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For many entrepreneurship is scary, I found it that way for a long time until I found myself in the right environment. Initially I envisaged entrepreneurship as finding the right idea, quitting your job and following your nose with your new idea. For the longest time I just seemed to miss the idea.
In a way it is a bit like approaching getting married. You love your girlfriend and want to spend the rest of your life together, you see your friends and family getting married one by one around you and they all seem happy. However, I was still apprehensive about what was going to happen after I got married. Were all my married friends suddenly engulfed by the “married spirits” and sworn to secrecy. What was the world like after taking those vows? Were they just waiting for me to fall into the same trap?
Of course not! What was I thinking looking back now? The reality was that I just did not have the knowledge or experience of what were the standards and criteria for operating as a married couple. I didn’t even know where to look to find the answers. Yes I saw my parents with 30+ years of experience but it did not occur to me that that would be the same for me. In fact what I didn’t realize was that the actual answer to this mystery was actually my parents, as the background of what it is to be married is shaped by those around us, that we observe. Our interpretation of that is how we engage in a married relationship – of course your spouse also has her background of what marriage is and so the interaction of these two visions is what drives the resultant actions we hold in marriage as a couple. So far so good and in many ways our actions seem to be exactly how our parents acted with us.
There are no magical entrepreneurial spirits out there but there are different ways of overcoming the apprehension. Many entrepreneurs just find themselves in the situation and their story is just how they dealt with the situation. A bit like a couple after a steamy and risky night, suddenly find themselves dealing with the situation of becoming parents, they just have to deal with the situation.
The remaining entrepreneurs are in two camps: those waiting / planning and those executing on fulfilling their ambition. Those waiting for the right moment, big idea, perfect plan etc will remain that way unless something around them changes. I was in this group for a long time, I know what it is like. For me the ambition was there but the desire was just not strong enough to quit and start out on my own. I recognized that I still had many knowledge gaps and a lack of capacity to act, which all compounded the risk to start executing. For me I needed the organization, to help me cover these knowledge gaps and with the team at Active Garage I have been able to execute on an entrepreneurial venture I could not have imagined on my own.
From me this is a thank you to the Active Garage team for making this venture possible. To those of you on the fence, waiting for the right something. Stop waiting and seek out the help in the areas that you have apprehension – those are the knowledge gaps you have to close before you can move forward. Happy Holidays!