Saturday, January 29, 2011

The Rise of the Entrepreneur Generation


I know everyone who attended dinner #31 must think I would for sure write about the one guest that had one too many drinks. In fact, that same night I announced to this particular guest, as well as to the rest of the table that I would do just that! And that there is no way in hell he would get away with his comments to his fiancĂ©e (also a guest) – “you will cook for me because that’s what women do” (to name just one of many comments…are guys even legally allowed to say that these days?). Anyway, that was perhaps the longest run on sentence, forgive me for getting caught up in the emotion. There was, however, something else going on during dinner #31 which I found to be much more interesting. Without naming names, I found it fascinating that almost half of the guests we had over were on their way to start doing their own thing. Which got me thinking that what used to be the rise of the creative class is fast turning to be the rise of the entrepreneur generation. While there were many industries represented that night, there was one thing that tied us all together. We all new intuitively that today we have all the tools at our disposal in the case we decided to take our own independent path and begin executing on our ideas and interests. What are you good at? Whatever that may be, today’s economy has a place for it. What is the one thing that makes you get up in the morning? You are bound to find a twitter group that uses that same interest as their personal internal alarm clock.  What does your idea even look like? No matter what it is, you could probably make a prototype of it.

Amazed of the certainty of our dear entrepreneur spirited guests, I kept asking them if they were afraid to take the more uncertain path and of course they were, but it wasn’t a question of whether or not they could deal with that fear. The attitude towards that more uncertain future was more about doing it because they “owed it to themselves”. I also got the sense they felt they owed it to others like them as well, who are scared shitless to do cross over to uncertain territories. There was that sentiment of “if I do it, you can do it too” and this contagious behavior of “enterpeneurgitis” was rapidly spread through all the guests. Those who want to start their own gig want others to know that its ok, it can be done, and we can all be successful.

Thank you for those who keep pushing the limits and pushing others to do the same. 

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