Young? You should work out the entrepreneurial heart before the mind

Written by Alexandru Ene, Vice President of JADE

Alexandru Ene is Vice President of JADE

I believe young people nowadays are being deceived: they see success in the form of smart oligarchs or gifted dropouts from famous American universities, and they think that these people have had the same state of mind as ever: They were calculated, courageous, open minded and lucky. Be that and you get to shoot for the stars too, right? So why wait? Why not start now, and turn around the tables, for the adrenaline of adventuring into the world of entrepreneurship. Well let me tell you something, not everyone can be an entrepreneur. And most of all, people who rush into everything.

Nowadays opportunities are present everywhere. I wish I was taught this lesson in order to understand earlier what Steve Jobs was referring to in his famous speech at Sanford: that you can only make the connections backwards. It takes patience, belief and strength to make those connections. When opportunity comes, if you rush towards it you might hit your head really hard. What takes about it is what you make about it. That’s the moment when the connections count. Great hearts do justice to moments like these. Go to battle young and you might die in the first clash. Join the army trained and you may save the lives of a dozen of inexperienced and get their respect.

Just like wars, the world of business does not forgive. Money makes the world go round, but you can win or loose in this game. Most young people dream of making money fast on the excuse that very few actually made it. Some of them are lucky enough to have that killer idea, and become founders of startups like Snapchat. Other have rich enough parents or friends able to support their entrepreneurial gamble. The reality is that most of them have neither. They need to go with the classic way: testing the market, learning, surviving another day. That is, until resources are over, moment of which the logic thing is to turn to loans, or to give up.

A responsible entrepreneur solves problems with patience to understand the root of the situations and the market itself. A responsible entrepreneur is made, not born. You are born with a certain amount of luck, yes, but the journey is what makes one’s heart strong. Entrepreneurship is a journey to life what fantasy is to stories. The hero transforms under the effect of challenges, proper guidance, artifacts that patience to grow until their training is right.

The heart of an entrepreneur has to be strong enough to admit failure at the right moment. You are not an entrepreneur if you fail so hard you can’t go on with your own life. Otherwise, taking risks is attempted economic suicidal. I am not saying that skills and experience is not important. I am saying that, like in poker, inexperienced risk takers do it for the thrill. One must control their desire of thrill before making their mind work for them. Look at the other side of “innovative” entrepreneurs: They’ve spent years working in a company, enough to understand that patience is the trick. And they were respected in those companies for the work that they did. Respect will also take you a long way.

“It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience”, Julius Caesa

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