I visited a farm where two large tigers are kept in a huge cage. They are free to pace up and down their enclosure but that’s where their freedom ends. They are trapped. They can’t get out.
How free are you? Are you like the tiger trapped in a cage? Even though you know you are free are come is it that you still feel trapped?
An election recently took place. People were free to choose who they wanted and what they want to see. Yes, certain economic freedoms have been taken away overall but entrepreneur is still free to create new possibilities.
We can still be grateful for a number of freedoms which we may take for granted:
– free to choose the business you want to do
– free to operate where you want to
– free to express yourself and the solutions you have to offer
– free to engage others to help launch new initiatives
– free to associate with who you want
– free to make money
– free to make a difference
Yet often even though we have freedom of movement, association and expression are we not sometimes trapped by our own limitations.
Yesterday while driving past a BP petrol service station near Dunkeld in Johannesburg I saw a large blackboard chalked with the following saying: “Don’t limit your challenges, challenge your limits”.
When you get right down to it, you’ll find that we have many personal freedoms that we take for granted:
– free to be yourself
– free to create and problem solve
– free to build your personal network
– free to learn new skills
– free to experience new things
– free to reach your goals
By coming up with an idea for a viable product or service you may have the freedom to choose the way that you make your income. But this depends on your freedom to decide how much risk you want to take and even how much risk you want to give to others such as coming up with a viable idea and getting a licensing company, for example, to do the manufacturing, marketing and provide investment and personnel. Or you could choose to do it yourself and develop a system that helps you to mitigate against or reduce risk.
As an entrepreneur, you have greater freedom by by creating and supplying the highest possible value you can to your potential customers. It’s a basic condition that products and services will only be viable if they create value for other people. Any other form of institution or organisation may reduce or eliminate value but for the entrepreneur without value he or she cannot exist. The value you create – together with others – can make you money and it can also make a difference.
