The Entrepreneurial Individual Part I

Entrepreneurship can be defined as a business philosophy that is concerned with growth, is proactive rather that reactive, customer-focused, accepts the risks involved in a venture and then takes risks that seem likely to bring sustained growth and market share, is prepared to tolerate failure, and lastly, has a large number of its employees who share the vision and believe in the same values and ideas as the entrepreneur him/her self.

The attributes are:

• Vision
  
• Commitment
  
• Self-belief
  
• Discipline
  
• Risk-taking
  
• Creativity
  

Whilst the skills on:

• Analysis
  
• Networking
  
• Building relationships
  
• Negotiation
  
• Selling ideas
  

It is well-known that skills can be learnt and developed but what of attributes? Are they innate or can they also be developed? It is fair to say that there are some who could never be entrepreneur, and those for whom it is a natural state of affairs. However, in between are a large number of people, perhaps the majority, who have latent attributes that need bringing out and developing for them to become entrepreneurs, perhaps in a small way but entrepreneurs nevertheless.

(Roger Cartwright)

Some Preparatory Thoughts

1. Calm yourself and your mind before doing the exercises.
   
2. Be prepared to DO the action necessary to accomplish each exercise.If necessary, make a pact or commitment with yourself to do the exercise as outlined so you know you've struck a deal with yourself.
   
3. Understand that the exercises cannot fix you -- you are responsible for yourself. Only you can fix you.
   
4. Be fully honest at all times with yourself. Keep a daily journal and tell yourself what's on your mind before each day's exercise routine.
   
5. If you don't like something that is going on in your life, say so. Then ask yourself what action you can take to fix it.
   
6. Recognize that progress comes one step at a time, and be prepared to decide on each step to be taken. Then take action so that your goals can become reality.
   
7. Be still and listen to your inner self-guidance. Hear your inner voice without any preconceptions and without overlaying it with the thought patterns that have held you back in the past.
   
8. Recognize that outer and inner changes will most likely happen together, because one is unlikely to occur without the other.
   
9. Be open to success, and to wonderful changes in your life. Expect them, demand them and know they will come.
   

Corporate Lessons from Children

The most beautiful, challenging, yet thrilling dimension of a training career comes from interacting with children. They are smart, creative, simple and honest. These four attributes are, however, quite rare in most modern workplaces. Although we do invest a lost in making our employees creative, the environment we provide is often contradictory.

Here are few observations:

• Children ask for everything- no matter how expensive it is. They don't care about who actually owns it. They know what they want and they demand it. Grown-ups on the other hand, waste their lives wondering whether to ask for it or not!
  
• Children always want to win, without hurting someone else. They don't create trouble for others in order to pursue good for themselves… they just care about winning. Are we still that eager, yet not greedy?
  
• Children are happy without any particular reason. Searching for reasons to be happy for many adults is close to nonsensical.
  
• Children get bored quickly. They hate doing the same thing over and over again. This disenchantment gives them the hunger to find new things to do, or at least new ways of doing the same old thing.
  
• Children forget grievances, and more on with building stronger relationships. They fight, they yell- yet they settle issues, 100 times faster than adults. What a shame for us older lot.
  

(Dawn Classified, Dated: 08^th Mar 09)

