Get Out of Way or Get Crushed by the Stampede of True Entrepreneurs

Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at 11:58am by David Askaripour in Life

Last night I was hanging out with my friend Avi and he was explaining to me his philosophy for getting work done for his business. He said that many people have different styles of completing tasks, but he lives by the Malcolm X method which states:

“By Any Means Necessary.”

He went on to explain that when he needs to get something done, he’ll do what ever takes to get it done. Forget all the brainstorming, the talks, the chit-chat, and the blah…blah… about getting something done — as Avi put it, when something needs to get done “I’ll lock myself in a room and just start it — whatever it takes.”

I’m happy Avi shared his method with me because when I think about some of the “so-called” entrepreneurs that I have met in the past few years, many of them have been all “talk” and no “action.”

They talk the talk and spit out pretty words about how great their company “could be” or “will be,” but it comes down to it, many of these people never start anything. It’s like they want to be an entrepreneur, but all they do is talk about it. There’s no follow-through. No action. No moving forward.

Malcolm X was the sort of dude that was very aggressive when he wanted to accomplish something. He not only talked the talk, but he walked the walk. He backed up his words with action and that is why he was able to organize such a large movement of Islam.

Here’s a typical scenario:

Joe: I want to build a website that will connect book lovers. (Jan 1, 2006)
Dan: Cool. What’s your next move? (Jan 1, 2006)
Joe: I am going to learn HTML / CSS / PHP and build it. (Jan 1, 2006)
Dan: Hey Joe, how’s the project coming along? (Apr 1, 2006)
Joe: Ahh… yeah… I never got those programming books, but I’m still going to do it. (Apr 1, 2006)
Dan: Hey Joe, you should be launching your site soon, right? (Jun 1, 2006)
Joe: Nah dude…. Never learned how to program. I’m thinking about possibly hiring someone to do it. (Jun 1, 2006)
Dan: Hey, whatever happened with that site that you wanted to build?
(Oct 1, 2006)
Joe: Ahh… Uhm…. Hmm… Yeah…. Not sure dude… just never got around to it… Oh well…
(Oct 1, 2006)

Want to know what I think of Joe? I’ll tell you. Joe is NOT an entrepreneur. He’s someone who wants to pretend that he’s an entrepreneur and tell people that “one day” he is going to do something big. Joe will never do anything big. Joe isn’t going to start a company. Joe simply just doesn’t have it and no matter how hard he pretends to be an entrepreneur, his true colors will always shine through.

If Joe really was an entrepreneur, he would have picked up a 450 page programming book from Amazon and locked himself in a room and read it from cover to cover and learned how to program — plain and simple. No excuses. He didn’t want it bad enough. He didn’t live by the method of “By Any Means Necessary.”

People like Joe are a bane to the entire community of young entrepreneurs. These are the exact sort of people that you do not want a part of your mastermind group. They will slow you down, set you back, and try to live the life of an entrepreneur vicariously through your hunger and determination.

Now no one is perfect and there will be times when you don’t follow-through and when you are lazy about getting something done — that’s a given. BUT, there is a fundamental difference between people who are just in a lazy mood for that day than people who really don’t have entrepreneurship in their heart. Those are the people who will continue to trod along life without ever creating something — without ever improving their lives and making a change in the world. And they will — no matter what — never be entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs make things happen no matter what. Entrepreneurs are fighters, not observers watching in the sidelines. Entrepreneurs are people who say: “I’ll get this done and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make this happen.” Entrepreneurs are the people who are prepared to sacrifice it all and not look back. These people are rare and we don’t have time to deal with the Joe’s of society. So please get out of our way or prepare to face the stampede of the “real” entrepreneurs.

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