The Dream: quit your job and become an entrepreneur

When I was growing up in Croatia, the concept of entrepreneurship was completely alien. The country was immersed in communist ideas (Croatia was within Yugoslavia at the time) and it had been stuck in that ideology for a very long time. New ideas, creativity and the like were clearly not on the agenda. My summers on the asphalt were long and boring. Winters were cold and snowy. School followed the ideas of the government: no creativity, no innovation, no standing out.  But as kids we had the freedom to go out and play, and stay playing on the street as long as we wished.

The human spirit has a life of its own, and the less opportunities you give it, the more opportunities it creates. As a child I remember being very creative and entrepreneurial- probably much more than now! Without any interference of adults we organised singing contests and opened little temporary shops, we went on short excursions, wrote poetry, opened a detective club, and initiated a school newspaper. There was no cost for being creative (i.e. you didn’t have to take a class or join a club), no punishment and no reward either. It was just what you did when you had nothing else to do. With only three TV channels, no Internet, no game consoles, no trips, no McDonalds and a school day until 2pm, we were happy kids with a lot of time to play!

Fast forward many years later, and here I am sitting in the middle of Europe, in peace, in democracy and entrepreneurship is the new panacea. There are hundreds of organisations in Belgium alone fostering entrepreneurship. Universities are offering many courses in business skills and business gurus tell you how to become your own boss in easy-to-read books. Entrepreneurs are popular people in our imagination because they seem to have what it takes- they are creative, brave and non-conformist. They make it to the top by being innovative and persistent. We think of Silicon Valley geeks who started as smart kids in a garage and are now leading the worlds most powerful companies. We think of the self-made person who cannot stand hierarchy and rules, who quits his job bravely and then sets out to create their own company. But all of this is obviously a dream. Not quite the American dream (although it borrows lots of its elements) but the collective dream of the Internet age generation.

We romanticize the Entrepreneur without stopping to think of the sacrifices- in terms of the little time these people can actually spend with their family, the inexistent social life they have, the enormous time they need to devote to thinking about money in order to make it big and the terrible consequences it often has on their health.  We often believe that the only thing that would make us happy is to have our own company, be our own boss and voila, be free. But in reality, being entrepreneurial can be just as a trap as anything else. You don’t get any special acknowledgment unless you have “made it”, unless your little project has somehow grown into this great respected company.  You don’t get your picture in the Saturday paper unless you have converted this entrepreneurial and creative spirit into something that can be monetised. And this kind of acknowledgment culture and dream mentality is damaging both to existing Entrepreneurs and to the young minds who dream of becoming one.

I believe that being an entrepreneur, having that creative spirit and inquisitive state of mind should already be a reward in itself. If you are lucky to have it, and you are motivated by creating new things, ideas, meeting new people, doing new projects- well good for you! You don’t need anyone’s approval because already you are great. You don’t need to quit your job- you can try to innovate within it (if your hierarchy is appreciative AND if you have the people skills to convince them to listen).  You don’t need to make a lot of money from a new venture; you can simply try to earn yourself a living.  And you don’t need to be an Internet geek to create new services and products. Entrepreneurship is not only related to what you can do with technology- it spreads to any area of life- what you can do with education, the health system, the unemployed, the needy. Entrepreneurship is also what you do at your job and what you do at home- in your free time- with your natural talents. The entrepreneurial spirit can help you find a job, or get you a promotion, or push you to start your own company. Entrepreneurship is essentially about your personal and professional development, your talents and your dreams and not about what wonderful prize might wait for you at the end.