The Future of Entrepreneurialism (Part 2)

Think about how many times in the last few years you started a sentence of lament with statements such as “If only I had more money, I would…” or “If I had access to a good graphic designer, my website would draw thousands more people.”

These are laments of people who choose to go it alone against their best interest. Everything to them is expensive, risky or both. They have been burned or disappointed in past efforts to cooperate or partner, and they’ll be damned if that is ever going to happen again. They are damned by such notions.

Here’s another problem that many strugglers have. Those with money want to meet in fancy restaurants or venues costing $50 to $100 to participate. They claim that such prohibition keeps the lukewarm failures from joining in. Quality, they crow, wants to attract proven quality.

I am going to get right in your collective face, if the previous paragraph refers to your thinking. There is a principle called the 80-20 principle. Simply stated it means that 80 percent of your success will come in relation to 20 percent of the people you do business with. Twenty percent of a sales force, for example, will earn eighty percent of the commissions, and twenty percent of those top 20 percent will earn 80 percent of the income in that elite group.

People who buy into this theory claim that it is incontrovertible. Thus, they conclude, you should focus only on the top achievers if you want to succeed yourself. This idea is bogus along with another popular notion espoused in the marketing world that “Ninety percent of all Americans over sixty-five years old are either dead or dead broke.

Here’s the truth: According to the 2007 U.S. Census Bureau, 9.7% of all people ages 65 and older, live in poverty. Be careful about what you gobble up!

Where do these people pull these numbers from? Many of them state, “Statistics tell us…” Friends, we are not statistics, nor can anyone conveniently paint all people with that broad stroke. To the least of our specie, we want to succeed and deserve a better chance than the 80-20 or dead broke bullshit!!

Understand that people who want you to spend money will often use whatever psychological triggers they can create. And I won’t tell you that that trick is inherently evil because it isn’t. The truth marker is whether the product or service or opportunity can meet or exceed expectations.

In a noisy world of over-information and contradictory facts, there needs to be away out of this life-sapping jungle…and there is.

Legendary rocker, lyricist and poet, Bob Dylan, tells us how:

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”

Life is not a dress rehearsal. Postponing your dreams and buying into another’s will bring you down their path under their terms. You will earn whatever they determine you deserve. Believe me when I tell you that your worth to them is fickle indeed.

A far wiser path is to do what makes you happy and under your terms of engagement, not the boss’s version of you. You have power and boundless opportunity the minute you realize that your chains and limits do not exist and never have.

What’s the point of this message?

I want to have the best and I want everyone in my world to have the best as well. The people I want to work with will act as a family, as a guild, as a resource, as a counselor and as a friend. Our goal is to cut through the din of BS hype marketing and instead provide exemplary services and prouducts which customers and associates can use for profit and prosperity.

I myself feel doubly blessed as an artist and musician and capitalist to be living in such an exciting time of history.

This is an economically challenging time yes, but there is so much opportunity!

Here’s a crazy thought — let’s motivate, educate and support the poor to become successful, instead of forcing the successful to be “enablers” of the poor — which results in them staying poor.

I completely agree that we are heading into a life and business-changing era. The Internet is enabling passionate entrepreneurs to achieve success on their terms. I am excited to be both a witness and participant in the upcoming era.

For the past year, I have been working on promoting imagination and imaginative ways of working with my clients. Interdependence has also been a massive theme. I truly believe in the opportunity of this time and that all of us with an entrepreneurial spirit can combine to help  the world recover.

We all know the entrepreneurial spirit is what differentiates this country from most in the world.

I am grateful that I am not alone in this view of the world’s recovery coming out of the courageous revolutionaries of the modern age call “The Entrepreneur”.

I predict that we will see the greatest expansion of entrpreneurship the world has ever seen, as people rediscover the independence, challenge, and (yes) personal and spiritual development that self-employment inherently creates.

I am an eternal optimist, and I believe in our ability, when working interdependently, to make this world much better than it is.

It is time for the Entrepreneur to take our rightful place, to take responsibility for the future and be recognized and encouraged (and rewarded) for our contributions. Government, get out of our way and let us show you how it’s done! Long Live the Age of the Entrepreneur!