Due to my 20+ year run as the founder and owner of a professional services firm, I was invited to speak at a session hosted by the Bethesda Entrepreneurship Academy. I realized after a quick review of the exceptional speakers recruited by Zain Yaqub (the Academy’s founder and a teen entrepreneur himself) that I needed a unique and unexpected topic.
My presentation, entitled “The Entrepreneurial Spirit: Wealth & Empowerment,” delivered just that. In what I believe was a refreshingly candid and entertaining style (hey, I perform stand-up comedy as a hobby), I sought to disabuse these future business titans of the notion that success is measured by your take home pay.
Rather, the value of business creation is in the ability to craft more meaningful and intimate relationships with family, friends, community, etc., while building a lifestyle which is consistent with a belief system.
Here are the five steps to business creation I offered during the presentation:
- Identify the things important to you in life.
- Make an honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses.
- Define the personality type(s) you most successfully work with.
- Construct a business plan that aligns accordingly.
- Drip with self-confidence.
Admittedly, it was hard to tell. The youthful audience was reasonably well engaged during my talk, yet the Q&A afterwards lacked any significant meaning or depth.
Perhaps it was merely a reflection of the date/time of the event? Or maybe I came off too much of a tyrannical type A?
Or, worse, this group may not be ready for entrepreneurship…yet?
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Interested in reading more about how visualization can improve the entrepreneurial experience? Check out these blog posts:
Anxious Decision-Making is a No-No
Pathways to Success, Achieving Confidence through Hypnosis
Busy Execs Get Hip to the Power of Visualization
