Have you ever been in a place where you felt like the odd man or woman out? Many times, I would see opportunities that others around me did not. These opportunities were seen even in what most people might consider “bad” or “not so ideal” situations. I was teased about being the “glass half full girl”, but it did not bother me. I learned that it was working for me in my life. I also realized that it is the very essence of my being an entrepreneur. I worked in corporate America and enjoyed it for many years but always with this yearning for something more.
I recently came across a definition of entrepreneurship that the Harvard Business School considers one of the best they have ever heard. Of course, the definition came from one of their professors, but I must agree that it is brilliant. In the book, Breakthrough Entrepreneurship, authors Jon Burgstone and Bill Murphy, Jr. discuss Harvard business professor Howard Stevenson’s definition of entrepreneurship as “the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.”
It has been said that people need to say it out loud 50-100 times before they really understand what it means. Not me; I live this everyday as an entrepreneur. Hearing it just resonated with my soul.
It reminded me of the day I decided to go to law school. I come from a family of eight children. My father worked three jobs, and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. I did not realize until I graduated from high school that, by the world’s standards, we were considered poor. My father had a vision for his children – that each would go to college. Each one did, and most received advanced degrees.
I remember the day I was having a discussion with my father about attending law school. I had received a scholarship to get my masters in speech pathology and audiology, which was my undergraduate major; but I was advised by the university that I could not use that money to go to law school because the graduate school and professional school were considered two different entities for financial purposes. My father advised me to go ahead and get my masters’ degree. I told him, “No, I will find a way to go to law school.”
Three years later, I graduated from law school with my Juris Doctor.
The Harvard Business School researchers have found that successful entrepreneurs are more likely to start out poor than rich, probably because they are used to making do without resources. Entrepreneurs have been called many things including flakey, risk-takers, dreamers (just to name a few), but I agree with Professor Stevenson in his definition, which puts us in a very small circle of people. This is the reason I beat the drum about finding like-minded people with different thoughts, thinking great thoughts… and do great business together.
What have you allowed to limit you in the pursuit of your business? Resources? No, a true entrepreneur pursues the opportunity and allows the resources to come.