Here is my true story of someone who used to work in a company where I once worked.  Read on to find out about he became a “wantrepreneur” rather than an entrepreneur, and how you can avoid his pitiful example.

At one point, I had the misfortune to work for him.  That is why I am now a contractor.  He put me off the whole idea of continuing to be an employee when I had to experience his mediocrity and lack of people skills on a daily basis.

He did OK in the company because he was good at playing corporate politics games.  His salary allowed him to live in a nice beachside home, own an investment property and drive a nice car.  In fact, he was far better at power games than his work.  He had poor people management skills, was not too bright and was difficult to get along with.  He clambered over the backs of his colleagues to get his job and lacked self awareness to understand how he hurt people on the way up.

Ultimately the powers that be realised this (they move slowly but surely), and made him redundant.  He took a lot of cash in his payout, as he had 20+ years service and had been on a good salary, but was essentially unemployable at that salary away from his nepotistic support network.

Next thing I had heard, he had bought two gift stores (something that he knew even less about than IT, if that is possible) and encountered some initial success.  Ultimately, it all disintegrated as his lack of skills caught up with him.  He was a wantrepreneur rather than an entrepreneur.  He had a desire to reap the respect and lifestyle accorded to a successful entrepreneur but without firstly gaining the skills or mental attitude required.

Now he has no cash, had to sell his home and rent, and is again relying on nepotism, now in a different company.

Whilst I would have preferred to see him succeed (no-one wants to witness failure when it inevitably affects a person’s innocent family), this story has several morals:

1. Career success is often obtained through playing games rather than being good at ones work.  Ultimately game playing is not sustainable, and does not translate into success in any other area.  Career success is therefore often not a measure of the quality of the person.
2. The entrepreneur – the person who takes a measured risk, who feels fear and uses that fear to come up with something unique (reducing risk) and who doesn’t put every cent on the line (diversifying risk) is different to the ”wantrepreneur” – the person who wants to have that success, but puts little thought in, is impervious to fear and therefore doesn’t think anything through (doesn’t manage risk) and has confidence in following the crowd (no original thought) and who doesn’t have the humility, patience, outlook, insight and willingness to learn that the entrepreneur has.
3. Lots of cash often doesn’t help.  It instills false confidence.  The true entrepreneur has cash (risk capital), but it is earned (and valued) rather than being received.  The true entrepreneur substitutes thinking and skill for large capital investment.

Being an entrepreneur (taking a measured risk, having business acumen and judgement) is good, being a wantrepreneur is bad because is based on an unrealistic fantasy rather than a dream grounded in reality.

Tags: mediocrity, wealth

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 7:16 am and is filed under Wealth and work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.