THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MYTH: Recent Episodes
Louise Nicolson
It's time to expose the myths we create and promote about business. It's time to redesign entrepreneurship for the health and wealth of all.
Join the conversation between Rory Sutherland and Louise Nicolson about luck, fortune, guts, good timing, hard work and entrepreneurship. And why you need a business premortem.
“We accept the jobs and taxes and wealth when entrepreneurs succeed; but they end up shouldering the burden of failure and the material and mental health cost of that failure alone. This is about [creating] a form of entrepreneurial justice.”
“Could it be when so much was stripped away, shut in and locked down, that the universal human drive to create and trade broke through?”
“FORGET LITERAL IMITATION. I THINK YOU CAN BE WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE IN THE MEDIA - AS LONG AS YOU ARE SEEN BY THOSE WHO MATTER MOST.”
“We mustn’t spin this virus with entrepreneurial bravado. We can’t hustle our way out of it. Measured reflection and a contemplative approach to business, will refine the decisions you’re going to have to make.”
“Numerous entrepreneurial businesses successfully harness the power of community in their products and services – think of Uber, Airbnb, eBay – but the same powerful processes aren’t applied to entrepreneurship itself. Imagine if we used these strange days to change that.”
“You are perhaps so used to seeing the entrepreneur fizzing with agency and energy, the title ‘reflective entrepreneur’ seems an oxymoron. But remember the tortoise and hare? Hare’s frenzied arrogance slows him down; tortoise’s steady consistency wins the race. It could be that way with business…”
“When most people think of a leading entrepreneur, the likes of Bill Gates usually spring to mind. But this notion of who an entrepreneur is perpetuates damaging misconceptions”
“We approach entrepreneurship the wrong way. We locate this magic ability in someone’s guts rather than seeing it as a system that could be improved.”
“BRAND VALUE MIGHT BE BORN IN THE BOARDROOM, BUT IT MATURES IN THE MARKET AND IS ULTIMATELY DETERMINED BY THE HEADS, HEARTS AND SPENDING HABITS OF CONSUMERS”
“We believe it’s possible to work together as an industry to mitigate failure and redesign performance, to switch the 90% entrepreneurial failure rate to a 90% success rate.”
“Anything that prevents a person from turning into the next Sir Philip Green can only be a good thing”
“We know - despite the blood, sweat and tears invested - around 90% of entrepreneurial businesses will fail. Don’t look away.”
“Entrepreneurs are courted, wooed and seduced; advisors chaperone deals, mergers become nuptials. These moments nod to the invisible emotional core of great business”
These stories from entrepreneur Dean Hunter, psychotherapist Colin Brett, Paralympian Lora Fachie and aviation industry leader Gretchen Haskins illustrate how we might redesign entrepreneurship for the health and wealth of all.
“Heroes evolve. Sometimes we catch them up. We look them in the eye and, in a moment thick with nostalgia, we know it’s over”