The Accidental Entrepreneur

I never planned on being an entrepreneur. Independent contractor, yes. Freelancer? Uh huh. But an entrepreneur? I never thought I had it in me.

I don't consider myself a risk taker so much as a demander of work I feel passionate about. I'm ambitious, but you don't have to be a risk-taker to be ambitious. You can get all A's in school, graduate from college early with honors, get a graduate degree and thereby hedge your bets that you will be "successful" in the more superficial sense of the word--money and job opportunities. I've always been a hard worker, but that, too, doesn't mean risk-taker. Just why, then, am I an entrepreneur?

It was an accident. I found myself in a situation where the mission, the people, and the timing were right. We didn't think that the market was ripe for us, we just wanted to do what we did. We didn't think about positioning ourselves at that time. We just created what we thought was missing. We had the time and the energy. Considering all of these factors that just fell into place I'm amazed that I became an entrepreneur. The opportunities where pure passion meet a market where it can be leveraged is SO rare.

I'm reading a book, the Entrepreneurial Imperative. I've just started, so no major takes on it yet. But I am struck by the author's premise, which is we will only help ourselves through entrepreneurism. It's the only way, not only in business but in philosophy. We must be willing to take our futures into our own hands.

This can be interpreted in many ways: we can become entrepreneurial by bringing our passions to the workplace, or creating our own workplace if we can't bring them to our current ones. We must allow intrapreneurism (Nina Simosko writes an interesting piece about the origins and true meaning of this word) in our companies.
 
Applying this imperative to the current world situation, we need to allow each other to think our way out of what isn't working. Waiting for cycles of change isn't effective. What will happen if we all take our career lives into our own hands? Make our jobs. Think of our best way to serve.

Perhaps, then, being entrepreneurial would not seem so risky.

Comments

[Eva Schiffer]

This does ring a bell. Actually, thinking about it, it seems like I know by far more successful accidental entrepreneurs than intentional ones. Maybe because it just makes more sense to have "idea, passion, opportunity" come together at the right time than to think: "I want to be an entrepreneur, shall I sell sausages or become a facilitator?"