Problem Solving Tactics

Tactic	Action	Outcome
CLARIFYING	Re-read the problem as if you were editing it: analyze givens, make unstated assumptions explicit, clarify goals.	A restatement of problem--its givens, assumptions, and goals--in your own words.
VISUALIZING	Draw a figure and label givens, close your eyes to form a mental picture and then imagine what the experiment would look like if you set up the equipment.	A figure, diagram, model which should help you see relationships between givens and unknowns.
ANALOGY	Recall or use the text or notes to find a similar problem, method, result, useful theorem technique.	A model to follow in solving your problem.
SUBGOAL	Break problem into simpler problems; do only part of the problem.	Partial solutions leading towards goal.
ALGEBRAIC	Introduce variables for unknown; write equations, relations.	Symbolic representation of the problem.
BRAIN-STORMING	Think of every formula or definition related to the concept or terms.	A list of formulas, conversion factors, or definitions to be used.
QUESTIONING	Assume you are going to ask the instructor for help: what would you ask? Identify what you need to know to solve the problem.	A list of questions whose answers lead to a solution.
UNIT ANALYSIS	Compare units in answer you want to compute with units in given information; look for conversion factors involving these units.	A series of relationships involving units which can be multiplied or divided to get desired goal.
IDENTIFYING	Identify concept behind problem, type of problem, section of book from which taken.	Once you know the concept behind the problem you can use brainstorming, analogy, or other tactics.
TEAM	Work with a classmate or friend.	Discussion of ideas which can lead to broader understanding.
TRIAL-ERROR	Hit-miss attempts; try special cases.	Corrective feedback, better understanding of problem; may lead to induction.
INDUCTION	Try cases, searching for a pattern.	Generalizations and insights about problems.
WORK BACKWARDS	Begin with answer if given, or approximate an answer, try to figure out how it was obtained.	The process for solving the problem.
LOOK BACK	Check and verify your work; is solution reasonable?	Verification of solution.
INCUBATE	If making no progress after 30 minutes, stop working on problem, sleep on it, or leave it for a few hours.	An opportunity for insights and ideas to develop.
GO FOR HELP	Ask for hints or explanations.	Obtaining necessary insights and strategies.

www.utexas.edu/student/utlc/supplemental_instruction/manual/probsolving-groupwork/probsolve-tactics.doc

New Year Resolution!

09 days have been passed away of year 2009. If we couldn't pass our Resolution year 2009, then we should be prepared now. Goal's Life milestones will be listed down. There are difficulties that are occurred during moving towards the milestones. To overcome them, divide your routine in to four types of boxes that must be listed down in tabular form as following.

Urgent & important (40%) (Critical ones) Tasks that must be concentrated. Complicated ones	Urgent but unimportant (10%) (Routine) Regular tasks followups
Not urgent but important (40%) (planning that needs time) Career R&D	Neither urgent nor important (10%) (relaxing) Useless entertainment gathering

 

If these types of tasks are displayed on eye catching fair visible area like in front of computer desk, wall, white board etc. This will make easy to have task list in mind's unconscious area.

If you visualize your goals that you would like to achieve in your life, the easy way is to mark them between two points (birth & death).

Birth         X    X    X    X        Death

            20    30    40    50

X are the major targets to be achieved in life

Will see… how its work.. Good Luck..

 

Are You Creativity Enough?

To be creativity we must have right set of skill, mixture of Motivation, Domain Knowledge & of course the creative thinking. For this we have be cool minded, reading & writing techniques, planning ability. Creative mind always take difficulty as an opportunity. In fact they are the opportunist. Who want to face the realities of life and try to discover new ideas, create something extra ordinary & make the place for innovation.

Slavery thinking, lack of motivation, fear of failure, hesitation to accept new ideas & unwillingness to face the reality may cause the hurdles to be creativity. Where the one only finds himself in trouble to get the basic needs of life are more likely to become dump.

To cultivate the creativity, we should build social environment in a sense where everyone will have right to think freely, appreciate new blooming ideas & ambition of life. Besides that one should have proper health. Every human who is born in this world, always have set of skill that he have. So, he should have equal rights.

No matter what the skills might you have, but you may find ability of creativity thinking in your routine life.

• Find the what, why, when…
  
• Do practice more & more
  
• Set your life milestones
  
• Arrange proper luggage (skills, knowledge, domain expertise etc)
  

True; Creativity is a God gifted talent but it can be build up after drilling down by our own.

Build IMAGE

IMAGE

I is for impression, the first and lasting impression you make on people

M is for Movement, basically how you carry yourself including your posture and body language

A is the most important ingredient and it stands for Attitude, the thoughts you feed your mind

G is for Grooming, your dressing and personal hygiene

E is for Etiquette, the rules of the game called 'Business'

Leverage the power of IMAGE because 'Success is something you attract by the person you become." You can not chase and catch the success. But you can attract it by the person you become. Put your energy into becoming a better you, the best you. Learn your skills. Practice the skills. Attract the success.

(Dawn Publication)