Love to Learn

Entrepreneurs, and I know this from experience, are blinkered individuals. They have one focus only – and that is their own business. When you ask an entrepreneur what time it is – you will get an answer that my or may not contain the time but more likely then not include a description of why you should buy, lease or rent or at least look at his or her product. And if they are convincing, you actually will, before realizing that you only wanted to know what time it was.
That is the nature of an Entrepreneur – we are completely consumed by what we feel we have to create in life. I am sure that if you put 100 Entrepreneurs in a room, they would all have an answer to the question “what is the purpose of Life” – namely – they are here on this earth to create and shape and make a success ofl their businesses.

Of course this is a great thing – it makes for interesting albeit strange conversations. But there is a danger to it as well which I think entrepreneurs tend to overlook. When you wake up in the morning and you immediately launch into all the things you have to do – you cannot have spent any time thinking about what you need in terms of skills or knowledge to achieve your ultimate goals. And whilst I am a strong believer that you will gain knowledge along the way, usually when you need it most, I also think it is good to know your weaker areas before you set out on the journey.

When I started my career – I was a secretary in a bank. No more, no less. I knew that I wanted to understand finance as a general subject, and I also had a thing for technology. Of course I didn’t know how my life would unfold at that (very very young) stage, but I knew that certain skills would help me make the most of it and prepare me well. So I learnt everything I could about finance, and financial analysis and I set about teaching myself to work with spreadsheets (I won’t even tell you this was even pre-Microsoft, that would be giving my age away!!!) and word processing etc. I was right – and it has led me an a very interesting path culminating in being the CTO of this amazing company we are running now – E.Factor  - where I can apply all I have learnt in the past and continue to learn every single day.

Knowledge these days is almost like a dirty word – many people I meet believe that you can gain the knowledge you need, when you need it by looking it up on Google, or finding the definition and details in Wikipedia. Believe me, I am all for these great tools, but it doesn’t teach you a skill – it doesn’t give your mind the time to acquire and become good at doing something semi-consciously and in times of crises that is exactly what you will need to rely on. Making decisions quickly, efficiently and correctly is a matter of having understood at a deep level what other options you might have available.  And applying them at the right time.

I strongly urge any entrepreneur out there to look at his or her own skill sets with crystal clarity and understand what they DON’T know. Then use all the help you can get, from expert coaches on E.Factor to classes at local colleges to fill in those gaps whenever you get a chance. As an entrepreneur, if you apply the same passion you have for your business to learning – you will reap the benefits a thousandfold.

Let me know if you agree or disagree- and ofcourse, if I can help you with anything else, you only need to ask.

Marion
marion@efactor.com
 

1 Comments

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• Michael Swiskay | May 19, 2009 03:20 PM

  As I see it, there is a down side to all data and information needed being electronically and readily retrivable through Googles, Wilkepedias, of this world. It engenders a lazy mind. A lazy mind inhibits creative thought, an agile mind and innovation of true depth. These are certainly key assets of the entrepreneur. So much of decision making is based upon the superficial and the immediate.
  The ability to process what is often disparate knowledge into a cohesive and productive cranial (for lack of a better word) 'byte' is a function of what you refer to as the 'love to learn'.
  
  The detriment of fully relying on external reference sources for all of one's informational resources can often manifest in a detrimental fashion, ie: the current financial collapse. All these exceptionally well trained minds accessed narrow elements of knowledge they required to structure the arcane alphabet soup that, in the short term, appeared to mitigate risk. If a wider, better informed view of what was being done was undertaken by those doing it (considering the longer term impact of budling all these rickety mortgages together then passing on the realistically unmitigated risk to the next over-leveraged financial institution) would the foundations of the banking system detiorate to the point of near collapse?

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