Being enterprising: pros and cons

Being enterprising: pros and cons

By De Saison, Art of living and working

Undertaking: Creating your own role model, one gesture of microcourage at a time.

In recent years, entrepreneurs have definitely been popular! Often elevated to the rank of stars, successful entrepreneurs seem to us to have a type of personality and skills that exceed those of ordinary mortals , and these predispositions thus seem to propel them towards success.

This is the story we tell ourselves, but is it really representative of the reality of an entrepreneur? If the general population likes to admire success and what seems like the culmination of the entrepreneur's journey, ask the entrepreneur directly and he'll probably tell you that what he's really passionate about is the journey ( strewn with equally instructive pitfalls) and not the destination .

It is that without some “entrepreneurial skills”, no one could carry out an entrepreneurial project until the end nor sustain it over time. So perhaps it's more these skills - rather than the image or the projected successes - that should inspire us.

VISUAL!!!!

At the beginning of my career, I was fascinated by entrepreneurship as much as I was afraid of it. There was no entrepreneur in my family, except through certain generations that I had not known and the story was on the one hand absent for lack of succession, and on the other hand distressing: bankruptcy, depression , discouragement. In my eyes as a young professional, therefore, entrepreneurship was synonymous with enormous risk. However, it was the era of web entrepreneurs and I had several business ideas in mind. In search of creative freedom and freedom of schedule, I wanted to get closer to this universe . So I applied for and got a job in communications at the Fondation de l'entrepreneurship, a Quebec organization that promotes entrepreneurial culture.

What is entrepreneurial culture?

The set of entrepreneurial skills and our propensity, as a society, to develop and encourage them, testify to an entrepreneurial culture.

Here is a parallel to make it easier to understand: in Quebec, we can say that we have a hockey culture. Many young Quebecers are immersed in the culture of hockey and implicitly encouraged to participate, starting at a very young age.

In an entrepreneurial culture, we would therefore encourage our little ones to undertake and carry out projects on their own, to engage in petty trade or to remain on the lookout for opportunities to innovate.

In current culture, in Quebec, entrepreneurship is quickly associated with money, autonomy and freedom. Becomes an entrepreneur who is thirsty for wealth, who has a steely character and who cannot tolerate a boss. A rather… masculine vision, we agree!

It is time to dust off these old myths and look at the importance of entrepreneurial skills in all spheres of society and regardless of gender, personality or profession.

VISUAL!!!!

Entrepreneurship, why is it important?

From a societal point of view, entrepreneurs create jobs, create wealth (by circulating and bringing money into the province) and, through their products and services, meet needs within society.

Very often, entrepreneurs are also innovators who challenge the status quo, mobilize talent and stakeholders, innovate or elevate new ideas to the status of new standards .

And the intrapreneurs?

Moreover, we often talk about entrepreneurs, but very very little about intrapreneurs, their close cousins, who act as entrepreneurs within our public organizations or private organizations in which they are not shareholders. The difference between the entrepreneur and the intrapreneur is that the latter is assigned a budget and resources by his organization that he will sometimes have to grow in terms of ideas, social and environmental impact or income and profits. A third category, the entrepreneur, refers to anyone who initiates, supports and carries out impact projects, for themselves or for the collective good, voluntarily or not.

VISUAL!!!!

The entrepreneur, the intrapreneur and the entrepreneur are all three essential links in our society and their entrepreneurial skills are the same :

The skills of the entrepreneur

Competency 1 - Question the status quo and identify opportunities

This is the difference between an executive manager and an entrepreneur or intrapreneur. They are constantly on the lookout for opportunities invisible to others, unmet needs and opportunities to create new solutions.

Competency 2 - Mobilize and promote ideas

Ease of communication is an entrepreneurial quality since it is very rare for entrepreneurs of any kind to act completely alone. They will need to raise awareness, convince, argue, negotiate, sell, mobilize and bring people together, and their interpersonal skills usually allow them to do this easily.

Competency 3 - Building Resilience

Entrepreneurs embark on the adventure without certainty, ready to learn from their experience and their mistakes and to find solutions to the problems encountered in order to be able to continue .

Competency 4 - Carrying out projects

Strategy, creativity, leadership, risk and resource management and executive functions, entrepreneurs oversee each of these steps and surround themselves with winning conditions to carry out their projects.

VISUAL!!!!

Be enterprising for better entrepreneurship

But why am I telling you all this? The idea is not to become absolutely all entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs, nor to ensure that our children become one, but rather to demonstrate to what extent entrepreneurial skills are important tools for entrepreneurship as a person.

Entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs; all dare to create their own model, one gesture of micro-courage at a time. Without map, without plan, without instructions and without guarantee.

They adopt a resilient spirit, a spirit of continuous learning, are not afraid of making mistakes, of taking detours, of having to bounce back, they are aware of their resources and take calculated risks, they are courageous and do not aren't afraid to take a path less travelled, pivot, or even blaze a whole new path.

Many entrepreneurs will tell you: we revere their successes, but we forget that their history is filled with what many consider to be humiliating failures or decisions that are too risky.

It's because these skills are acquired like all the others: through practice.

One gesture of micro-courage at a time

It is true that getting started and nurturing young entrepreneurs is not easy . For many, it is even synonymous with “making trouble”: argumentation, negotiation, exploration, political sense, implications, commitments. Indignation, even, young entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs being more and more militant.

VISUAL!!!!

Dare to undertake

Individually, no one will come to "save us" and meet our needs - it is up to us to pave our own way , to undertake ourselves and it may thus happen that the institutions and organizations in place do not have the exact answer to this that we are looking for. Then you have to create it!

It is therefore essential to develop the skills that will allow us to find our own solutions, to create our own model and to think outside the box when it is necessary for our health and well-being.

Collectively, the world needs the enlightenment of committed entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs to question our current ways of doing things and imagine new solutions to all the challenges we face. There are 1001 ways and areas of interest – from personal, to local, to public, private and international spheres, in which to get involved and undertake.

The world needs entrepreneurs

The world needs entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and caring entrepreneurs, who have discovered the satisfaction that comes with this entrepreneurial process and who are not afraid to give themselves a little trouble to make a difference.

In short, you will have understood that in my opinion, being enterprising in life is much more important to feeling in control of your destiny than simply becoming an entrepreneur. Although, of course, one can lead to the other; be warned!