WHO IS THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MAN? By Edwin A. Ngeri

‘’And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God’’--- Romans 12: 2 KJV

‘’The ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do’’--- Steve Jobs, 1955—2011.

We may not all reach an agreement; we may disagree on whether knowledge is/ can be objective; we can also embrace different positions on whether knowledge and performance come ready with man, or  teachable and learnable. Philosophy professors may use the entire time for which we will all live on earth and mars (when Elon succeeds) to make all the arguments.  The daily growing crop of miracle-making pastors in Africa may ask us to take the Holy Bible in our hands while looking north, and tarry for God’s time. To shorten the duration of our wait-time we may be asked to come to their auto-solution-centres, with bottles of olive oils, water, fruits of various kinds and sumptuous offerings to facilitate the arrival of our breakthrough moments.

Philosophy professors, and African miracle-making pastors alike all make use of goods and services to make their daily lives better liveable----goods and services that were not made or provided, mostly, by human beings who could write lengthy literature reviews, neither were they made and provided by those who had whatever oil poured on their heads, nor by those who ate the choicest of fruits. I do not know that the late Steve Jobs was taught innovation by the globally- renowned Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School or possibly that Apple Inc became the world’s most valuable company because its employees daily fed on apples. I, also, have not read from any source (and I may be wrong) that Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg all had their heads ‘’anointed’’ by Billy Graham and/or Oral Roberts. It is even doubtful that this trio made sumptuous ‘’offerings’’ to Mike Murdock, America’s foremost prosperity preacher.

Finally, the popular IVF-solutions to the problem of infertility have not come to be because Robert Edwards (the father of IVF and Nobel laureate) suddenly discovered the sweetness and potency of fruits. Human progress, with respect to the making and provision of goods and services for continued better liveliness, as with all other aspects of human endeavour, historically has been championed by a few humans broadly classified as the entrepreneurial types. Who, then, is the entrepreneurial man? Here, I will try to provide a set of characterisations drawn from the mental frames and practices of some of the world’s top performers since the mantra of EdwinsThink  is super performance. I believe that super performance can be obtained even at a lower level, but mediocrity can never translate to super performance.

1. An Understanding of Creation: the entrepreneurial man is one who, primarily, understands that s/he was created to be able to recreate and to continue the process of creation. S/he finds out the areas of personal best-fits and daily iterate on them. This s/he defines as the essence and purpose of life. Creating, to him/her means bringing something desirably new into existence. Extant constraints only come to sharpen this ’man’s creation-thinking, and not sufficient to stop him/her. S/he is contrarian, as to look at things anew and differently. Peter Thiel, a cofounder and CEO of PayPal, and a Silicon Valley big name would have us believe that he’s  ‘’wired’’ to look at things from the opposite direction. It is equally been expressed that his success so far can be attributed to this contrarian personality.
2. An Agent  of Change: the entrepreneurial man does not just bring something desirably new into existence for the heck of it, but with the purpose of either getting a pre-existing thing to be better than previously or to completely replace the old with a significantly better ‘’new’’ i.e. to ‘’disrupt’’. S/he is diligent, assuming an unbeatable sense of focus, concentration, and responsibility. The desire to create something new and better compels him/her to be responsible, and not some external factor outside of himself/herself. According to Forbes, the Swedish founder of Spotify once said of Sean Parker, ‘’He thinks about where he perceives the world to be going. If he doesn’t think there’s a company that will win, then he builds it himself’’
3. A Visionary: the very act of creating anything new is always preceded by the creator’s perception not only of what the newly ‘’created’’ would look like, but also of what it would come to do in and to the human space. The entrepreneurial man, therefore, primarily creates a mental image of a distant future, and practically ‘’faiths’’ that to happen by early development of some prototype, and continued iteration. Elon Musk’s newest project, Neuralink, which aims to link the human brain with computers, is contemplated now to enhance man’s productive capabilities in the future of a world dominated by artificial intelligence (AI). The visionary essence of the entrepreneurial man, in business, is not defined by the correctness of future profitability calculations but by his/her ability to drive the vision. How this vision is driven is what may bring about its profitability or otherwise.
4. A Passionate Workaholic: passion is what holds the entrepreneurial man down better and above other things. S/he is passionate over what is to be created, and the required work that will bring about the creation. The entrepreneurial man is not necessarily an adept at ‘time management’’ and the host of management science concepts like planning and strategy. The degree of personal love for what is to be created, and the work to be done is what fuels success. According to Elon Musk, it is working ‘’super hard’’. Facebook’s cofounder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, sometime said, ‘’if you just work on stuff that you like and you’re passionate about, you don’t have to have a master plan with how things will play out’’.
5. Unending Pursuit of Excellence: the writers of the Holy Bible penned down in Colossians 3:23(KJV), ‘’And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men’’. This seems to be the creed for the entrepreneurial man, irrespective of personal religious affiliation. As a creator s/he aspires not only to continue iterating on a particular product or service so as to make it significantly better, but also to positively impact an ever increasing number of users or beneficiaries of his/her creative enterprise. The entrepreneurial man is not necessarily limited by geography, race, and/or politics; s/he looks at the world in terms of human beings whose lot can be bettered. Sergey Brin, Google’s (now Alphabet) cofounder and Alphabet’s President said of his creative pursuits, ‘’Obviously everyone wants to be successful but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical, and ultimately making a big difference in the world’’.

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