Give yourself the gift that keeps on giving

ByF.C. Dawkins

Times are changing – in fact change is the operative word and it’s the one constant we have in every element of our lives.  Western society has been entrenched in the concept of stability since we entered the Great Depression. As businesses grew larger we embraced a culture of control and systems in order to achieve stability. We valued certainty and pensions for our retirement above self improvement and upward mobility. Oh we still strived for both but within the framework of those organizations that were stable. We came to expect easy entry into the work force and a life long job ending in the golden years of a well funded retirement. A great dream that no generation has achieved. Even the baby boomers received a setback with the recession of 2008 and reduction in their savings at a time when they needed them

Now we live in an era where the largest organizations can and do fail or falter from GM to RIM we have learned the lesson that the status quo has become a fleeting allusion.

It’s time to give yourself the gift of entrepreneurial thinking.

Only you can do it. Abandon prison thinking. Ignore the reasons that prevent you from accomplishing things whether personal or professional. Approach your problems from the mindset of ‘how’ you are going to solve them not ‘if’ you’ll be  able to solve them.

Entrepreneurial thinking can be applied to every element of your life and it leads to another gift: self-determination

Frankly this is a must. In your business life the most important skill you can learn in the 21st century is the ability to create and manage your career. Is your personal life any different? If we don’t take control we will limit ourselves to a life of mediocrity with decreasing real wages. limited upward mobility, low satisfaction and increasing frustration

It’s time to trade in stability for agility!

The attributes that dictate success today are resilience and adaptability which happen to be the characteristics of entrepreneurs.

So as you reflect on this holiday season consider giving yourself the gift of an open mind – one that is open to possibilities and determined to find solutions.

All the best for the holiday season

Fred Dawkins, Author of Everyday Entrepreneur and the just released Family Entrepreneur

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • Entrepreneurship- Who’s The Boss?

    ByF.C. Dawkins

    Quite a number of my friends are professionals. Often they let me know how lucky I’ve been to own and operate companies with employees who keep churning out results even when I am at the cottage or on the golf course. For them time is money-they generate the revenue. They have to be there or nothing happens. I don’t even have to show up.

    The traditional idea is that once you get to be the boss, you coast while others do your bidding. Maybe that idea’s grounded in the reality that most people get promoted to their level of incompetence where performance falls off. Of course it’s delusional to think that you start your own business and find a gravy train of financial success, freedom and success, all with little effort. This rarely happens but we do revere examples when it does like some the instant successes that have materialized in the tech world. Frankly that type of success is equivalent to winning the lottery which isn’t going to happen for many. Unfortunately this is the romantic side of entrepreneurship- rare but appealing.

    If your goal is to get to be the boss and then take it easy , perhaps you should look to the public sector where that is at least a possibility. Being a true entrepreneur means living in a revolving door with each turn bringing a new problem to solve. If this lifestyle is meant for you , it’s like getting the business equivalent of a runner’s high, every day, all day. If not welcome to chaos. The faster the problems come the more you must thrive on the process. The last thing entrepreneurs want to do is sit idle while others do the work and get all the fun of problem solving.

    That’s why they succeed in startups but struggle in managing established businesses even though they may have built those same businesses. No matter how great your innovation, converting that project to a successful business requires entrepreneurship. Success takes determination, adaptability, resilience, commitment and the certainty that you will take the project to completion and make that project happen. It is not the project that makes an entrepreneur. It is definitely the process! Very few are content to level their business and enjoy the fruits of success. So if you are all about power, money or prestige maybe entrepreneurship isn’t for you. Being the boss is just a necessary evil.

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    Creative Destruction vs Trump’s Destructive Reduction.

    ByF.C. Dawkins

    Creative Destruction was a term first popularised by economist Joseph Schumpeter. The premise is that innovation and technology will ensure progress on the basis of replacing old industries, markets and economic structures with new more efficient concepts. The architects who accomplish this are entrepreneurs who think outside the box, question existing systems and introduce new ways and means. Never has this been more relevant with the impending impact of AI putting us on the cusp of what many believe will be a major revolution. Some believe it will bring about comparable change to that fostered by the Industrial Revolution. Regardless this change will be led by the key leaders that Schumpeter relied upon: entrepreneurs and tech genii.

