How Your Addiction to Entrepreneurship Can Make or Break Your Success

If you read my previous post about startup addiction, here is a book I recommend you to read about how you can use your addiction to help you success, instead of failing you. Addictive Entrepreneurship, written by Allan J. Katz, is about discovering how your addictive way of thinking can be the main reason behind your failures in your business, and how to revert it into a propeller for you to achieve your success. Reading through the book, the reality strikes me - My past business failures are due to not identifying my addiction that comes in the form of perfectionism. In the book, Allan wrote, "When addictive thinking takes over, you begin to question your own decision-making process. Doubt sets in and all the years of experience and education seem to vanish, allowing you to question whether you should be working for yourself in the first place." All I can say is this: OUCH! Why "Addictive Entrepreneurship" can change your personal and business life That-s what happened (and still happening) to me - I love business ideas and I am keen to start up businesses according to them, in an almost impulsive way. However, my perfectionist side starts to question my decision - I start to question my very own decision making, just like what Allan wrote in his book. What worse, my perfectionism makes me work 18 hours a day, driven by my guilt feelings of not trying hard enough to succeed. I need help badly! The results are devastating - I-m losing my motivation in pursuing the startups and starting to find ways to get rid of them! Logically, I have to tweak the businesses until they are working as they should. I have this perseverance and resilience, but my addictive thinking defeats my positive traits. Allan J. Katz - a direct response copywriter and marketing strategist, a former President of the Direct Marketing Association of Memphis, and an adjunct professor at the University of Memphis Continuing Education Program - explained, through his experience, that what I should do to "˜cure- my entrepreneurial mind-s addiction is to identify my "˜push-button- or "˜trigger- to all negativity, and try to control it and revert it into a positive success-driving force. I am personally benefiting from Allan J. Katz- book. If you are really want to know that you are an addict in entrepreneurship, in any forms, I highly recommend you to read Allan J. Katz book, "Addictive Entrepreneurship." If you would like to learn more, I recommend you to visit Allan J. Katz- Addictive Entrepreneurship website to learn more about what-s inside the book. Ivan Widjaya Controlling my entrepreneurial addiction Image by . About the Author Ivan Widjaya is the Owner/Editor of Noobpreneur.com. He is a web property investor, blogger and web property maker, and currently managing and running websites and blogs on various topic under the brand name of My Web Estate. Visit Noobpreneur's profile and other posts.

Invitation: The London Business School Entrepreneurship Conference Welcome to VC Cafe. If you're new around here, you may want to subscribe to our feed and get daily updates for FREE. The economy is taking us on another downward cycle. Businesses, both large and small, are feeling the pressure of a changing world. But the question lingers - is now the right time to start a business? Where will the growth come from? Where can I find the best people? Who can help me? Where are the emerging opportunities? For the 11th year in a row, the London Business School-s Entrepreneurship Club is holding the LBSEntrepreneurship Conference. This year-s summit is appropriately themed:"Turbulent Times: How to Navigate through the Current Economy". Join London Business School faculty and students on Friday, 24 April 2009 and get answers to these and other questions from entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, entrepreneurship-focused organizations and members of London Business School faculty. Some of the keynote speakers include Brent Hoberman, founder of lastminute.com, Europe's largest travel website and Andrew Owens, founder and CEO of Greenergy, UK's largest independent oil company. Other confirmed speakers include: - Anthony Clarke, Managing Director, London Business Angels - Neil Blackley, Chairman of Media Advisory Board, Apax Partners - Petteri Koponen, New Business Development - EMEA, Google (Founder of Jaiku.com) - Tim Barnes, Executive Director of UCL Advances - Alex Guest, General Manager, Zattoo UK - Clare Johnston, Founder of The Up Group - Duane Jackson, Founder & Managing Director of Kashflow - Emanuel Mond, President, Alternative Investments, Sungard - Brett Putter, Managing Partner, Emerging Technologies, The Forsyth Group - Henry Stewart, CEO, Happy - Chris Welsh, Founder & Chairman of NED - Neil Ghandi, CEO, Quickstart Global - Philippe Dufour, Founder, PrePay Technologies Tickets are limited. To register and secure your place, please visit http://econference.eventbrite.com. This is the Entrepreneurship-s Club highlight event and a chance to network with London entrepreneurs, investors and industry professionals.

