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Entrepreneurship: Be your own Master
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Entrepreneurship: Be your own Master
By Dr. Genesis A. Dawuda
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at the Youth Week of CYON Anunciation,
Church of Anunciation, Angwan Miango, No. 4 Akwanga Rd. Tudun Wada, Jos
risk-taking businessperson: somebody who initiates or finances new commercial enterprises
[Late 19th century. < French, "somebody who undertakes" < entreprendre (see enterprise)] This definition came in handy long before it was accepted as a rule in the business market. It literally meant an undertaker; someone who makes profit by burying the dead. He undertakes.
-en·tre·pre·neu·ri·al, adjectivebusiness, commercial, risk-taking, empire-building, tactical, innovative, groundbreaking
-en·tre·pre·neur·i·al·ism, noun
-en·tre·pre·neur·ism, noun
-en·tre·pre·neur·ship, noun
Thesaurus:
businessperson, tycoon, magnate, impresario, industrialist, financier
Entrepreneur, one who assumes the responsibility and the risk for a business operation with the expectation of making a profit. The entrepreneur generally decides on the product, acquires the facilities, and brings together the labor force, capital, and production materials. If the business succeeds, the entrepreneur reaps the reward of profits; if it fails, he or she takes the loss.
In his writings, the Austrian-American economist Joseph A. Schumpeter stressed the role of the entrepreneur as an innovator, the person who develops a new product, a new market, or a new means of production. One important example was Henry Ford. In the industrialized economies of the late 20th century, giant corporations and conglomerates have largely replaced the individual owner-operator. There is still a place for the entrepreneur, however, in small businesses as well as in the developing economies of the Third World nations.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Any one who does not make profit is rather running a charity if you find yourself making profit while you think you are running charity you are actually an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurs that have made remarkable impact
Steve Ballmer, born in 1956, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Microsoft Corporation and one of the richest men in the United States. Ballmer became Microsoft’s CEO in 2000 and subsequently led the company’s reorganization into seven semiautonomous business units that each disclose revenues and expenses.
Steven A. Ballmer grew up in the Detroit, Michigan, area where his father was a manager for the Ford Motor Company. He lived for many years in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills and attended the Detroit Country Day School, a prestigious prep school, on a scholarship. Excelling in mathematics, he won a scholarship to attend Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he met and became friends with Bill Gates, the cofounder of Microsoft.
After graduating from Harvard with a B.A. in mathematics and economics, Ballmer went to work for Procter & Gamble Company as an assistant product manager. Two years later he enrolled in Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in Stanford, California. While Ballmer was attending Stanford in 1980, Gates urged him to join Microsoft, which was then a fledgling software company based in Bellevue, Washington. Ballmer accepted the offer and became the company’s first business manager.
Ballmer headed several divisions during his tenure at Microsoft, including the worldwide sales force division. In 1998 Gates promoted Ballmer from executive vice-president to president, a position that gave him day-to-day responsibility for running the company. His elevation to CEO, a position formerly held by Gates, gave Ballmer overall management responsibility for the company, while Gates remained chairman and took the new title of chief software architect to focus on software innovations.
Ballmer is known for his passionate enthusiasm for Microsoft. He once injured his vocal cords while delivering a motivational speech for employees. Ballmer is also believed to be the first person to become a billionaire as an employee of a company rather than as a founder of an enterprise.
(Microsoft is the publisher of Encarta Encyclopedia.)
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved
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Bill Gates:
Bill Gates, born in 1955, American business executive, who serves as chairman of Microsoft Corporation, the leading computer software company in the United States. Gates cofounded Microsoft in 1975 with high school friend Paul Allen. The company’s success made Gates one of the most influential figures in the computer industry and, eventually, one of the richest people in the world.
(Microsoft is the publisher of Encarta Encyclopedia.)
Born in Seattle, Washington, William Henry Gates III attended public school through the sixth grade. In the seventh grade he entered Seattle’s exclusive Lakeside School, where he met Allen. Gates was first introduced to computers and programming languages in 1968, when he was in the eighth grade. That year Lakeside bought a teletype machine that connected to a mainframe computer over phone lines. At the time, the school was one of the few that provided students with access to a computer.