    Enter Donald Trump, certainly a disrupter but only in a literal sense. The proverbial bull in the China shop. The antithesis of the dynamic innovators that Schumpeter championed. A man apparently stuck in the past. A strong proponent of returning to the ‘good old days’ of the 1890’s, his model for what the U.S. should be. Let’s call that ‘Destructive Reduction.’

    Subtraction by reduction. Attacking allies. Breaking trade agreements. Withdrawing from international organisations. Renouncing treaties. Axing social benefits. Deporting immigrants. Recklessly slashing jobs within the bureaucracy. Reductions without analysis in an ill-fated attempt reduce the national debt, offset quickly by tax cuts in his ‘Big Beautiful Bill’. The man hates complexity. Give him a one pager and a burger and he’s ready to act. Rationality be damned. Right to a fault? ON and ON Don!

    Admittedly AI may help him with the odd element in this quixotic attack on well, just about everything. Forgotten is that the firm foundation of growth for the past hundred years for the U.S. has been research and development. For the past fifty years and more the U.S. has spent roughly 40% of the amount spent on R & D across the entire world. It’s been a proven formula for wealth creation and economic success. So what does the Big D do? He cuts the funding for leading research institutions like Harvard. This is perverse logic but then logic had been abandoned in a flurry of executive orders with the size of the signature rivalling that of John Hancock.

    I wonder who will fill the many voids created by this executioner of trust? Trump’s drift toward isolationism, based on groundless economics, creates great opportunity for none other than China. A country that quietly invests in areas that the U.S. largely chooses to ignore like Africa and South America. Areas that have been insulted by the Big D. Projections show that by 2100 there will be twelve billion people on Earth. Nine billion of those will reside in Africa or Asia. Every continent but Africa will be facing ageing populations. China has a plan. It has a much longer window than anything America conceives. China will quietly encourage the decline of the American Empire, if you can call it one. Donald has given their plan a nice boost.

    The world is changing. Are we ready? These are the questions that make my novel The Noah Project a wake up call to action.

  • Entrepreneurs Wanted

    ByF.C. Dawkins

    Entrepreneurship rests firmly on opportunity. But in the face of a rapidly changing global economy there is an overwhelming increase in entrepreneurship of necessity. Seniors need to extend their careers. Youth are struggling to launch theirs. Women are looking for flexibility to meet a combination of career and family needs. Individuals around the world are seeking freedom of opportunity. At the same time Big Business is pursuing profits around the world undermining the stability of employment markets. There is widespread decline in loyalty between employers and employees. Structural unemployment is a demoralizing prospect. One need only look to Detroit to see the impact.

    The result? The most valued skill in the 21st Century may well be the ability to create your own job. Job creation rests clearly on individuals -first for themselves and then for others. It reflects the difference between Localization versus Globalization – small scale entrepreneurs find their opportunities locally creating jobs in areas that Big Business has abandoned for offshore savings. To compound this the fast paced rate of change driven by technology favours small flexible and adaptable businesses that adjust to changing circumstances. Large companies find their growth through acquisition not startups.

    Around the world governments are finally recognizing the importance of entrepreneurs. Fortunately there is a great deal of talent that is suppressed and can be unleashed, whether through culture, education, gender , race, funding or other limitations. It will be up to government to remove the shackles Entrepreneurship has been the driving force behind the economic dominance of the Western world. It is the economic resource that puts other resources to work. Our economic future is moving to the hands of those who are driven to make things happen.

     

  • 10+ Reasons Why We are on the Doorstep of “Brave New World

    ByF.C. Dawkins

    In one of my favourite and most thought provoking novels, Aldous Huxley used the future (2540 AD) as the setting and  developed characters in his science fiction novel to express the fear of losing individual identity in the fast-paced world of that future. Unlike Orwell who offered a pushback to communism, Huxley focused more on technology and the ultimate impact of continuing the fast pace evolving out of the Industrial Revolution. So is that future almost upon us? Here are some of the key elements of Huxley’s Brave New World:

    Abolition of natural reproduction – Children are educated via appropriate subconscious messages to mold the child’s self-image appropriate to their caste.- Discouragement of critical thinking – Discouragement of individual action and initiative – An abundance of material goods – (presumably because of advanced technology) conditions of work are not onerous – Citizens are conditioned to promote consumption. People enjoy perfect health and youthfulness until death at age 60. The World State is a benevolent dictatorship headed by ten World Controllers which has established a stable global society where the population is permanently limited. The basis of that stability is the conditioning of citizens to accept their station in life.

