Blog Post 15: Entrepreneurship

Choose a focus of either your final project topic or your career plan to develop an entrepreneurial assessment of yourself. This should be about a "1-page" activity. Some of these questions may help guide your thoughts: Do you want to be a "businessperson or an entrepreneur?" What traits and/or strengths do you see in your PDP that aligns with your thought? What weaknesses or opportunities for improvement do you notice that you would like to address to become a "businessperson or an entrepreneur?" Is entrepreneurship just about starting a business? Or is it much deeper and holistic than that? As the world quickly changes, which type of folks do you feel will be more on their "toes" and less on their "heels." Who do you think will achieve and live the happinesses that they seek in life?

While the common image of an entrepreneur is someone who is starting their own business, an entrepreneur can have a different meaning. An entrepreneur is someone who applies unique ideas and perspectives to problem solving. An entrepreneur is a leader – someone who takes risks and explores new territory. A businessperson is the opposite. They take minimal risks and focus on things like maintaining profit and making money. Profit is a consequence for the entrepreneur, not an overlying motivating factor. 

 

                I think I would prefer to see my career follow the path of the entrepreneur. I would prefer to have plentiful spare time for myself and my family while still being able to have a successful career.  One of the major aspects of my PDP was that my personal life will always be more important to me than my career. Clearly, having a career that maximizes my quality of life is ideal.

Being able to apply creativity is also something that I value highly, and the businessperson has less opportunity to do that – their careers fit the mold while an entrepreneur creates the mold. My PDP also outlines my drive to challenge myself, and the entrepreneur is subjected to many more challenges and difficulties than the businessperson. The drawback to this is that taking risks can often backfire. Not taking the path of least resistance can often be difficult, but in the end I think it is the better path to take. 

                I realize that becoming an entrepreneur can be a difficult transition.  An entrepreneur is likely to face more adversity than a businessperson in developing their career, since taking risks assumes the possibility of failure. It is often a lot easier to take a more “guaranteed” position than one that runs a higher risk of failure. Personally, I see this as the biggest obstacle for myself in becoming an entrepreneur. It is easy to say that I want to take risks right now, but when the time comes to actually make those decisions its quite possible that a businessperson-type career has benefits that are hard to ignore - financial benefits, for example. The businessperson often is motivated by money, and sometimes a young college graduate is in desperate need of a solid career that pays well. An entrepreneurial career has much less promise of a high income than a bussinessperson career. However, I still think that I would much rather risk failing and have a higher quality of life than to be a businessperson who is constantly plagued with work.