Soon afterward, Gates, Allen, and other students convinced a local computer company to give them free access to its PDP-10, a new minicomputer made by Digital Equipment Corporation. In exchange for the computer time, the students tried to find flaws in the system. Gates spent much of his free time on the PDP-10 learning programming languages such as BASIC, Fortran, and LISP. In 1972 Gates and Allen founded Traf-O-Data, a company that designed and built computerized car-counting machines for traffic analysis. The project introduced them to the programmable 8008 microprocessor from Intel Corporation.
While attending Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1975, Gates teamed with Allen to develop a version of the BASIC programming language for the Altair 8800, the first personal computer. They licensed the software to the manufacturer of the Altair, Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), and formed Microsoft (originally Micro-soft) to develop versions of BASIC for other computer companies. Gates decided to drop out of Harvard in his junior year to devote his time to Microsoft. In 1980 Microsoft closed a pivotal deal with International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) to provide the operating system for the IBM PC personal computer. As part of the deal, Microsoft retained the right to license the operating system to other companies.
The success of the IBM PC made the operating system, MS-DOS, an industry standard. Microsoft’s revenues skyrocketed as other computer makers licensed MS-DOS and demand for personal computers surged. In 1986 Microsoft offered its stock to the public; by 1987 rapid appreciation of the stock had made Gates, 31, the youngest ever self-made billionaire. In the 1990s, as Microsoft’s Windows operating system and Office application software achieved worldwide market dominance, Gates amassed a fortune worth tens of billions of dollars. Alongside his successes, however, Gates was accused of using his company’s power to stifle competition. In 2000 a federal judge found Microsoft guilty of violating antitrust laws and ordered it split into two companies. An appeals court overturned the breakup order in 2001 but upheld the judge's ruling that Microsoft had abused its power to protect its Windows monopoly. In November 2001 Microsoft reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department and nine states, and a year later, the settlement was upheld by a federal district court judge. (For more information on the history of Microsoft, see Microsoft Corporation.)
Gates has made personal investments in other high-technology companies. He sits on the board of one biotechnology company and has invested in a number of others. In 1989 he founded Corbis Corporation, which now owns the largest collection of digital images in the world.
In the late 1990s Gates became more involved in philanthropy. With his wife he established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which, ranked by assets, quickly became the largest foundation in the world. Gates has also authored two books: The Road Ahead (1995; revised, 1996), which details his vision of technology’s role in society, and Business @ the Speed of Thought (1999), which discusses the role technology can play in running a business.
In 1998 Gates appointed an executive vice president of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, to the position of president, but Gates continued to serve as Microsoft’s chairman and chief executive officer (CEO). In 2000 Gates transferred the title of CEO to Ballmer. While remaining chairman, Gates also took on the title of chief software architect to focus on the development of new products and technologies.
In June 2006 Gates announced that he would begin transitioning from a full-time role at Microsoft to a full-time role at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He relinquished his title of chief software architect to Ray Ozzie, a veteran leader in computer technology and creator of Lotus Notes. Gates planned to remain chairman of Microsoft and to continue as its largest shareholder, but he said that by July 2008 he would have only a part-time role at the company he cofounded.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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Keith Cameron Smith:
Want to get to the top financially? Take advice from those who are already there.
Name: Keith Cameron Smith
Hometown: Ormond Beach, Fla.
Education: Calvary Christian Academy, Ormond Beach, Fla.
Career highlights:
Author of the national best-seller, "The Spiritual Millionaire" and "The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class"
Entrepreneur and self-made millionaire at age 33
Hosted "Flames of Truth," a motivational radio program, for five years
Hosts seminars and teaches success principles to individuals, churches and companies across America
Financial guru Keith Cameron Smith, author of the best-selling "The Spiritual Millionaire" and himself a self-made millionaire at age 33, invested $100,000 and two years of his life to meet face-to-face with some of the world's wealthiest people to learn what makes them tick.
Overwhelmed by the life lessons they imparted, Smith holed himself up in a North Carolina cabin and, in one week, distilled their wisdom into a 100-page crib note for successful thinking, "The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class."
Some of the distinctions are commonsensical (millionaires think long-term, the middle class, short-term; millionaires take risks, the middle class avoids risk). Others are quite illuminating (millionaires ask themselves empowering questions, the middle class ask themselves disempowering questions; millionaires learn and grow, the middle class, not so much).
