QuasiPreneur.com

How to think like an entrepreneur in all areas of life

How to think like an entrepreneur in all areas of life

By Sarah Lindner / AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, January 04, 2009

Is becoming an entrepreneur on your list of New Year's resolutions? "Life Entrepreneurs," a new book by Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek, argues that the concept isn't limited to your career — it's about creating the complete life that you want.

The book takes readers through a process of getting in touch with their core identity, creating their vision for their lives and making that vision a reality. It features interviews with 55 entrepreneurs from a variety of fields about how they created work that they love, that serves others and that aligns with their values. It's all about an "electric attitude of what's possible," says Vanourek, who talked with us by phone last month. He is a founding partner of New Mountain Ventures, an entrepreneurial leadership development company. This is the first installment of a two-part column featuring excerpts of our conversation (edited for length and clarity). This week, Vanourek talks about having an entrepreneurial mind-set even in a tough economy.
Austin American-Statesman: In the current economy, I could imagine readers of your book having two very different reactions: 'I can't afford to try this approach' and 'I can't afford NOT to try this approach.' What would you to say to each group of readers?

Gregg Vanourek: I think that for those people who are forced into a situation where they've lost their job security and it's a tough hiring market, we could make the case that this is the time to be entrepreneurial. The book "Free Agent Nation" (by Daniel H. Pink) talks about this trend that's already under way of more people being free agents and contractors and having the flexibility to move from project to project, company to company. All the principles and practices of entrepreneurship — being motivated, ambitious, resourceful, having a vision, taking action, taking risks — I think can be helpful for people who are put into this position by necessity so that you can keep your head above water. It could be a wonderful opportunity, surprisingly, for those people.

On the other hand, there are people sitting there thinking this is the worst time to be an entrepreneur — that if they're not forced into it, they hunker down and won't take risks. But these kinds of downturns and recessions often present some pretty significant opportunities. There are some big changes going on in the economy, and that's great fodder for an entrepreneur who's got a good idea, who's got a vision and can go execute. But it is risky. One of the points we make about entrepreneurship is it's not just risk for its own sake. It's not blind risk. It's risk but with risk mitigation and with good strategy behind it.

It also seems like we're shifting away from a mind-set of materialism and consumption toward wanting to work for something more substantive.

There is a little bit of a hangover, or a pendulum here, of a period of excess. People got caught up in playing the game. And I think it's likely the pendulum will swing back in the other direction, where people are going to look to other things that are more lasting and enduring and more meaningful and fulfilling.

I think your book makes the case that an entrepreneurial mind-set is just as important for companies as it is for individuals.

I think that's right. I think there's a war for talent that's been going on for a while, and part of the competitive advantage for companies is that you need great people. You've got much more job mobility and churn, you've got much more people saying "I'm out of here. This place isn't working for me anymore."

In many of the stories in the book, the stars seem to align for the subjects as they start taking steps toward their vision. How would you explain that?

It's difficult to explain, maybe impossible to explain, but there does seem to be some kind of phenomenon that has to do with people deciding and committing themselves to something with conviction, and also tapping into their passion, which often happen to be correlated with our strengths. Once they start doing those things, things start falling into place. I think a lot of entrepreneurs will tell you, looking back, that it wasn't all about money, and in some cases it wasn't even mostly about money. Sure, we want to do well — we want to build wealth for ourselves, our families and to pass on and do great philanthropic things. But what really drives many of these people is finding something that they're passionate about, finding an idea to do something differently, to do something better, to do something more efficiently, to do something exciting, to do something that benefits humanity or their community. And they get excited about it, and then that passion becomes a competitive advantage.