March 26, 2009

AHAVA & THE YOUNG ENTREPRENEURSHIP COMPETITION CONGRATULATIONS AHAVA CHAMPS! YOU WENT, YOU CONQUERED - TO GOD BE THE GLORY! YOUR TEAMWORK, DEDICATION & PASSION ARE THE KEYS TO SUCCESS! STAY FOCUS AND CONTINUE TO EXCEL! AHAVA RAWKS!

Free entrepreneurship training from DTI March 25, 2009 by Roy Filed under: Announcement, Business news, Entrepreneurship, Government, business opportunity, entrepreneur, self-help, seminar, service  For those who are contemplating on becoming entrepreneurs but don-t know where to start, here-s something I got from the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) website. DTI is conducting free entrepreneurship trainings. This free training is a good venue to be exposed on the know-hows of business. This is most specially timely, to those who have availed of the P15,000 loan from SSS or the P50,000 from OWWA. Though the PIA website the trainings that were conducted in the Western Visayas area where about 5,021 have already availed of the free trainings. These include housewives, OFWs, workers who are planning to get into business, ambulant vendors, and even micro, small and medium enterprises. While the report contains data from the Visayas area, further down the article says the free training is being given in every DTI provincial offices. Groups and associations (NGOs, LGUs, and cooperatives), as well as individuals, who are interested in the program needs to coordinate with the DTI office in their respective areas. Upon reading this news, I called DTI Pampanga at 045-4551413 to inquire about the program. They said it is a half-day affair, and participants would then progress to more comprehensive trainings based on the results of the half-day seminar.

Author

Shifting Power at the Skoll Forum - Day One by Nathaniel Whittemore Published March 25, 2009 @ 06:51PM PST A shot from the morning pre-forum education plenary (courtesy of Make Good) After the first official day of the Skoll World Forum, my main takeaway is that I'm excited to see the general conversation is proceeding as it must: asking the questions of how social entrepreneurship learns from the current economic crisis and contributes to a more just and sustainable global capitalism, and how to better understand the relationship of power between and among individuals and institutions that give shape to our social and economic systems. The economic crisis is, of course, at the forefront of the conversation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a resigned optimism and silver-lining ethos among most of the people here. The two arguements that seem to be being advanced for the upside of this down turn are: first that the conversation about a more just, creative, and sustainable capitalism has moved from peripheral to central and second that in some ways, a dearth of resources makes us even more creative and focused on responding to real needs. That said, I'm still interested in hearing more about what people thing it means to move conversation about the social, environmental, and financial health, sustainability and prosperity of our institutions and communities to the center of the economic conversation. I want to hear more about what people view as the role for government and where they see the proper place of mega corporations. With dozens of panels, there will hopefully be a lot more time for this. It's also interesting to note that Dr. Paul Farmer's loyal admonishment of the field to recognize the dangers of its own orthodoxy and to sometimes understand its work in terms of access to human rights (as opposed to new markets for commodities and services) seems to have seeped in. The theme for the event this year is "Shifting Power Dynamics." Some of this is about simply the changing structure of society, but it definitely seems as though there's also a conscious attempt to reject the temptation to have this event become simpy a social entrepreneurship booster club and instead facilitate the tough conversations that we all need to be successful. Of course the people I've met so far have been phenomenal. Innovation incubation in Estonia and Canada, base of the pyramid venture capital, social enteprise food products and a global movement for peace, and innovative nonprofit consulting and venture philanthropy are some of the types of work represented in only one quick day of conversations. The next few posts will have short interviews with a few of the folks here as well as some of the remarks from the opening session.

