating up
and down the coastal waters of Europe
and remaining within the known
boundaries of the period's world's
maps. But at the edges of the known
waters there appeared the terrifying
legend: "Here there be dragons." And
it was there that Columbus desired to
sail. And it's there that every entrepreneur
desires to sail.
It's interesting to note that on the
maps beyond the known world, there
was never a legend reading, "Here
there be unlimited opportunity for
exploration, no doubt much gold and
silver and precious gems, and strange
creatures living beyond these boundaries
waiting for discoveries and
development for the daring and
intrepid sailor." Even though it had
always been that way before, no one
ever suggested that it might also be
that way in still undiscovered areas.
It's the natural proclivity of cartographers
and advice givers to look upon
the unknown as bad. For they, like
children going into a darkened basement
alone, feel that the dark and the
unknown must hold strange and fearful
creatures unimaginable in the
known and lighted world.
They cannot think otherwise. It's
their nature. Yet, at the time of
Columbus, not a single live dragon had
ever been seen upon the planet earth
by anyone. Dragons were, in fact, fairytale
creatures, yet they always inhabited
the uncharted regions of the world.
It said so right on the maps.
So when you get an idea that you
think will result in an excellent business
of your own — and it needn't be
a new idea by any means — keep it to
yourself and your secret notepad for a
period of time while you simmer it on
the rotisserie of your mind's consciousness
and unconsciousness. Let
it turn while you view it from every
angle. Look at it from the standpoint of
the worst possible scenario. If it's a
good, sound idea, it should survive
even the worst times, as good businesses
do.
It usually takes longer than we realize
when we begin. At the decision to
become an entrepreneur, we seldom
take into consideration the length and
arduous nature of the contract. But if
our idea is sound, and if we are sound,
and if we fully understand the concept
of service and the importance of working
capital and constant upgrading of
our product or service, and if we have
the perseverance of Columbus, we'll
wake up some fine morning to find
ourselves one of the competent ones of
our generation. We've achieved a kind
of independence never known or perhaps
understood by the employee, no
matter how high he or she may travel
in the hushed corridors of executive
country.
Learn more about Earl
Nightingale and his all-time
bestselling programs The Strangest
Secret and Lead the Field.