Think Bigger. Sonnenfeldt Michael W.

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СКАЧАТЬ hard truth is that the jobs that have been offshored to China, Mexico, and the rest of the developing world only represent about 15 percent of the job losses everyone is talking about. The rest – 85 percent – were gobbled up by automation. No one is going to retire the robots that play a growing role in our factories. No one is going to unlearn the technology behind self-driving cars, and no one is going to unplug the computers that run so much of our lives.

      If we want to create jobs in this country, we can’t look to steep tariffs on imports or impenetrable borders. We need to look to entrepreneurs.

      Historically, entrepreneurs have created many of the private-sector jobs that have underpinned our economy, contributing mightily to the steepest rise in standards of living that the world has ever seen. The same has been true of the past 70 years. Jobs haven’t primarily been created by the big, established firms, but by the entrepreneurial enterprises that continue to be the engine of American economic growth.

      This will be the case even more in the future. The primary source of new, sustainable jobs will be small companies founded by entrepreneurs, some of which will grow into behemoths in the years to come.

      Those entrepreneurs will need all the support they can get from political leaders in Washington and statehouses across the nation. Some would define the challenge as removing all the obstacles that have been erected. The problem is that right now, far too many members of the political class, even the most pro-business among them, have a faulty understanding of who entrepreneurs are and why they do what they do. My hope is that the stories in this book will give policy makers a better understanding of how we tick and, thus, what we – as a country – need the most.

      Entrepreneurs are not saints, of course, nor are we public servants, even though the enterprises we’ve created have contributed mightily to our nation’s prosperity.

      But if working on this book has taught me anything, it is that successful entrepreneurs are a special species in the world of business. They are different from corporate leaders (though many of the best entrepreneurs are also great leaders) and from professional investors (though many talented investors have built their own companies). And while the best entrepreneurs do display certain psychological and character traits that are common to success stories in other fields – like self-discipline, grit, and tolerance for risk – I would bet that if you took a random sample of entrepreneurs, you would find that the most successful among us tend to have even higher levels of those traits, supercharged by an optimism that psychologists would label delusional. When you add to that mix the ambition that a poor or lower-middle-class background or a broken home can nurture, a unique set of traits comes into focus.

      If you come up short on too many of those traits, even years of study, planning, and dedication will not suffice to make you an entrepreneur. But if you do have them – and I suspect you might if you picked up this book – you can cultivate and develop them.

      To those people who can’t stomach the idea of going back to school, or formal education in general, take heart: Many of the most successful entrepreneurs I know are not book smart, but are quite brilliant in their own ways, and they are often particularly well endowed with a level of emotional intelligence that makes them inspiring leaders. They are often endlessly curious, too. I’ve also detected a high incidence of learning issues, such as dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, among entrepreneurs. It seems the more obstacles they have successfully overcome, the more likely entrepreneurial success becomes.

      One of the most important lessons I’ve learned can be summed up in a quote from David Russell, one of our original Tiger 21 members: “When I was young, they used to say on TV, ‘The smart money is doing this, the smart money is doing that.’ I finally got to be wealthy, and I find out that ‘the smart money’ is just as stupid as everyone else.” Amen to that. As smart as you and I might be in one area or maybe two, we are likely to be clueless in many others. I’ve been humbled enough times to admit that I have my own blind spots – and I’ve relied on other entrepreneurs to help shine a light on them. I sincerely hope this book will help you do the same, no matter where you are on your journey as an entrepreneur.

      STAGE 1

      Self-Assessment

      That degree in business or finance or accounting definitely looks good on your résumé. You’ve also got an MBA? Well done. You’re probably qualified for a job at a great company.

      If you’re looking to build a company from scratch, however, you’ll need a lot more than book smarts. In fact, being too thoughtful or analytical is likely to keep you from making the fast decisions that are required to keep a new company afloat. But if you hate your job or your boss, don’t fit in, or can’t compete with your peers because of a learning disability – if you have this idea for a business but your friends and family think you’re crazy to pursue it – congratulations. You might have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. But before you make your move, you must look deep into your character and gauge whether you can really juggle an endless number of competing demands and are armed with the traits that mark the successful entrepreneur, a whole other species of businessperson. Some of you will have no other choice than to give it a go.

      LESSON 1

      Know Thyself!

      Young people often ask me, “What should I do?” Many of us have been there, just out of college or business school, searching for a job or trying to make a decision about a career. If you’re lucky, you have some options. You wonder, “Should I take this job or that one?” Or maybe you think, “I just got an offer for a high-paying job in a major corporation, but I also have a great idea for a business. What should I do?”

      These questions are posed as if one alternative might be better than the other on some objective scale. But nothing could be more subjective. It depends entirely on who’s asking the question. What’s your personality? How strong is your drive? How much grit and determination do you have? Do you crave individuality? Success? The only possible answer is: Know thyself.

      Has there ever been advice so ancient, so well known, and so ignored? “Know thyself” was already a common maxim in the fourth century B.C., when it was emblazoned on the entrance to the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, home of the Delphic Oracle. In several of Plato’s dialogues, Socrates notes the importance of this wisdom to living a virtuous life. And it’s just as relevant today as it was back then.

      I realized the importance of self-awareness as I grew older and was transitioning from one career to another. By my midtwenties, I had ruled out working for the government or a large corporation. I had nothing against either type of institution; my problem was more personal.

      I am about as proud of my father as any son I know. Richard Sonnenfeldt lived an extraordinary life by any measure. Born in Germany, his parents sent him and his younger brother to a boarding school in England when he was 16. It was 1938, and the decision was part of a plan to move the family from Nazi Germany. One year later, World War II was under way. England declared him, as it did all German refugees 16 and older, an “enemy alien.” He was deported to an Australian internment camp. But it didn’t take him long to convince his English captors that he was a Jewish refugee who wanted to fight Nazis – not be imprisoned with them.

      On the trip back to England, his ship was torpedoed off the coast of India. As a 17-year-old refugee, he spent the next six months working as a manager of a radio factory in Bombay. In May 1941, he arrived in the United States, his fourth continent in three years. There, he was reunited with his parents, who had escaped from Germany and settled in Baltimore. Two years later, he enlisted in the army (receiving automatic citizenship for doing so), getting his chance to fight Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge and helping to liberate the Dachau concentration camp. In mid-1945, General Bill Donovan, the head of the Office of Strategic Services СКАЧАТЬ