The Economist on Entrepreneurship

Rank this post The March 14, 2009 issue of the Economist has a special report on the role of entrepreneurship around the globe.  I had to chuckle about their seemingly new-found "discovery" of entrepreneurship. And while some of the information is rather dated, especially in their background piece ... Read the full post

Fighting terrorism with entrepreneurship

I recently got to know about a young Indian, Shahid Syed, who had done an interesting experiment in Mumbai involving female Muslim students. "I wanted to see if I can motivate Muslim youth to fall in love with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," he says. My interest was piqued and I wanted to know more about him. So, I sent him some questions. Through his answers, Shahid tells us his own story, his journey of struggle starting from a small town in UP to Mumbai and then to America. "I did odd jobs, even ran behind coal powered rail engines to collect raw coal pieces so that my mom could use them as cooking fuel," he says. "I even entertained the idea of plying the manual rickshaw outside Farrukhabad railway station as a number of youngsters were into it." Now with an MBA degree from an American University, Shahid is planning to do his own bit of service to his motherland. Among the many ideas that he has, the most interesting is about fighting terrorism with entrepreneurship. "When we can create fanatically dedicated Fidayeeen Saddam, Fidayeen 9/11 and Fidayeen 26/11, we can certainly create Fidayeen - i.e. intensely motivated - in Finance and Entrepreneurship," he says. Here is the interview: I read about your unusual entrepreneurship training project in a Mumbai college involving female Muslim students. What was it all about? How did the idea come to you? The idea came to me in an Entrepreneurship class here in my MBA program. That class had a profound effect on me. We were asked to submit a business plan and make presentations to a committee. It was a challenge but also a whole lot of fun. I enjoyed the experience and my confidence in starting a business on my own, found strength. And since 9/11, I had been looking for an opportunity in helping the demoralized Muslim youth, so this idea came as a blessing. I wanted to see if I can motivate Muslim youth to fall in love with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As per the Rajinder Sachar report, compared to Muslim males, Muslim females in India have a higher percentage of finishing graduation. The Muslim male dropout rate is higher and the reasons are manifold. One : The Muslim youth feels alienated and deprived of job opportunities upon graduation, and two, they want to start earning their way sooner than later. Somewhere along the line, they lose motivation to continue the efforts that a college degree demands. In contrast, the girls continue with the studies as they Ëwait' for a decent marriage proposal. They are assumed to have no talent that can be utilized for their own benefit and community. This also brings an imbalance as these girls later don't find a suitable match with equal education to marry within their circles. Do you think we can really fight "terrorism" with entrepreneurship? How? Absolutely! When we can create fanatically dedicated Fidayeeen Saddam, Fidayeen 9/11 and Fidayeen 26/11, we can certainly create Fidayeen - i.e. intensely motivated - in Finance and Entrepreneurship. I am sure the Muslim youngsters today are as brilliant as anywhere else. What is needed is a little guidance and the right resources - not just financially but even of motivation and encouragement. Entrepreneurship is all about application of creativity and generation of ideas. I want to create a group of youngsters who will allow their inner creativity and brilliance to shine through. I figured this when I made a fi“Doosra Kinara last year. The making of the film, more than the content of the film, to me, was a classical act of guerilla film making. I did everything to make sure my film gets made. I cajoled, pleaded, as I worked out solutions to my film making challenges. In this process I sought help across colors, nationalities and religious lines. People were gracious in helping, and more importantly, I ended up making some lifelong friends. In the diasporic world here in the US, there are some people who tend towards the extreme right wing of own religion, yet they joined me in making my dreams see the light of day. In the sheer interaction, we learned from each other about our - so similar! - insecurities, problems and root cause of hostilities. The point is, when these youngsters start their entrepreneurial journey they will too realize how they must interact with other people that are different from them. There is no way an entrepreneur is going to grow, if he is going to cater to his tribe only. They will learn to develop tolerance and appreciation for other people's point of view, as much as appreciating the money that they will earn with their own efforts. I want them to fall in love with life, their community, their city, state, country and the world. Did your own life so far taught you how Muslims in a country like India can come out of their pathetic socio-economic conditions? I was 12 when my father passed away in Farrukhabad, a small town in UP. That resulted in me