Important Lessons Worth Learning to Become a Successful Entrepreneur

Nowadays, due to social media that we follow almost every day and the pages that we like, share and read while surfing the internet, a lot of quotes will appear and flash in front of our eyes to make us think about many subjects that are happening around the world. One of the main trending subjects we usually encounter is “Entrepreneurship”. In a way or another, quotes affect us in our unconscious and make us think in a different way every once and while. For me, to get the courage to leave the great job that I had and start my MBA at IE was reading Helen Keller’s quote “Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing “. Whether we want to land a job after our MBA or not, at the end of the day everyone wishes to have his own business and become a successful entrepreneur.

The parameters of measuring a successful entrepreneur that I had in mind are related to meet a financial satisfaction in life. Yet, reading the book enlighten my eyes on one aspect that sometimes we forget, which is to enjoy the journey while following our dreams and trying to make money. Money is a great factor to measure success but investing your time with people are much more appealing. As Randy said:” Sure, business was about money. That’s what makes it business. But first and foremost, to be successful, business is about people. It took me a while to learn that lesson”. Referring to my experience, I had a project manager that once told me: “leading a team is like a maestro of an orchestra, he has to unify performers, set the tempo and create a harmony”. Which it complies with the concept “leadership is an art”. The author firmly explores the advantages of delegating duties to other people to help the business grow. The author as well advises entrepreneurs to give the people freedom to do what needs to be done for the business. In this way, they will feel more encouraged to exceed their own expectations and will be more inspired to be better and work together in a harmony.

Lenny is that entrepreneur who is eager to get his venture in the market. He surely has amazing ideas of what he wants his venture to be but I assume that he didn’t have the skills to become an entrepreneur. It was obvious that Lenny was certain about his business approach and his business proposal but there was a shortage in his sight on the basics of the first business idea. Lenny had the mentality that any unskilled entrepreneur have which is working towards attaining financial goals from his venture. From the idea that he presented to randy and that he wants to carry out everything without support from other. Apparently he thinks that he shouldn’t rely on anyone, and he should be in control of everything in his business. Which is a wrong impression and take us back to the original idea that he must enjoy the journey toward attaining satisfaction in work. He presented an ambitious plan to Randy. Whereas, Randy is willing to help him. This is because, he thinks as an established entrepreneur it’s essential to pass his experience to others that are willing to become entrepreneurs. Randy listened to Lenny because he wanted him to speak out loud on the potential monetary rewards and focus later on satisfaction. Also, Randy provided a lot of direction, contacts and leadership for entrepreneurs in need of experience like Lenny. Randy likes to help the potential entrepreneurs through the first phase of business development and then become like an advisor. Randy’s main advice to Lenny was, that a leader with a lot ideas but without vision and passion will lead the business to the drain. Lenny’s opportunity was amazing since it offers him to engage in activities that will bring him satisfaction. He was exposed to an opportunity that will not only promise financial rewards but also work satisfaction. It also presents Lenny with a big chance to be involved in a business venture for the right reasons.

In seeking help from advanced people in entrepreneurship, Lenny learned a lot of information about other aspects of business. Randy gave Lenny advises that focused on the characteristics of CEO’s during different phases of the establishment. Which helped Lenny understand the difference between being a good manager or a good leader. As it’s known and quoted many places that “If management is science, leadership is an art”. Noting that management and leadership accumulates each other since both skills are a prerequisite for anyone wants to set up any kind of venture. Lenny was lucky enough to learn that the essence of entrepreneurship is that the entrepreneur needs to enjoy all stages of life. It’s very important not the limit the workers from attaining satisfaction at all levels.

As an entrepreneur, it’s a must to embark on an irrational and passion journey with people who are ready to face all the odds. By sharing ideas with other experienced people, an entrepreneur will be able to enhance his first goals. The author did mention two concepts: “The Differed Life Plan” & “The whole Life Plan”. The first one divided life into two distinct parts: “Do what you have to do to do what you want to do”. While the second concepts takes life as single piece. The whole life plan suggests that it’s a must to work hard and invest in the most important asset “Time” that we have to bring completeness and happiness. Technically, I think that the two plans are aligned with each other. This is because to be able to work hard and passionately, you need to do what you have to do in order to do what you want to do. It’s similar to a concept that our PMP’s instructor gave it to us: “You have to plan the plan before planning the plan”. Therefore, we can say the differed life plan is like a plan to plan our whole life plan.

Even the author started with a deferred life plan before he gets to the life plan. Within the millions of things that we do every day that doesn’t satisfy us, we might find one thing that we are truly passionate about. For me, my childhood dream and passion was to become a pilot in the Lebanese air force like my father. But while growing up and discovered how hard it is to be satisfied financially by joining the army. That’s why I started my deferred life plan and chose to become an engineer, which took me to my first professional experience in Saudi Arabia as mechanical engineer on a huge project where I met a lot challenges that enlightened my eyes to management in 2015 and it was then when I decided I want to do my MBA, and then I started a new journey in shifting my career, Knowing what my whole life plan will be. Being a successful entrepreneur, despite being a leader and working with passion. There is also one more aspect that an entrepreneur should have. The will to fly solo and think outside of the box and most importantly is to know how to defend your ideas in front of the people. This is because, people hate changes and usually discussing a new idea with them will be a waste of time. Probably for now I didn’t have the opportunity to become an entrepreneur but in the future as mentioned earlier, it’s everyone’s dream at a certain phase in their lives to become entrepreneurs. For me, when I snowboard I always go off the track by myself to enjoy my ride more. While playing squash, I created my own technique that sometimes I use to make it hard to my opponents to read my game. Therefore, when I am going to start my entrepreneurship journey in the future I will surely try to think differently from the people around me in order to be able to stand out between the competitors in the market that I will choose to be part of it.

Being an engineer I’ve been trained to always look for the results and estimate the potential risks with numbers and data analysis in order to meet the best results while counting on references and good engineering practices. But after reading the book and recalling few things that happened to me in my life, sometimes it doesn’t matter what will be the result. As mentioned many times in the book, it’s better to enjoy the journey and learn more from the people around me. This is because sharing experience and talking to fellow peers in the same field or different fields will develop our mindset and enlighten our eyes to new goals and results that we probably didn’t notice them at the beginning of the journey, which is the main substance of the IMBA at IE. Consequently, the main target should be to always develop and aim higher, it doesn’t matter how hard it’s going to be, as long as we are following our passion and keep moving forward, quoting from Rocky Balboa: “It doesn’t matter how hard you can hit, but how much you can get hits and keep moving forward”.