Our society and culture praises entrepreneurs- Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg. All people who risked a lot to start their own business and have had a profound impact on the way we work, play and interact with others. They have also gathered some immense fortunes for themselves in the process, and thus embody the spirit of the American dream. But looking at these inspiring figures can be daunting- these are all obviously extremely smart people, exceptionally focused and with seamlessly endless drive to achieve their goals. When they started their respective ventured they were also very young (not to mention male, American and white)- So it’s easy to compare oneself with one of these giants and come to the conclusion that we mortals are not like them. You and I are simple (erase the irrelevant) too old, tired/live in the wrong geography/ lack the ambition to be independent employees or company owners/ have a mortgage/too busy raising kids/ lack access to funding/ born in the wrong age etc.

And these are not simply excuses. There’s a good explanation for the fact that most successful entrepreneurs are young American males from high socio-economic status. Older, poorer people living out of America (or any other place where there’s a startup culture) have much to lose if they quit their jobs and become full time entrepreneurs. And even for people who actually take the plunge the chances of failure are staggering- most startups/ new businesses would fail, according to statistics.

So most of us just stick to what we do, dream about becoming an entrepreneur but rarely do something about this. And feel bad about it.

We shouldn’t. Entrepreneurship is not suited for most people, and most will fail or will be miserable pursuing the big time startup/ exit dream.

But that does not mean we have to be another cog in the corporate machine. People working within organizations of every size, from tiny to global, can do wonderful things, feel professionally and personally satisfied and leave their mark. The trick is to adapt an Entrepreneurship-like mentality, what I call owntrepreneurship. If you think of your job as part of your career, and treat it the same way an entrepreneur treats his venture, you will feel the immediate impact and positive change.

You don’t believe me? Just look around you. In any organization you’ve ever been a part of, there were always some individual who seemed to be “above it all”. They have the freedom to set their own schedule, choose the task they find interesting and are respected by their peers and superiors alike. They are owntrepreneurs. They treat their day jobs as part of their career, as part of their venture. Other take note and provide these individuals with unique opportunities, not available to the “regular” employees. Once they excel at these opportunities they earn the respect, material compensation and promotion to a senior position, where this process repeats itself. They don’t do so by thrashing others or engaging in office politics (although some political maneuvering is unavoidable in large corporate environment, but that does not make it morally wrong). They focus their efforts on advancing their career and usually their environment recognizes and rewards that.

I have made a list of things that an owntrepreneur needs to keep in mind. I call it the owntrepreneur framework. You can find it here:

https://owntrepreneurship.com/the-owntrepreneurship-framework/

In following blog posts I will begin to explore each of these ideas and explain how anyone can employ these idea in almost every conceivable work environment- starting from the most rigid (military service) to the more loose and dynamic ones (self-employment/ startup). This is derived strictly from my own experience (and others close to me, and others I will quote…) and is meant simply as a recommendation, and not a checklist of sorts.

I do hope you join me for this journey and enjoy the ride!