Our Story
Chapter One:
THE entrepreneurial spirit
Chapter Two:
THE proper aim
Chapter Three:
enterprise development
Chapter Four:
Creative Research
Chapter One:
entrepreneurial spirit
One entrepreneur described the entrepreneurial spirit as "Whatever is the common force within Henry Ford, Leonardo Da Vinci, the owner of your favorite family restaurant, and a kid running a lemonade stand on a hot summers day."
The entrepreneur who said that once was one of those kids with a lemonade stand (except it was Canada, so it was shoveling snow instead).
Like all entrepreneurs his story involved;
-learning to grapple with immense AMBITION to amplify its benefits and protect against its risks.
-constantly exercising CREATIVITY to solve valuable problems and innovate new ideas.
-a great vault of COURAGE properly earned by getting well acquainted with fear and failure.
-failure after failure, after failure which hardened the thick-skinned RESILIENCE to endure it all.
-late nights and early mornings in front of the mirror or with a pen committed to full AUTHENTICITY.
-fighting the battle for BELIEF in the greater purpose of the enterprise.
-holding a clear, definite vision in mind as the gas pedal of TENACITY.
-learning ADAPTABILITY by jumping off a cliff and building an airplane on the way down.
-learning that developing the most valuable long-term relationships takes both FAIRNESS and TRUST.
-the universal main ingredient of success: Genuine, playful and competitive PASSION.
Life changed when he realized his greatest passion was, and always has been, the entrepreneurial spirit.
Chapter Two:
The Proper Aim
Every entrepreneur is on the same journey but taking different roads. Without a proper aim, like anyone, they can get lost. So what consititutes the righ thing to aim at? The entrepreneur of our story found it easiest to start with the wrong aims and what they look like when an enterprise is aimed that way.
THE COMPANIES WE DON'T RESPECT "ALL TALK, NO WALK";
These businesses are all talk and aiming at the wrong thing. They have long lists of "Values" like "Integrity" but do not define what they are keeping the integrity of. They write lists of "Leadership Principles" that sound well thought out but neglect cultivating the actual spirit of their employees. They speak an admirable Mission Statement but aim at profit alone. They promote the managers who hold us back, mistreat our friends, families and parents both as staff and customers. We mistrust companies that cave on their identity to appease public opinion pressure. They fire those they should have protected and protect those they should have fired.
If this is the result of entrepreneurship losing its way, what is the opposite?
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL BUSINESSES WE ADMIRE "SHOW DON'T TELL";
The greatest virtues are not communicated to us on a website, they are SHOWN to us by the consistency of admirable actions taken by all people in an organization.
You are happy to drive the extra mile to your favorite restaurant, grateful for the feeling of tipping your favorite barber, and do not need to be asked to write a five-star review for the mechanic that you TRUST to help your aging grandparents by themselves.
The businesses we admire are run by admirable people, who are PASSIONATE and fully bought in to the purpose of their enterprise to do good in their communities and refuse to compromise on their principles in the process. To the staff the integrity of the whole enterprise is as important as their own - and it shows.
Chapter Three:
Enterprise development
Chapter Two to illustrated the importance of passion, purpose, and principles in business and in true entrepreneurial fashion, an enterprise was created around it.
It turns out, if you develop a technique to extract the most admirable principles from an entrepreneur define their ultimate purpose, their passion re-ignites and they thrive as leaders. Then, if you do the same for all their employees, teach their leaders to align all those aims into a single vision of success, build a culture around becoming an admirable enterprise and show exactly how each person can make a difference - the whole enterprise thrives.
The one word this results in is something equally desired by the biggest C.E.O's and the greenest employees at their first job - LEGACY.
Chapter Four:
Creative Research
After great success earned in the enterprise, two circumstances arose that required a creative solution to reveal the valuable opportunity to be seized.
CIRCUMSTANCE ONE: THE SOCIAL IMPACT DEMAND
As part of the early days of developing the interview technique, dozens of interviews were done at no cost to entrepreneurs who requested their friends and family to be interviewed as well. The impact on non-entrepreneurs was significant it was made a standard practice to continue the free offering to students, job seekers and the friends and family of entrepreneur clients as a purely social-benefit initiative, one that all team members regard as one of the most personally rewarding things they have done. As time went on the demand outgrew the capacity to provide the service for free to those who could benefit the most - the business model needed to change to accomodate the social-benefit demand.
This circumstance raised the first question: "How could we find a way to provide the interview service to the public for free and still generate value for the enterprise?"
CIRCUMSTANCE TWO: PATTERNS OF PRINCIPLES EMERGED
After articulating an impressive amount of admirable principles, patterns emerged. Principles seemed to be grouped into certain categories that resembled recognizable virtues like COURAGE or TENACITY or COMPASSION. Another interesting pattern was that multiple people in different cities unrelated to one another had identicle principles, and all of those principles were of higher importance than others in their respective organizations.
This circumstance raised the second question: "If we had a larger sample size, what would be the most common, fundamental principles of each virtue?"
THE ANSWER TO BOTH QUESTIONS:
The solution was perfect for the enterprise - it had a benefit to society that was exclusive of the for-profit business model. It created commercial value for the enterprise. It created job opportunities. It added positive discourse to social media. It provides valuable skills training in a volunteer opportunity for people looking for a rewarding and positive experience, seeking to serve a purpose. However there was a catch: If the enterprise advertised its connection front and center to the research project, it could be seen as a publicity stunt to draw eyes and clicks through to the company page. The decision was made based on principle to not mention or link towards the enterprise directly in what is a genuine attempt to maintain the integrity of the enterprise.