Entrepreneurship for the Creative Mind…
Global Entrepreneurship week may have been something that slipped your mind this year. Being honest, it’s something that has slipped my mind, every year. But it’s not something you should rule out of consideration, if you’re a budding artist, musician or filmmaker.
Being a creative person, I’ll admit, I always associated Entrepreneurs with businessmen. People in suits with bulging briefcases, shiny shoes and that of Entrepreneurship week never crossed. But I’d like to take this opportunity to put my hands up and say I was wrong and to pitch to you a question that has been on my mind for quite some time.
Can the writer, the artist, the filmmaker, all roles associated with the creative branch of the success tree be branded as Entrepreneurial? And equally, can the businessman, the computer whiz, the economics enforcer be classed as a creator?
The truth is, Entrepreneurs, cannot be branded at all.
What does it mean to be an Entrepreneur?
By dictionary definition, to be an entrepreneur is to be ‘a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk’
You might be sitting there, all smug, thinking I’ve contradicted myself here; the keyword being ‘business’.
But actually, until you consider the word ‘Enterprise’ you haven’t heard the full story. Because Enterprise, by definition, is a ‘a project undertaken or to be undertaken, especially one that is important or difficult or that requires boldness or energy’
This project could mean anything from a book to a company.
This Entrepreneur we speak of could be anyone from a writer to a businessman. What ties them together is the desire, not only for self-success, but also for a change in the area of the world that they care about. What joins them together is the mindset they use to fuel their creation. A determination, a dream, and an aim of changing the world.
What the world sees is the word ‘business’, the shiny shoes, and the briefcase. What I now see is different. What I see now is the words that surround ‘enterprise’.
Enterprise and the Entrepreneur
A businessman might never become an entrepreneur. Equally, a creator might never become a businessman. But we are all Entrepreneurial here. The need to self-develop is, after all, the greatest symptom.
Entrepreneurship is about having the ability to create and see things differently. Which are all things associated with the Creative person… right?
And that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make here.
The best Entrepreneurs are usually the most creative of people, because these are the people with the natural fuels behind them to change the world. However, Entrepreneurs are also a different breed of people to the normal creators, hence why they are also by nature, both powerful and frustrated by those around them.
The reason they are different is because, to be creative and to be in the world of business are to be set in your field. To be an Entrepreneur is having the mindset to turn your creations into a business, or your business into a creation. The two work hand in hand but group together a unique set of people all whom want nothing but the best for themselves and what they do.
Creation & Business Entwined
Where the two roles meet, is in their requirements. Both roles require innovation, determination and the fundamentals behind them to make their inventions a success outside of the ordinary. And thus, to be an entrepreneur is to take creation and business a step further, to combine the logic and innovation of both fields with a mindset to make what you have to offer, the best that it can be.
Adapting Your Project: A Lesson to Learn from the Entrepreneur
A key lesson we can all learn from the Entrepreneur is the ability to adapt your product, what your have to offer, to the times your audience is living in. And yes, I did not say you by mistake.
The truth is audiences are ever changing what they have, what they want and what they think about because their lifestyles are changing. It’s up to the Entrepreneur to use this to their advantage in fulfilling their aim of world domination. Surely awareness of audience is a key quality of the successful creator?
Of coarse, being a writer, eBooks were bound to the example I would use. But hear me out.
We are now more aware of technology, and are thus wanting more and more of it. Giving an eBook to a mother of two fifty years ago, they’d have laughed in your face. What did they need that for, when there was a library round the corner? But now women are out more, out and about and the creator must be aware of this. To be aware of this, they have to think different; they have to think like an Entrepreneur.
- A businessman would produce a book he didn’t’t care about, but be able to sell well.
- While a creator would produce a book they cared about, but in a way that didn’t’t hit the target market.
- As an Entrepreneur would produce a book they cared about, in e-form. Making its content right and format to market the best it can be.
To be an entrepreneur you must be determined, moving with the times, flexible, and creative; a combination of both branches.
And it’s not as hard as you might think, because they both stem from the same trunk of the same success tree. Joe and I couldn’t be anymore different to the eye. But we were joined together by one force; the mindset to be different, create different and think different, by Entrepreneurship.
Conclusion
So just because you’re an artist and it’s Entrepreneurship week, don’t think you can’t get involved. The point of this post is to change your thinking in terms of what the meaning of Entrepreneurship is and to understand how you can apply the Entrepreneurial mind behind your work today, whether your field is in writing like me, or business like Joe. After all, it was this mindset, that pulled us together in the first place.
So can the writer, the artist, the filmmaker, all roles associated with the creative branch of the success tree be branded Entrepreneurs?
The truth is no and yes. Anyone can be an Entrepreneur. But an Entrepreneur, equally, cannot be branded.