    As a serial entrepreneur who values individualism driven by hope and accomplishment as essential to the human condition the weight of logic tells me that we are all too close to Huxley’s world and long before 2540. Here are more than enough reasons to be concerned. All of them relate to two dominant trends – rapid change and  globalization.

    1. The Era of Big Data is here – too much to know and digest

    2. Wealth Disparity – economic rewards are accruing to capital – real wages are stagnant or in decline

    3. Declining upward mobility – the middle class is in decline trending towards historical norms more limited chances for improvement – Huxley’s caste system?

    4. Precarious employment – job stability is simply disappearing — those that don’t take control over their careers will flounder

    5. Machine Learning- we are about to handle even more control of our research and knowledge creation to machines. Artificial Intelligence is the next big thing.

    6. Cloning – the science exists – the implications are many

    7. Stem cell development – we can already grow new organs  – test tube babies are there for the taking. The key to perfect health may well lie in stem cell research.

    8. World population is out of control –  in Huxley’s world, a problem solved by limiting life

    9. Control of knowledge – with Big Data and Machine Learning will we only know what we are told and will God simply become the internet? Look it up – it must be so?

    10. Surveillance – Snowdon  has shown that  we are being watched – this will only get worse and soon

    11. Corporatism – we don’t live under free market capitalism – large corporations control global markets and reap the profits – we can thank ourselves for embracing branding to facilitate this – Too Big to Fail puts a deadly premium on Big

    12. Multi-nationals – these same corporations driven by profit maximization are pursuing interests that eliminate national interests as they build stronger global foundations for controlling markets. All the time individuals are being encouraged to consume at record rates.

    I’m fairly sure I know what Huxley would think. How about you?

     

     

     

  • Why Entrepreneurship is critical on a microeconomic level

    ByF.C. Dawkins

    Not long ago countries like Japan and Korea focused on a corporate policy based on loyalty. The concept was that employees stayed with a company for their working life. Companies nurtured this loyalty as a solid foundation to build on. North American companies flirted with this concept looking for ways to understand and replicate the quality assurance programs coming out of their Asian competitors. Enter globalization, the technology revolution and a rate of change that may be unsustainable for humans. In a blink job stability vanished.

    Large companies by nature are slower to react than their smaller compatriots but large scale permanent lay-offs have become a fixture of the corporate world. International companies are making record profits pursuing low labour costs around the world while paying those at the top record bonuses. Add the increasing wealth gap and a shrinking middle class in the developed world to the equation and you reveal a growing underpaid work force plagued by uncertainty.

    The result is that the most important skill you can develop today is the ability to create and manage your own career. The key to upward mobility is becoming entrepreneurial at any level. Technology is the greatest ally of the would be entrepreneur. It is less expensive to start a business today. Social networking provides an instant support group. Crowdfunding offers a potential source of funds. New careers are being created every year while traditional roles disappear. Entrepreneurs are the problem solvers that create these new opportunities.

    The best news: after you’ve done this once; after you made the initial leap of faith and become an entrepreneur, you can and will repeat the process again and again. Change is the one constant we can expect in our lives going forward. Change is the antithesis of stability. Seniors are doing startups out of necessity. Youth are doing startups to get into the work force. Mompreneurs are dealing with the difficulty of re-entering the workforce by creating new careers that encompass their lifestyle needs.Every startup has a multiplier effect through job creation. So the answer for a secure future no longer lies with embracing a career with one strong entity. A secure future can best be secured through the ability to adapt and recreate yourself according to new circumstances. The essence of entrepreneurship is adaptability and resilience – the ability and determination to face new circumstances. We are entering a new era of entrepreneurship.

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