Smith, who became independently wealthy with a string of furniture stores in his hometown of Ormond Beach, Fla., continues to seek opportunities in networking and real estate as he travels the country teaching financial success principles to individuals and companies.
As part of our Financial Literacy tuneup, Smith shares with Bankrate his insights into how to think like a millionaire.
You were not born wealthy.
(Laughs) Oh no. I grew up on the lower end of the middle class. My dad never made more than $25,000 a year. He sold auto parts to different garages. He had different routes to a couple of different towns around Florida.
Did you attend college?
I went to college for two weeks and said that's not for me. I'm on the list of millionaires that just did it in the real world and didn't go to school. School is phenomenal for some people. Some people absolutely need to go to school as part of their purpose. But some people don't need to go to school. They don't need to get a good job so the government or your corporation can take care of you, because as we know, that formula doesn't work anymore.
When you go through failures like I have and like other millionaires have, you learn something on an emotional level that you cannot learn when you go to college. When you get intellectual knowledge from a book or a lecture, it's not the same as investing money in something and then seeing all that money disappear. When you learn something on an emotional level, that is what really starts making you stronger.
Your original goal was to be a golf pro, right? What happened?
I had an apprentice position at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach when they first got started. I helped them get their pro shop up and running and I had my handicap down to about a four and I thought for sure I was going to pursue golf as a career. I took the PAT, the player's ability test, a couple of times; that's where you have to play a couple of rounds and shoot like 150 between two rounds of golf. And I could never do it; my nerves just couldn't handle it. But that was one of the turning points in my life. I sat down with the pro there at the time and asked how long it was going to be before I could really start making good money. I was making $20,000 a year as an apprentice. He said, "I'm going to be honest with you, it's going to be at least five or six years before you can move up." And I said no way, I'm not going to sit here and make $20,000 a year for five or six years.
How did you lift yourself out of the middle class?
Education. I started learning, but it wasn't education in the school system. It was education from my real-world experience as an entrepreneur and taking risks and having some good successes and some failures, too. Those are always tough when you go through them, but I honestly can say, thank God for those, too. Because those are the situations I really learned the most from, so I had some new knowledge to apply on the next endeavor.
Your book seems to strip down dozens of motivational books to their essence.
What I tried to do in my book was to stay away from specific areas like real estate or stocks or small businesses and instead encourage people to pursue their own passion to create wealth. What would they love to do to wake up and make money every morning? That's the key to it. By far, one of the biggest things I learned talking to all these millionaires was they really enjoyed whatever they were doing.
You maintain that the wealthy expect different things from money than the rest of us. How so?
The very poor and the poor are stuck in survival mode; they just want to survive. The primary goal of middle-class people is comfort; I just want to have enough; I just want to be comfortable. When you get into the rich and the very rich, their primary goal is freedom; I'm going to do whatever it takes to experience freedom. That's the biggest difference. It's OK to have a plan for survival, it's OK to have a plan for comfort, but just make sure that most of your mental energy is focused on freedom. Then you'll start experientially understanding the old saying, "Seek and you will find." If you seek to survive, you will. If you seek to be comfortable, you will be. But if you seek freedom, you will find it. It just takes longer to create freedom in your life than it does to create survival. Does it take longer to grow a weed or an oak tree? Financial freedom is like an oak tree, where survival or comfort is like growing a weed or a little bush; it doesn't take too long.
Do you remember when you turned the corner and began to think like a rich man?
Yeah, I do. I can remember banging my head against the inside of an elevator. I had just worked 11 hours at a golf course as an assistant pro and I was going to work at a high-dollar restaurant that night from 7 until midnight, and I was banging my head against the elevator, thinking, "God, there's got to be an easier way to make money than this." Shortly after that, I decided I was done working for somebody else. I was going to learn how to earn profits. That has made all the difference. From the age of 15 to 25, I worked for wages. At 25, I started working for profits, and at 33, I became a millionaire for the first time.
Some people reject the idea of wealth, "It's lonely at the top" and so forth. What do you say to them?
