The Secret of Entrepreneurship

• April 12, 2019

Entrepreneurs change the world, but not in the way that you think.

Entrepreneurship can be one of the single most impactful ideas in business today. Entrepreneurial thinking, intrapreneurship, and innovation are pervasive ideas throughout the industry today. Many entrepreneurs that call themselves creatives, they know that they’re creating and building something — giving them a singular vision of what they want to bring into the world.

• For many, it is malleable, able to change and adapt as they grow and learn.
• For some, it is a straight-forward single-minded idea.
• For everyone, it is a problem that they are passionate about solving.

Entrepreneurship makes lives better because it brings new ideas into the fold. Some stick, smartphones, social media, others fade, pet rocks, Beta Max, but all leave an impact, even if it is merely an example of something whose time hasn’t yet come, i.e., Apple Newton.

The key to this is, whatever you want to do, it is entirely up to you to figure it out.
Entrepreneurs’ ideas don’t have to be game changing. In fact, among our communities the most impactful entrepreneurs often have some of the most mundane ideas; they merely do it better and bring a little extra to the table.

The one common element that every entrepreneur has is resilience.

Resilience merely is the ability to remove “I can’t” from your vocabulary. Period. This simple lesson is the most important and is what primes entrepreneurs for success. Because every venture with either will either fail, face hardship, or require grit and determination to move forward.

Never giving up is what separates the successful entrepreneurs from those who fall short.

Entrepreneurship doesn’t have to be a world-changing idea. It has to be something that someone is passionate about and willing to see through to the end.
The smallest venture can have the most significant effect. Moreover, for many entrepreneurs, it is not about changing the world. It is merely having an impact on their lives, families, and neighborhoods — the idea of building a career for themselves that bring value into their communities in new ways.

I had a great lunch the other day with The Hero Club, another great organization within the C-Suite Network and had a chance to sit down with some fantastic entrepreneurs that have stared some significant and highly impactful ventures.

I asked them, what was the one thing that kept you going and truly helped you build your business. After some thinking, I received a multitude of answers, all along similar lines; persistence, determination, unwillingness to let go, plain old stubbornness. In short, it was the will to succeed that drove them to create something bigger, better, more profound. It is the will to carry on that creates successful entrepreneurs, not a fancy pitch deck.

It is looking at the world in slightly different ways, finding a problem, proposing a solution, then running with it. However, and more importantly, it is the ability to be able to bounce back from mistakes and missteps. Learn from them, grow, and continue to move forward. Be stubborn about what you’re passionate about. The never give up, never quit, learn, adapt, improvise, and overcome attitude is everything in this area of business.

We don’t have to change the world, but entrepreneurs everywhere are finding ways to improve their lives and their communities. If you look at the aggregate, incremental, impact of all their ventures, it does change the world.

You can find our podcast conversation on entrepreneurship and local impact on The Leadership Update Brief on C-Suite Radio.

Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across three combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management.