

Being enterprising: pros and cons
19 April, 2023
Being an entrepreneur: advantages and disadvantages
By De Saison, Art of living and working
Entrepreneurship: Creating your own model, one act of microcourage at a time.
In recent years, entrepreneurs have definitely been in fashion! Often elevated to the rank of stars, successful entrepreneurs seem to have a personality type and skills that surpass those of ordinary mortals , and these predispositions 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 to be the end result of the entrepreneur's path, ask the entrepreneur directly and he will probably tell you that what really excites him is the path (strewn with pitfalls that are just as instructive as each other) and not the destination .
This is because without some "entrepreneurial skills", no one could successfully complete an entrepreneurial project or sustain it over time. So perhaps it is these skills - rather than the image or projected successes - that should inspire us.

At the beginning of my career, I was fascinated by entrepreneurship as much as I was frightened by it. There were no entrepreneurs in my family, except for certain generations that I had not known, and the history was on the one hand absent due to a lack of succession, and on the other hand distressing: bankruptcy, depression, discouragement. In my eyes as a young professional, 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 schedule freedom, I wanted to get closer to this world . 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, reflect 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 steeped in hockey culture and implicitly encouraged to participate in it, starting from a very young age.
In an entrepreneurial culture, we would therefore encourage our children to undertake and carry out projects on their own, to do small business or to stay on the lookout for opportunities to innovate.
In today's culture, in Quebec, entrepreneurship is quickly associated with money, autonomy and freedom. Entrepreneurs are those who thirst for wealth, who have a steely character and who cannot tolerate a boss. A rather... masculine vision, we understand!
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.
Entrepreneurship, why is it important?
From a societal perspective, 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 question the status quo, mobilize talents and stakeholders, innovate or elevate new ideas to the status of new standards .
What about intrapreneurs?
Furthermore, 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 allocated a budget and resources by his organization that he will sometimes have to make profitable in terms of ideas, social and environmental impact or income and profits. A third category, the entrepreneur, refers to any person who initiates, supports and successfully carries out impact projects, for himself or for the collective good, voluntarily or not.
The entrepreneur, the intrapreneur and the enterprising person are thus all three essential links in our society and their entrepreneurial skills are the same :
The skills of the entrepreneur
Skill 1 - Question the status quo and identify opportunities
This is the difference between an executive manager and an entrepreneur or intrapreneur. The latter are constantly on the lookout for opportunities invisible to others, unmet needs and opportunities to create new solutions.
Skill 2 - Mobilize and advance your ideas
Ease of communication is an entrepreneurial quality since it is very rare that entrepreneurs of all kinds act completely alone. They will need to raise awareness, convince, argue, negotiate, sell, mobilize and bring together, and their interpersonal skills usually allow them to do this with ease.
Skill 3 - Building resilience
Entrepreneurs embark on adventures without certainty, ready to learn from their experience and mistakes and to find solutions to the problems encountered in order to be able to continue .
Skill 4 - Carrying out projects
Strategy, creativity, leadership, risk and resource management and executive functions, entrepreneurs supervise each of these stages and surround themselves with the winning conditions to successfully carry out their projects.
Being enterprising to undertake better
But why am I telling you all this? The idea is not to absolutely all become entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs, nor to make our children become so, but rather to demonstrate to what extent entrepreneurial skills are important tools for undertaking as a person.
Entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and enterprising people; all dare to create their own model, one act of micro-courage at a time. Without a map, without a plan, without instructions and without guarantees.
They adopt a resilient spirit, a spirit of continuous learning, are not afraid to make mistakes, to take a detour, to have to bounce back, they are aware of their resources and take calculated risks, they are courageous and are not afraid to take a path less traveled, to pivot, or even to clear a completely new path.
Many entrepreneurs will tell you: we venerate their successes, but we forget that their history is filled with what many consider to be humiliating failures or overly risky decisions.
This is because these skills are acquired like all others: through practice.
One act of micro-courage at a time
It is true that undertaking and growing 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.
Dare to undertake
Individually, no one will come to "save us" and meet our needs - it is up to us to find our own way , to undertake ourselves and it may happen that the institutions and organizations in place do not have the exact answer to what we are looking for. We must then 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 our well-being.
Collectively, the world needs the insights 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, through public, private and international spheres, where to get involved and undertake.
The world needs entrepreneurs
The world needs entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and benevolent entrepreneurs, who have discovered the satisfaction that comes with this entrepreneurial process and who are not afraid to take 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 feel in control of one's destiny than simply becoming an entrepreneur. Although, of course, one can lead to the other; be warned!