A lot of people are still stuck in the comfort mode, they just want to have enough, and they think if they pursue all that money, they'll lose their family; they'll lose their health. That's not me at all. God, family and finances are my priorities. I never wanted to be somebody that went after financial freedom and lost my health or lost my family. I refuse to go down that path. But I've known people that do that. They put money as such a high priority in life that they lose the things that matter most. But if you keep your priorities in order and focus on financial freedom, it's a wonderful world. I love people and I use things. There are some millionaires out there that love things and use people and that is definitely the wrong formula.
Do you manage your own money?
I did everything on my own, yes. I never went to a professional to handle my money for me. What I've come to find out is, while some of those guys are great, a lot of those guys just put on a front; they're making $50,000 a year and they're trying to tell someone who is making a million dollars a year how to invest their money and they really don't know; they're just doing what they've been told to do. I'm not knocking anyone; if you're going to use one, make sure you find a good one who is doing very well financially themselves.
What do you see yourself doing 10 years from now?
There are some things we do for money that are only good for a certain season. That's why we have to keep our eyes open for new opportunities. I'm constantly polishing my portfolio and looking at different forms of income. I never got heavily involved in the stock market. I am still dabbling in real estate but nothing real serious right now. I'm still a young entrepreneur. I still have a lot to learn. I haven't mastered all those principles; I'm still living them on a daily basis. When I focus on them, it seems like opportunities come my way and I make some better decisions. It's not just about the money, it's about the learning process.
Copyrighted, Bankrate.com. All rights reserved.
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20 Kinds of Investments you can embark upon to change your financial situation
1. Software Marketing: In the early 70s it was predicted that in the 21st century only two commodities will have high market value, i.e. Petroleum and Software. There is every possibility that the latter will be more relevant and marketable. Bill Gates
2. Computer Hardware Marketing
3. Website Development & Communication Development
4. Leverage: The assets you borrow to increase your operational base. Increase your financial power or advantage through the temporary usage of other assets either borrowed or loaned to increase effectiveness. 2Kings 4:3
5. Precious Metals: These can be bought and sold on the commodities market as well as the bullion market. E.g. iron, aluminum, copper, tin, columbite, gold.
6. Precious gems: Investing in rare delicate and precious stones e.g. diamond, pearls. The amount sold/traded in precious gems are restricted in order to keep the price high.
7. Collectors items: stamps, paintings and antiques, jewelries. The collection of rare items or works and subsequent sale when it appreciates. They are a potential source of capital gains and protection against inflation.
8. Savings account: Preferably I.S.A. (Individual Savings Account) it is flexible
9. Treasury Bills: A short term investment paid upon maturation of the bill. They are bought through a stockbroker or bank.
10. Money market funds: The money market is the market for short term loans in which money brokers arrange for loans between banks, the government, the discount houses, and the accepting houses, with the Central Bank acting as the lender of last resort. The main items of exchange are bills of exchange, treasury bills and trade bills.
11. Stocks and shares: Stocks are an equity investment. It is the ownership of shares or stocks in a company. The dividend received or loss experienced will be determined by the performance of the shares.
12. Bonds: An interest-bearing debt certificate issued either by a financial institution, government or companies.
13. Premium Bonds: A bond that is valued at more than its face value.
14. Commodities: Elements of economic wealth which can be bought or sold, either soft or hard commodities.
15. Mutual trust funds: A mutual fund is money committed to a portfolio manager who buys and sells stocks to make profit for you.
16. Real estate Investment is one of the areas where initial investment is not excessively large, yet with time it brings a high yield. People will always need somewhere to live. The majority of new families will start with rented places. The property market is susceptible to changes like others, but the formula for making it happen is same. Prices will always change, but there will always be bargains.
17. Buying houses at auctions.
a. Inspect before auction day if possible
b. Do not inherit tenants
c. Buy homes at the bottom end, most of them just need a simple face lift
d. A one bedroom flat is always ideal to quickly rent out
e. Make an offer before it is published
f. Look at the house from the point of view of the tenants; nearness to school, quietness, availability of transport facility, and basic residential utilities.
18. Personal Home Mortgage: In spite of a few challenging periods, real estate has proven to be one of the best investments.
19. General Business: Prov. 22:29 Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before Kings; he shall not stand before mean men.
