The E-Delusion

Zuckerberg has a lot to answer for. The geek made good, hacking away in his bedroom to create the ultimate in platforms, businesses, and an empire. Just proof that anyone can be an entrepreneur - right? Well, perhaps not.

On the back of such examples, anyone with an idea, a whim, or a light bulb moment sees themselves as an entrepreneur. Write down your plan, jump on Wix to create a website, start a social media profile with a few followers and you're underway. Some go so far as to join networking groups and gather regularly with like-minded individuals to profess their entrepreneur status. There is safety in numbers, inspiration and support. Yet the true requirements are often not found there, and the dream can be fraught with disappointment after months or even years of trying.

They say that 75% of what we are told is untrue. There are the poor little rich kids who fund their lifestyle out of trust funds, yet profess to have made money out of commercializing new technologies. However when we look behind the curtain, we find there has been no revenue. Their efforts remain a quest to make their idea work, to monetise their dream, yet people hold up these individual as they buy into the illusion and the E-delusion is maintained.

There are others who claim to be entrepreneurs and give up their day job to chase dream. They take pride in stepping off the safety of monotony to live on hand outs, sleep on friends' couches, and free nibbles at sponsored events so they can wear the mask of being a pioneer, someone who has created something "new to world",  and someone who is "making it", yet inwardly they fear the uncertainty of their future.

We are blessed to live in a time and place where anyone can have a go. The dreamers have more momentum than the dream takers, and there are support networks where people can be encouraged to move on and continue their quest. Governments offer financial support, and resources abound to assist those who can prove up their rhetoric. 

However, many of the dreamers are just that. Their concepts are unfounded, unsupported by research and often based on little more than a whim. For these people, the support networks often do them a disservice, and the constant rejection by the holders of the keys to their success do not signal a time to reconsider but merely add fuel to the fire. We are not all born to be entrepreneurs. Sure, there are those who rise above their station, and defy the odds, but like the elite sportsmen who make their way out of adversity to taste success, there are few born with the innate skills, and fewer who apply themselves to the rigors of developing what it takes to succeed. 

It is said that your best friends are those who will stab you in the front. Unfortunately, conventional thinking now tells us that we are all potential entrepreneurs, that we can all succeed - all we need to do is believe and try hard. The same belief is held by gamblers and alcoholics, that they are just one step away from the big hit or the big win. 

The reality is that many are not cut out to be entrepreneurs. They do not have the emotional strength to handle disappointment, to rise up and dust oneself off after rejection. They do not have the idea that will be the next Facebook, Google, or Uber. They do not have the dedication and true passion to keep knocking down walls to get to the goal they really seek. And most importantly, they do not have those around them who will truly offer them candid and blatantly honest feedback, to tell them that their idea stinks, and that they are perhaps better off to maintain gainful employment and treat their idea as a hobby until it actually provides a secure enough platform onto which one can step off and make it fly.

We must all continue to dream, to innovate, to strive to achieve that which is new and beautiful. The dream takers must never win. But we must do it all against a backdrop of blatant honesty, one in which the innovator expresses where they really are at, and where those around them are truthful in their feedback and advice. Not everyone was meant to be an entrepreneur. Not everyone was meant to lead, to be a manager, and an innovator. The belief of everyone having the ability to be an entrepreneur is a delusion, and one that can cause as much harm as the good it was meant to encourage. Timing is everything - know then to hold 'em, yet know when to fold 'em. Willie Nelson was right, as he did not advocate holding forever until you had nothing left but the boots you were standing in. 

We need the Dragons, the Sharks, and the Angels – they will provide a reality check to filter out who is overly aspirational versus those who really have what it might take.  The two way flow of respectful honesty is the key to breaking the myth, and to greater success to those that really have what it takes to conceive, believe, and achieve the fruits of a success enjoyed by true entrepreneurs. Gary Vaynerchuk puts it so well – “Start the process of becoming much more honest with yourself – it will help you make much better decisions, and it will help you in the long run. It may not taste as fun or as glamorous in the short term, but it will put you in a much better position”