Shall I start this post with a quote?
“The common denominator of success — the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful — lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.” Albert E.N. Gray, exceprt from a major address at the 1940 NALU (National Association of Life Underwriters) annual convention in Philadelphia.
There’s been some debate throughout history, with whether a certain trait or characteristic is innate, or whether its developed. A scientist may call it a discourse on Nature vs. Nature.
With the advent of entrepreneurship — the term at least, the practice of it has been around since the origins of humanity of course — that discourse has extended to it.
Is an entrepreneur born or is he or she developed?
A friend sent me an email today saying “I am becoming convinced that entrepreneurs are born and cannot be made. Not good if you teach entrepreneurship.”
A very interesting argument to be sure, based on this person’s experiences with start-ups, but I’m not sure I wholly agree.
I think, it’s a combined force of nature and nature.
Some have it in them sure, some entrepreneurial characteristics. I’d say a bit of a rebellious nature is probably necessary. Also some confidence (this helps to whither the tough times), resilience, and a general vision and the will to gut it out.
But is the “habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do” innate, or can it be developed?
If only I had an audience to pitch this to, we could have some valuable discourse, unfortunately I’m not a beggar and I won’t be riding any wishes :).
A habit, of course, can be formed, and I believe the same is true with entrepreneurship. It is more a habit and a way of thinking than it is an actual characteristic that one is born with.
Some are most likely born with a greater propensity to develop this habit (just the way some are born with a high propensity to be alcoholics), but I wouldn’t bet that entrepreneurs cannot be developed.
At the heart of this question is whether or not a man can change his destiny. If he can’t, then he is destined to be and to do the path laid out before him. (i.e. he can’t be an entrepreneur)
And if we can change our destiny … ?
2 Comments
Hi David,
This is a very interesting post. I am a graduate of Anthropology at UCLA so I definitely have an opinion on this. I whole heartedly agree with you- some people have the propensity and genes that create that entrepreneurial spirit and others do not. However, I also must add that culture and society plays a huge part in “unleasing” these genes, so to speak. If one is in an environment where they are surrounded by (successful) entrepreneurs, I would bet he or she would be one too.
I’ll use myself as an example- I come from a very successful family of entrepreneurs and have always known that I would be my own boss. However, when I moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA, I was surrounded AND inspired by very driven and successful people in LA, and thus my “nature” for entrepreneurial-ism has been nurtured by the “culture” of the very motivated and successful people in LA.
To make a long story short, the nature versus nurture debate is dead as they are both huge component of any motivated, intelligent, active agent.
Great post!
P.S- In regards to Sun’s start up camp, over 1000 people have registered!! I’m really excited about that!!
Sue,
I was actually going to mention a bit about culture, but it must have slipped my mind as I wrapped up the post.
I too, think culture is a big part of it, (i.e. why I think nurture has an equal if not greater impact than nature), especially if you look at a start-up “hub” like Silicon Valley, or a school like Berkeley or Stanford.
I wouldn’t say the debate is dead — as long as people believe entrepreneurship is an innate desire/characteristic than it lives on.
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