dropping out of school and looking for ways to support my mother in running the house. I did odd jobs, even ran behind coal powered rail engines to collect raw (un-burnt) pieces so that my mom could use them as cooking fuel. I sold kites from my home. When I attracted enough customers I started, making my own manjha (sort of an abrasive), that I called Shahid bhai's manjha (now I think of it as backward integration!). I even entertained the idea of plying the manual rickshaw outside Farrukhabad railway station as a number of youngsters were into it. My mom sent me to Mumbai to be with a relative to further my education. There again in Mumbai, I did odd jobs - fetching chai to supervising a construction site during SSC. Looking back I don't think I did that badly..Of course there is more to the story afterwards, but the bottom line is you dream and it will be given. Nature, Allah, God is kind to hard working good people, and this is my firm belief. There is always a road that springs up from somewhere if you have the right intention. In Urdu it goes this way : “Neeyat saabit manzil aasan In the years of my growing up in India, I was witness - as everyone else - to a regular diet of Meerut, Bhiwandi, Mandal and anti-Sikh pogroms. Corruption ruled, and here, I was a mere small time jebroni, almost as if I had no role in deciding the future course of my life and the nation. My journey to the US must have begun long before I actually landed here. I recall that when I was in my final year of engineering, I wrote a short story in which the hero of the story declares “ I am either going to change the System or get out of India. At that point of time, I chose to get out of India. After completing my Masters in Civil Engineering, at Atlanta, Georgia, I did go back to India. This was 1992, and this was when my country welcomed me with the images of some folks dancing on the top of an abandoned 500 year old masjid and the later dance of evil that followed in my city. Somewhere along the line, I came back here to the US, but with my heart stayed with the need to do something for the youngsters back in India, who could not avail of a better life. Worse, who believed a better life was not possible… What are your future plans? How do you want to apply your ideas of social entrepreneurship in India? Ideally, I would want to create entrepreneurs in India irrespective of caste, creed, religion and state of origin. However I do want to focus on a certain socioeconomic strata of our society that has been left behind. I see a lot of parallels between majority of Muslims in India and the blacks in America. In jail, there are more of them by sheer percentage, they have higher levels of illiteracy, are frustrated and prone to entertaining violent thoughts. India is about to enter the elite club of developed nations and we cannot afford to leave a part of our population behind. We must offer an equal opportunity to our youth to excel in whatever area they chose. We need to provide them all the tools and training necessary and then surely they can show us what they are made up of. I will be conducting the same process again in a few months. Preparations are on to take the next steps of “Threshold India. The idea is to spread this at the grassroots, across cities with more involvement and the seeking of long term winning ideas. We plan to offer micro credit loans to those who would want to take forward their ideas in the real world. As well as tacit support in these endeavors. Anything else you want to add? The world today is at a threshold. In this last decade, we have seen planes flown with the intent of harming innocent civilians, we have seen wars conducted in order to kill a perceived enemy and Ëcleanse the world'. Within nations, we have seen men and women killed by state controlled police and militia. It's about time we turn the page and offer history a chance to write some good stories: stories of hope, redemption and courage. It's about time we offer stories that inspire the next generation so that they can set their eyes to new horizons. Fortunately, there are some great brains in the business that are supporting me in this endeavor. These are the people who show up in Mohallahs without a trace of hesitation, an area they would not have visited if it was not for this cause. And they are entrepreneurs/writers of repute like Piyul Mukherjee, Pia Verbic and Rashmi Bansal. Their continuous support and guidance is helping "Threshold India" sprint towards its goal with a lightning speed. I invite you all to come and join me. Provide me with your support and your ideas, so that we can together serve the cause of creating a culture of entrepreneurship among our nextgen. After all, at the end of the day, we all have just one designation on this planet. And that is being human.

Presenting @ Mason Entrepreneurship Research Conference 3/27

Friday, March 27, 2009, is the Mason Entrepreneurship Research Conference. presented a few years back on Social Capital and Business Plan Contests and will be presenting this week on The Frontier in US History, The Modern Campus, and Entrepreneurship. Tim Berry is the key note speaker. Here is some background on the conference and its mission. Interestingly, it is a joint venture between the School of Public Policy and the School of Management.