The Open Entrepreneur

The Entrepreneur Ecologist: it never rains, but it pours

The open entrepreneur is a natural ecologist. Ecology is concerned about the connection between living organisms and their environment. The entrepreneur is a person like any other, but there are some interactions and relationships with the environment in which are of acute significance to the entrepreneur.

They concern the entrepreneur's impact on and reactions to what happens inside and outside the business. While the startup's existence is virtually seldom a critical actor in the world around, its continued existence is critically dependent upon the world that surrounds it.

Doing or Being?

The entrepreneur often chooses a life of action rather than reflection. But balance in business life is going to make a huge difference in the performance of the enterprise. If you look around and decide which businesses you admire, chances are high that their leaders will be people who are not only ambitious and take calculated risks, but also one who have high inner values.

They are very likely to be those who manage to create a balance between being and doing. It does not happen by accident. It requires attention and intention. Have a look at the model below and see where your significant orientation lies.

There is no right or wrong axis. It is worth considering whether you can be comfortable on both axes.

Past, Present and Future

The entrepreneur

• draws on experience,
• is acutely aware of what is happening now,
• is determined that the desired future will be realized.

This makes for creative tension that the entrepreneur has to hold lightly. It is very important to

• know what works,
• yet be awake every moment,
• while having vision.

This ability to be awake enough to turn on a dime and notice what is happening is one that some people have quite naturally, while others have to learn it.

Action and Reflection

There are many paradoxes with which the entrepreneur has to live.

One of the toughest is having to set goals—and yet to go with the flow. You set goals, for if you do not, you will have no idea where you are heading. But if you force the pace and stick to them stubbornly, you will just as likely fail to arrive.

Gregg Easterbrook in his book The Progress Paradox underlines Americans' desperation, despite prosperity. He cites facts like:

• In 2001, Americans spent $25 billion, more than the GDP of North Korea, on recreational watercraft.
• During the 1950s, a cheeseburger at McDonalds cost half an hour of typical wages; today, a McDonald’s cheeseburger costs the typical American three minutes of work.
  

He contrasts such affluence with the fact that we are no happier as a result. The toxicity that is created in the workplace makes this progress paradox an issue of great importance for entrepreneurs. A sense of underlying purpose of what we aim to achieve is vital to avoiding stress and burnout and limiting the toxicity.

Startups are messy. You learn every day and never stop. The only thing of which you can be sure, is uncertainty.

Michael Carroll makes a nice adaptation of Sun Tzu's words in The Art of War, "When at work, Use established routines to pursue objectives, Use messiness and surprises to innovate and succeed." You can watch this video of Mike giving a lecture at Google as an introduction to his thinking.

Do not be phased. Carry the dilemma lightly. The Yin Yang symbol may help you see the intertwining of the active and reflective, hard and soft forces in your life. The one does not exist without the other.

Meditate

One very effective way to learn is through meditation.

"Oh, no!" I can hear you say.

"Oh, yes!" I reply.

The life of the entrepreneur is a perpetual challenge and the high energy involved needs grounding to avoid exploding. Meditation can have a very significant effect on your well being and of those around you. There are many kinds of meditation and the practice does not have to be part of a religion and you do not have to convert to Buddhism.

In my own case the practice I use is called Insight Meditation—the term refers to practices for the mind that develop calm through sustained attention, and insight through reflection, or the simple and direct practice of moment-to-moment mindfulness. In the Entrepreneur's Bookstore there are four excellent and relevant meditation books, three of which are by practitioners who come from business backgrounds.

Meditation is likely to help you live into the goal-orientation of leading a startup, at the same time as practicing non-achievement. Does that sound difficult? It is, but it is not a contradiction. Most of us overlook where we are and who we are. As a result, we speed past our life. Through practicing meditation and synchronizing our lives we can begin to get glimmers of a new strategy for everyday life.

You may think it counter-productive to practice non-achievement at the same time as focusing on goal achievement. So did I before I set to work. If you stick to the latter exclusively you will induce stress, you will miss possibilities, opportunities will be what you describe as being luck when others have them. My friend George, who was a US military pilot, always used to say that training aircraft were designed to fly and if in sticky situations, the trainee took his hands off the controls, he would be fine.

In Abraham Maslow's book, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, published posthumously in 1971, he suggests that for 'transcenders', achieving peak experiences becomes the most important thing; 'peakers' cultivate periods of quiet meditation to see the world anew and recover the sense of the miraculous; recognize each other; when in a peak state, have lessened fears, a giving up of ego, spontaneity, a sense of seeking and one-ness with the world.

Are you feeling frustrated? If so, calm yourself for a moment by visiting Jackson Pollock and have some fun!

