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  • Essay / Examining What Entrepreneurs Can Teach Us About Life by Stephen Hicks

    Many people view success as a formula to follow, a matter of connecting x and y. People are constantly asking the Walt Disneys and Steve Jobs of the world how they achieved their status, so that they can live like they do one day. However, Stephen Hicks of the Wall Street Journal disagrees. In the article “What Entrepreneurs Can Teach Us About Life” (1), he argues that trying to fit a formula for success is, at best, just a path to stagnation. All people need, he believes, is to harness their innate entrepreneurial spirit and work diligently and creatively. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay His article opens by explaining how many people view risk-taking entrepreneurs "as larger-than-life characters" or a "breed apart." » by many. However, Hicks goes on to not only say that this is false, but also to say that entrepreneurs are who they are because they have harnessed basic human characteristics and instincts and refined them. According to him, creativity and perseverance are the two keys to entrepreneurship. He demonstrates how deeply these elements are ingrained in people by tracing them back to the purest mental stages of a person's life: childhood. As he says in the middle of the article: “Entrepreneurs are decision-makers and often rule-breakers,” and he connects this form of creativity to the invented or modified games that children imagine in the playground. This last element is linked to the fact that a 3-year-old child undertakes to carry out a project herself, despite her difficulties. After that, Hicks explains why these attributes can dull as adults. The recurring theme in the next section, about why adults struggle to harness the entrepreneurial spirit of their childhood, is fear. Fear of “personal investment”, fear of “failure and disapproval”, fear that it is “too late to change”. » For each of these fears, Hicks responds with a rebuttal. In the final paragraphs, the author himself asks us to expand the horizons of our world, ending the article with the note that the reader should "break at least one rule every day." "Hicks' article on the entrepreneurial spirit and the inner workings of the entrepreneur's mind relates primarily to the content of Chapter 5. In particular, it hits the same notes about how entrepreneurs want to take care of themselves. burden and overcoming challenges (highlighted by the article's example of the little girl working on a project). However, the message of the article and the notes conflict on one point: the characteristics of entrepreneurs themselves The notes specify that entrepreneurs must generally have energetic and creative personalities, while Hicks' main argument was that the only thing that stops people from exploiting entrepreneurship is fear and. self-doubt These fears were also concerns raised and discussed in Chapter 5. The fear of investing a lot of time and energy without a decent return can only be overcome with the motivation to move forward. This is also linked to the fear of failure, but as the article says, "secure, indecisive lives turn us into automatons" and even the most famous people failed repeatedly - Walt Disney had two studios. deaths to his credit before creating the cultural monolith. it's Disney, and it took Ford until its Model T (in.