Males, Females and Entrepreneurs

If there's one characteristic, among others, that I've found to be very common among entrepreneurs, it is the ability to internalize pain. Forgive me if that's not exactly how to say it, but you will hardly find a true entrepreneur who does not keep his deepest business pains to himself, and tries to deal with them alone. Indeed the momentary silence of entrepreneurs is not unconnected with a pain they are dealing with. And there are many moments of silence in the life of a business person.

The pains could be self-imposed as a result of silly business risks or calculations that didn't quite work out, outright business failure or externally imposed like a sudden change in government policy (like those banning Okada and Keke overnight), environmental challenge or staff "wahala"(or should I say "nothing-concern-me" posture to work), etc. The shoulder of the business person (especially in our clime), is almost always heavy.

People hear the success stories of business people but pay little or no attention to their griefs. Some business people though, talk about their griefs and failures in a manner to teach others - Robert Kiyosaki and Jack Ma are good examples. Jack Ma will tell of how he was the only applicant that was not attractive enough to be employed at KFC, how he started and ended "Hope" - the first company he founded, how he was one of the early entrants into the internet business in China starting "China Pages" and how he was outsmarted and pushed out by board members and had to pick a paid job with the government until he found his feet again and established "Alibaba", but do you know that, till date, Jack Ma still prefers to be silent about his ordeal on his first trip to the USA where he was kidnapped by a con man whom he had mistaken for a business partner? He would rather not talk about his escape from that entanglement (I guess his martial art skills came handy). His is just one example, there are very few entrepreneurs who do not have a pain they wish never happened. Challenge is, everyone looks to get from the business person, hardly does anyone know he/she is weeping too. Staff don't care, once the month ends, they want their pay. Whether enough was made in the month to go round or not. Government agents (or non-agents) come around in quick succession all stretching out their hands. Whether sales was made or not, tax and revenue must be paid. Friends and family, everyone is saying: give me, give me, give me... oh! This shoulder hurts.

As painful as all of these may be, one stubbornly common feature as well is that, if the entrepreneur closes shop today and goes to pick a paid job, he/she is scheming to relaunch. How we are like this, I don't know, but it is obvious that human beings are either males, females or entrepreneurs. I mean, entrepreneurs can't just be one of the first two, only.