The entrepreneurial journey continues

The fraught nature of making the journey arises from:

• Breaking free from our comfort zone
• facing our fears and
• manoeuvring our way through unfamiliar terrain fraught with obstacles along the way.

So why would anyone in their right mind want to do something that to an outsider may seem akin to committing suicide?

Well, firstly, that old saying about investment, that the higher the risk the greater the reward, could equally apply to the entrepreneurial adventurer.

Secondly, entrepreneurs often find that the process of taking this giant step actually stretches their knowledge and creative powers, enabling them to do things they might not have felt capable of doing before.

It propels them into learning what they need to know to get to their destination and do what it takes to get there. The hardest part is taking that first step.

I was reminded of the beauty of this process when I heard leading entrepreneur Michael Hill (whose autobiographical book Toughen Up has been published recently) describe how he came to suddenly experience it later in life.

At the age of 40 he made the decision to break free from his comfortable life and start his jewellery business.

He had been working in his uncle’s jewellery store in Whangarei for the previous 23 years, initially as a watchmaker, then salesman and later as shop manager. Married with two children, Hill was adding the finishing touches to his dream home overlooking Whangarei harbour.

Sadly, the three-storey designer house, which took two years to build, was destroyed in a fire.

As Hill watched the house burn down, in his mind’s eye his life flashed before him as if it was a video being played back, he told Ian Fraser on Radio NZ’s Saturday Morning show recently. Feeling gutted about where he found himself in his life, he asked himself, “My God, why haven’t I had the guts to approach my uncle to buy his business?”

Suddenly he felt compelled to act. The loss of his house had ignited a fire in his belly.

Though he had enjoyed a pleasant lifestyle and earned a decent income, for some time something had “niggled” away in his subconscious mind telling him there must be more to life. To feed these yearnings he had even listened to tapes by motivational speakers.