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Intrapreneurship skills: Enabling a better class of entrepreneurship

The day before yesterday I wrote: My year of intrapreneurship: Enabling a better class of entrepreneurship. Following on from that post, I've been exploring the skills & habits I need to cultivate now to make me a better entrepreneur, plus why & how.

I hope you find this study insightful and useful. Do let me know your thoughts. Any skills I've missed?

Skills to cultivate:

  1. Student frugality
  2. Self-motivation
  3. Inner strength

Student frugality

Why?

  • I'll still be poor when I finish studying and start entrepreneurship full-time.
  • I need to raise capital and the best way to save money is not to spend it in the first place.
  • Money-management is an excellent life skill to have and will prevent me frittering away my millions when I make them.

How?

Hmm, good question. I tend to scrimp and then blow it all, usually in an emotionally-motivated shopping spree. So, cultivating better mental health would help enormously.

I'm subscribed to some excellent money blogs too, so I should definitely take their advice instead of just reading. See Get Rich Slowly & Art of Money for some tips.

Self-motivation

Why?

At the end of the day, you only have yourself and I only have myself. Sure, we both have lots of friends and colleagues who provide support and advice, but only you will put the wheels in motion.

Being a self-starter means you can conquer whatever obstacles stand in your way when things are tough. It means procrastination becomes a thing of the past. It means you turn in to Action Wo/Man.

How?

Sometimes I bully myself in to it. When that doesn't work, I try going over the reasons why whatever I need to do is a good idea and reminding myself that ultimately I'm choosing to do it.

Really, the only way to do it, is just to do it.

Inner strength

Why?

It's related to my earlier point about the necessity for better mental health. When you're a strong person, you become more resilient; it's much harder for other people and things to hold you back. See Don't Take It Personally! by Elayne Savage for more about resilience.

How?

I'm starting to see a link between mental health and physical health. I know that when I go walking or dancing I feel more alive and there are scientific studies floating around that support what people keep saying: Exercise is good for you and makes you feel better.

I could really do with some help on any and all of these. Please do let me know your suggestions: Just leave a comment or email me. Thanks!

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Posted on 3 December '06 by Kathleen Bright, under Entrepreneurship.

One Comment to “Intrapreneurship skills: Enabling a better class of entrepreneurship”

#1 Posted by IanW (04.12.06 at 20:56 )

Regarding frugality:

When I first started to manage my own money after years of having it managed for me, I discovered that I immediately started to spend a lot more than I had coming in. As a result, I kept having to 'juggle' bill payments about, and life was bad.

What helped me a lot, was keeping a complete record of everything I spent. I used to think that it didn't matter if I spent 18p on a packet of crisps, but I quickly found that it did matter over the course of a month.
The reason it helped was because it demonstrated to me that I was overspending on snack food; that was where my largest non-fixed payment went. That's not the answer of course, just identifying the problem. I then had to figure out how to stop that overspending, which involved working out menus or at least lists of ingredients, and only allowing myself to buy things that were on the lists.

Regarding self-motivation:

You're absolutely right; you are the only one that can do it. Having incentives, as you've mentioned before, is good, but ultimately it's not going to get things done. This is far and away the hardest thing in the world to do, and few people manage to do it, but it's a great feeling when you do!

Regarding inner strength:

Again, you're totally correct, it's a great thing to realise this when you're still so young and can really take advantage of it.

When I go to the archery range or fencing salle, or when I used to go to a martial arts dojo, it would always give me a boost of physical and mental power. I badly need to go back to these places, I've left it too long.

I'm one of those people that can't just exercise for it's own sake; I need to have a purpose, so archery or fencing or martial arts is an end in itself to me, and that helps motivate me to go do it. I wish I weren't that way, it would be so much easier just to go to a gym, but there you go.

Dancing is a superb physical activity, by the way; I always remember my last sensei telling me that dancers make superb martial artists because not only are they so generally fit, but also because they have developed a lot of flexibility in their bodies. This also helps in all kinds of other areas, which can also be very beneficial to you.

Ian