20. Retirement Funds: Pensions fall under this category. By contributing to a pension scheme the employee’s contribution attracts tax relief at the maximum highest rate of income tax that they pay. The only limit is you and the maximum allowable by the Inland Revenue. You could also have an endowment policy.
Ways to Create Wealth in order to change your financial status
1) Ask: Ask God, Family, Friends and neighbours for job opportunities. Matt. 7:7a
2) Seek: Seek for Job opportunities Verse 7b
3) Knock: Knock on the doors of opportunity Verse 7c
4) Work: Hard Work does not Kill. 2 Thess. 3:11-12
5) Give or sow seeds I Cor. 16:2, II Cor. 9:8
6) Tithe Mal. 3:10-12; Lev. 27:30
7) Save: Prov. 6:6-11
8) Invest: Prov. 31: 16
9) Diversify: Eccl. 11:6
10) Invent: Ex. 31:2-5, Prov. 8:12
11) Serve: Gen. 29:15,21
12) Sell: Matt 13:44; Prov. 31:24
13) Inheritance: Prov. 13:22
14) Learn: Education helps; learning new marketing skills in order to be relevant
15) Negotiation: Prov. 14:8
Important money Quotes by Dale Carnegie
1. The producer is different from the rest of mankind. He faces an uphill effort, and has only his own self-confidence to rely upon.
2. The producer converts ideas into money.
3. The producer often finds opportunity specifically where the rest of society does not wish to tread. He chooses the business he feels will make the most money, and provides the product or service the consumers most want.
4. The producer is out to serve the consumer in order to meet a demand.
5. He looks for things consumers are willing to pay for.
6. The captains of business followed one simple rule- follow the line of profit. They were always vigilant and on the lookout for new profit possibilities. All that mattered was how to pull money out of a set of economic conditions.
7. Be always on the alert for an opportunity to make money.
8. If you do not take advantage of your assets you will not fail- you’ll simply disappear.
9. You must know what you are doing.
10. The only difference between a millionaire and a pauper is a little thinking.
11. All riches come from God through ideas.
12. The thinking producer harnesses ideas, and converts them into factories, cities, cars, air planes, and business firms.
13. The person who is capable of creative lateral thought will be the one who stands the best chance of finding that unique amalgamated concept that will sell- and fetch him a fortune.
14. The producer bravely faces whatever fears that lie between him and his goal. By refusing to settle for only half the pie, by renouncing the creed of the partial achiever. He sticks fast and hard to his goal.
Poetry: Work
Work is the life-wire
Of a very strong and virile economy
Where the labor force has a strong desire
To work and transform their economy.
A dwindling economy is as a result
Of idle men yielding their selves as workshops
For the devil to render them as baskets full of insults
Until they crumble the wheel of commerce to a full stop
A lazy man hates to work
With his hands, waiting for luck
I dare to swear that he will be shocked
To find out that into his grave he will find no luck.
Work is a comrade
Of those that want to leave a legacy.
They engage in a well meaning trade
That is full of great fancy
Work works when we set our minds to work
Luck works only when we set our hands to work
Receive counsel from the good old book
Let him not eat; he that does not work
I bet my life on it, let him be fed with gravels
Then he will learn how to find sustenance himself not minding if he has to travel.
To pray you ought to;
But to work? Yes you must!
I’m ‘gainst workaholics’ stress
‘cause they cherish not the pearl of rest
‘nd ruin their lives with plenty stress;
in order not to rest-in-pieces, I hope they’ll learn to rest
If you don’t know what work
Is all ‘bout, go to the Ants
The great comrades of work
They’ve left a lesson for the ‘I can’ts’ (I can’t do this-‘nd-that sort of a thing)
People don’t cherish lazy men
But hard working men.
For your work to work; work on your work
‘cause nothing works like work.
Geno:11/4/2k
Apostle Dr. Genesis A. Dawuda is the Administrator of Centre For World Rebirth situated on 7th Floor @ J.D. Gomwalk House, Jos Plateau State; member Yeshua Embassy Network of Churches and Ministries USA | Shares Intercommunion agreement with Yeshua International & the Old Roman Catholic Church in England.
website: www.drgenesis.com | E-mail: info@drgenesis.com | Phone: 08028063695 | 07027001527
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