Make the Space

Chances are that you feel pressure from all fronts. Nothing will stop the entrepreneur, the person that really is one, but very likely he or she will have made space to allow the startup to happen. That may mean that you have to let something go.

To start a business means choosing. It can be painful.

Six weeks after I started one of my businesses, we received a business inquiry for a job that really intrigued me. It would mean good revenue. It was in south east Asia and I had never been there. I knew we were very qualified to bid. The only problem was that the work was not appropriate to our new sector of activity. My partner was adamant. Do not even spend time working on a bid. It grieved me but she was right. I had to pass up the opportunity.

In all aspects of your life, you will want to consider what to keep on the list. Such a process is easier if it is tackled from a negative point of view. What is unnecessary? What can be left out? You cannot do everything, even though entrepreneurs often consider themselves superhuman. But they are not.

Scan the Periphery

Allow yourself a bit of think time. Prod yourself and challenge the monkey chatter that chitters around your brain (less after meditation). Make some time to reflect, especially early in the day. Even get up earlier. Our capitalistic culture encourages busyness in business—and that's not always productive! Scan the periphery of your vision; notice what's going on outside your box.

The Tibetan term tendrel describes the nature of phenomena and how they relate to each other. It has connotations that are both mathematical and magical. Jung had a related concept: synchronicity, or meaningful coincidences. The entrepreneur needs to be able to cultivate tendrel and synchronicity.

There is no training course you can attend to learn the techniques, but you can develop your own awareness. One very practical way to do this is to read two business magazines: Business Week and Inc. Of course there many others, but these two will keep you alive. If you want to get organized to scan the periphery systematically, then read Peripheral Vision, a book by two Wharton Business School academics.

You can also consider the idea of Buckminster Fuller, who coined the phrase, 'spaceship earth' and invented the geodesic dome. Apparently when he was passing through an airport, he randomly selected a magazine and read it on his plane journey from cover to cover. Each trip he learned something new 'at the periphery' and so saw the world in a different way.

Suck Up Ideas

Most entrepreneurs have no problem being alive to ideas. The market opportunity the startup seeks to meet makes that obvious. On Day 2 however, the daily preoccupations of the business risk dampening the spirit of inquiry.

There are many ways that you can help yourself to good dollops of ideas. A good place to start without without causing pain, is to subscribe to the Springwise newsletter. Springwise and its network of 8,000 spotters scan the globe for smart new business ideas, delivering instant inspiration to entrepreneurial minds from San Francisco to Singapore. They are focused on innovation. You have to go a bit further and allow your imagination free reign.

For example, a recent article in Fortune explains how America is losing its edge in agriculture to Brazil, the booming Latin American powerhouse—through soybeans. The soybean may not immediately excite you, but it is used in almost every industry. It is ubiquitous as a food ingredient, and as an industrial input, for products in the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, basement and the building materials that make the house. That is without considering ethanol. Think about the implications for your business...

Welcome Impermanence

Most entrepreneurs have the experience that their startup does not work out as planned. The moment a customer exists, something is going to change. Expectations are unlikely to be met.

That does not mean plans are a waste of time. But expect that you are going to need to turn on a dime to keep the show on the road. This is not bad. It is the way life is. There is a danger in throwing more of the same at something that is not working. That is where innovation and sensitivity come in. Nothing is permanent.

I have been fortunate enough to watch the creation of a Sand Mandala (dul-tson-kyil-khor) by a group of Tibetan monks over a three-day period. Throughout its creation, the monks poured millions of grains of colored granite sand from traditional metal funnels called chakpur. The finished Mandala was circular and about five feet across.

It is an intricate work of art with deep traditional meanings and is created as a devotion. The design includes geometric shapes and a multitude of ancient spiritual symbols, is used as a tool for re-consecrating the earth and its inhabitants.

It is hard work and the monks take turns, chanting as they rub the chakpur to gently shake the grains of sand to form the very precise mandala images.

Once complete, the mandala has only a short life. During the closing ceremony, the monks dismantle it, sweeping up the colored sand to symbolize the impermanence of all that exists.

The last stage of the process involves spreading the grains of sand into the river to be swept off wherever the stream takes them. The waters then carry the healing blessing to the ocean, and from there it spreads throughout the world for planetary healing.

At the time I shared the experience, I lived by the coast on the island of Corsica, so the distribution direct into the ocean. The monks from Dharamsala in north India were wryly amused at bypassing the river. In any event, it seemed a shame to destroy the beautiful creation, but the powerful message is important to remember.

For entrepreneurs this especially so. Everything changes and, while we seek to create sustainable enterprises, that sustainability requires an adaptability to change and the ability to welcome impermanence and move on.

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