On Aug 12, 2011, at 2:06 AM, Robert wrote:
But to do so requires a psychological shift about what is possible or just a massive kick in the behind and injection of confidence.. as people believe starting a business is too tough to do without experience and contacts. I love the way you've provided the how to, made it simple and given examples of how people have done it, but I suppose until one has actually done it, we're still unsure about pulling it off.
Actually I have been in a protracted discussion of this for years with very many people...
I wish I could say it is personality, but it it not, since all of these people run the range. People devise tests as indicators but they don't hold.
I can't say it is confidence, since we all have no idea where we will be tomorrow, only were are happy doing what we are doing. So I don't think confidence is an issue.
The massive kick I don't think has anything to do with it, which is why I ask the first night of class, "do you expect starting this business to require a major disruption of your lifestyle..." (or something like that.) The answers are yes and no ... depending on the psychology of the person answering. But the answers are not the "I'll rise to the challenge .." variety.
I wish I could say that circumstances (economic downturn) calls forth the entrepreneur, but no, no correlations there. I did note in my studies, that during the Napoleonic era, so many men were killed, as well as their male relatives, that widows were allowed to take over their husband's businesses. Veuve Clicquot, the fine champagne, means the widow clicquot, which means it was legitimate to deal with her. There are many veuve- whatever biz to his day. It seems after this rule was made, widows can do business, very many husbands met untimely ends, and women moved out into the marketplace. Vive la revolution.
It isn't education that determines, because educational achievement is all over the map too.
I think it has to do with conditioning. An extreme example of this was a conversation I had with a middle class lad from a banana republic, who said in his country the only problem was finance, and his family class they did not do merchant work, so there is no way anyone would lend him the little money necessary to get started. I suggested he just wok at a macdonalds for six months, to which he replied "impossible." That is pure social conditioning.
Conditioning (pavlovian) tells us no. Conditioning keeps us away from the obvious questions. We all ask the uncomfortable question, "how come" and generally get conditioned to stop asking it. It is the "suffering" (passion) that causes each of us to ask the particular question. As we get our capabilities (experience education) we get to the point where we can act on the problem we perceive.
There is a segment of USA society that believes in class warfare, and they make war on their target classes. They do hate the entrepreneur, the disrupter. They make start-up as difficult as they can in law and culture. They gravitate to government work.
Hong Kong has a population more diverse than USA, with fewer resources yet five times the billionaires of USA. They have almost no taxes, in fact most people pay no taxes at all. Their government is negligible, relegated to ribbon cutting and fine speeches. I saw an ancient man on a stool on a corner fixing ancient electric fans. It was so hong kong. he goes to a corner and sits and begins fixing a fan. Some Mom (they shop 3 times a day) saw him and next pass dropped off a fan herself. By the time I got to him he had six fans to fix. People throw nothing away. Anyone can start a business any time doing anything. Anyone who wants to work can.
Just how different is it? Walmart failed and withdrew in Hong Kong, the only place it ever has (it is yet to turn a profit in Japan, so it may fail there). Carrefours (Euro version of walmart) failed too. I have no beef against walmart, I'm just saying there are alternate universes in which USA education and experience counts for nothing. Hong Kong is of a vintage that USA once was; we changed, they did not.
What it is, is division of labor. USA is woefully unbalanced between big and small companies. For whatever reason, we no longer have enough people saying "I don't like this, I can do it better..." or whatever, and then proceeding to start a business.
So in effect I do believe it is a psychological shift, maybe a process that one covers, that one was pulled out of by our system. I try to address this to some extent in the class, sort of taking people through the process of experience problem, devise solution, test with customer, advance to samples, test with customers... etc... and show yes they can do it.
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