Am preluat un articol publicat de Sahar Hashemi, autoarea carții „ANYONE CAN DO IT„ din prisma mesajului promovat. Sperăm să vă placă la fel de mult cum ne-a plăcut nouă.
Writing a book about our journey of starting Coffee Republic taught me one thing: yes, anyone can be an entrepreneur. Really.
These days, entrepreneurs are everywhere, in the press and on TV shows like The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den, even on the big screen building a certain social network. But does exposure to all these successful entrepreneurs encourage more people to become entrepreneurs, or discourage them?
At first it might seem like the obvious answer is that role models can only help nurture entrepreneurial dreams. But on further reflection I’m not so sure.
I know this from my own experience.
But I Couldn’t Be an Entrepreneur…
I never thought I was the entrepreneurial type. When I was growing up there seemed to be just about one entrepreneur in the whole of the UK and his name was Richard Branson. Of course, when I compared myself to him, the swash-buckling extrovert, I knew I didn’t have it in me. I didn’t seem particularly creative in early childhood and hadn’t made money in the school playground. I wasn’t even a school drop out.
So I went off and became a lawyer, a career that I considered to be the antithesis of entrepreneurship. But being a lawyer wasn’t for me. I wasn’t happy and I knew that I wasn’t playing to my strengths. I couldn’t be myself – my work persona was very different than the real me. Work and life felt like very separate things. I just couldn’t accept doing something that was the opposite of life for most of my waking hours through the best years of my life.
When my father died suddenly, I decided that it was time to take the leap. Life was far too short to do something that wasn’t me. Fun, I decided, shouldn’t be reserved for weekends only. But I still didn’t think that starting my own business was an option. I still subconsciously must have had the image of Richard Branson hovering over me.
So I left my job and went to see my brother Bobby who was living in New York. There I fell in love with the skinny lattes I tried at a new coffee chain called New World Coffee. When I got back home, I missed them. I wanted to start my mornings in London the same way I had in New York – with a skinny latte in a buzzy coffee bar. When I complained to my brother that I couldn’t get that in Britain, a light bulb went off for him. He had heard about Starbucks and he wanted to do his own thing, so he decided there and then that we should bring New York-style coffee bars to the UK. With a bit of coaxing, I agreed.
Now, I had no idea what the journey entailed. But my brother taught me that it’s just following a step-by-step methodology. He guided me through each step: do market research, write business plan, raise money, find suppliers, find employees, find site, open store! We did it and within a year we had opened our first location, Britain’s first American-style coffee bar
Fast forward five years and Bobby and I made the big exit (more on that in future posts) – what people often dream about, but for us it was painful. We missed the company so much. A friend suggested we write a book and tell our story. It was a good idea. I needed closure and something to occupy myself with.
I found incredible catharsis in writing. Entrepreneurship happens so fast and it’s so messy. In the midst of the struggles and victories you have no time to reflect. So it was good to look back over the journey with the benefit of hindsight and see some patterns in the chaos.
The first thing that struck me when we put pen to paper was that I had a new label. I was an entrepreneur. But hang on, I thought, me? I am in no way like Richard Branson. I was quite an ordinary, un-outstanding individual. So does that mean if I became an entrepreneur, anyone can become one?
Thus was born the title of our bestselling book, Anyone Can Do It. By telling the step-by-step story of what we did and how we did it, we wanted to de-mystify entrepreneurship and give people the knowledge and inspiration that if we did it, then others can do it too.
There Is No Such Thing as the Entrepreneur Type
Many people have the chronology of entrepreneurship backwards in their minds. That’s why so many people’s great business dreams remain just that – only a dream. No one is born an entrepreneur. You don’t need to have exceptional characteristics before you start. You don’t need to be an entrepreneur before you start. You becomean entrepreneur during the process of pursuing your dreams.
It’s not a special chromosome or magic dust some have and others don’t. Nor is it a set of personality traits. Entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes. No two entrepreneurs are the same. In the words of entrepreneurship guru Peter Drucker: “I have seen people of the most diverse personalities and temperaments perform well in entrepreneurial challenges. Some are fat and some are lean. Some entrepreneurs are worriers and some are relaxed… Some have great charm and some have no more personality than a frozen mackerel!”
It’s about behavior. You become an entrepreneur by actually jumping in and doing it – not talking about it or planning it and, for sure, not by dreaming about it. What activates and awakens that behavior is taking the first step and hitting the road. It’s on that journey from point A (the fragile bubble of an idea) to point B (making it happen) that you discover qualities you never even knew you had and become an entrepreneur.
Choose your own personal path of entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship , like entrepreneurs, comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s not necessarily about starting a business and it doesn’t equate to huge successes and riches. You can work in a big multinational and still be an entrepreneur. Or you might start something small because it’s a hobby or to attain a certain lifestyle. It’s as much a personal journey as a professional one. You make it your own, tailor made just for you. It’s about bringing your work and your life much closer together.
The opposite I suppose is the “coming in just for the pay cheque” mentality. Yes, we all need to make a living, but do we really have to accept boredom and monotony as a price for that? Entrepreneurship is about making a living while doing something you feel you’re good at, that unleashes your innate talents and that you can be “you” doing. Basically making a living and living at the same time. When you put everything you’ve got into it – your head, heart and personality – ‘work’ no longer feels like ‘work’ and the term ‘work-life balance,’ frankly, becomes meaningless.
The other day I was watching a documentary on Richard Branson. I could feel myself subconsciously comparing myself to him and getting intimidated. So I had to remind myself again that indeed you don’t have to buy into these media images of entrepreneurs. That you make your own path. And that I had done it in my own way- that dream I had when I was an unhappy lawyer had come true. I do what I absolutely love every day. Work and life are the same, not opposites, and I am 100% myself doing it. That for me is entrepreneurship and that, I can guarantee, anyone can do.
Photo: Shoula / Getty Images
Sursa: Sahar Hashemi
