The Magic of Being Entrepreneurially Alert

It’s the second month of the year and it’s already been chaotic enough for many, if not all! The internet is flooded with bad news and negative predictions have replaced the motivations and hope that usually prelude the years. I understand; it’s a new age that fosters a new mindset and orientation. Negative and derogative contents seem to sell better than constructive optimism. Anyhow, it’s a new year, and as careful as we need to be navigating this web of depressing clickbait, we need to keep ourselves in check with our goals and dreams.

The depression we see across society is understandable when you go from the least productive year to a potentially most chaotic one. Employees have grown weary of their workplaces and leadership seems to be taken aback. It’s reported that entrepreneurship has been steadily declining for the last three decades and it doesn’t seem to be taking a better direction any time soon. I can go on on the bad news, but one of the things I told one of my friends is that we seem to know everything about everything that’s happening around us and very little, sometimes nothing about what’s happening within us. And that’s the kind of awareness we lack nowadays. Interestingly, most dreams aren’t killed by what’s going on around us, they fall into dilapidation as most people fall into the trap of helplessness and society becomes less and less entrepreneurially alert.

Entrepreneurial alertness is one of the most important characteristics of any thriving individual, thus any thriving community, organization, etc. It’s the ability to process environmental information and signals to recognize opportunities. The 20th century saw the most inventions, immense technological progress, and economic prosperity across the world because it was the century that fostered the most entrepreneurially alert minds. Compared to now that we have the most infrastructure already built, we see way less invention, less business creation, and way fewer new ideas. People argue that the pool of inventions is exhausted, but this can’t be further from the truth; that’s the lamest excuse so far!... But that’s another topic.

My interest in this article is to bring about the incommensurable value of cultivating your entrepreneurial alertness. It’s not just for entrepreneurs, although it is foundational to the conception of every one of them. I encourage everyone to develop that, from employees to managers, from community leaders to politicians, etc., and this for the three following reasons:

1. Ideas.

In the movie “The Secret”, It’s said that “energy flows where attention goes”, I say that ideas flow where alertness grows. Ideas are the primary resources of the universe. A resourceful individual is one with overflowing ideas and inspiration. Some of the most important skills needed to thrive in our communities and businesses, such as problem-solving stem from individuals with such capabilities.

Someone with acute entrepreneurial alertness is as aware of the surrounding challenges as anybody else, what’s different is that his self-resourcefulness inspires him to project his ideas in search of solutions rather than internalizing the depressive content of the situation. We normally call this optimism; however, there’s way more to it. It’s taking it upon yourself to solve a problem that can easily be discarded as “not my problem!” like most people do.

This leads to the effective development of leadership and self-discipline, which happens to be the second reason why it's crucial to develop entrepreneurial alertness.

2. Leadership.

It was Vince Lombardi who made this epic statement: “Leaders aren’t born, they’re made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.” In other words, leadership skills are acquired and developed through action-taking and responsibilities. The most devoted, disciplined, self-starting, and fast-paced people in any organization are unsurprisingly very entrepreneurially alert; and it’s never about the perks. What you see on their face is who they are.

One of the things I always say to the people I work with is that ‘my performance is for me’. I always want to feel proud of the job I do. That’s why I was baffled by the debate about quiet quitting! How can someone compromise their value and quality based on someone else’s price tag?

The reason most entrepreneurially alert individuals think like that is because they tend to treat responsibilities with the utmost respect regardless of the benefits or position, and there always lies the secret of leadership. Simon Sinek brilliantly said: “Leadership isn’t about being in charge; it’s taking care of those in your charge”, meaning fulfilling your responsibilities toward those in your charge.

3. Productivity.

If you care about your responsibilities, then you are productive. It’s that simple. But let’s look at it another way. Franz Kafka said: “Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do.” That’s interesting because most people tend to have a defined perception of productivity; we call it projection. That one we can see and it’s great! For the entrepreneurially alert individuals, every limit is a box to break and that’s where Franz Kafka stands with his mind.

I wrote an article about the failing productivity trends that companies have been experiencing since the pandemic; one more point I can add to my observation is that, unfortunately, most of our workforce, managers and the c-suite included are not entrepreneurially alert. Workplaces are becoming the driest places on earth when it comes to innovative ideas and leadership development. Consequently, we can’t expect any significant productivity as much as we can’t expect a tropical forest from the Sahara desert.

Conclusively, entrepreneurially alert individuals are self-resourceful because they know how to bring about the resources needed to take the actions they need. They’re self-disciplined because they understand that their responsibilities are foundational to their character development and their future as a leader. They’re self-sustaining and, thus reliable because their work depends solely on their commitment to growth and success.

I’d argue that these are the qualities we need to hire across every industry in the world and watch the huge change we crave happen. But are there many people with such aptitude? How do we spot them? Do we have an environment that favors their thrift? How do we favor the development of such-minded people? All these are questions you might understandably be asking… Are you? If you are, then you’re on a very transformative and impactful path. The one thing you might want to do now, as all entrepreneurially alert individuals do, is to start learning purposefully, for there lies the secret wisdom behind every great leader who ever walked this planet: knowledge and information.

By Frantz Bernadin