Conquering the fear of entrepreneurship

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‘I never believed that you have to be poor to be creative,’ said Valerie Khoo, Founder and Director of Australian Writers’ Centre. ‘I’ve always believed that you can make money from your creative pursuits.

‘My own personal mantra is do what you love and the money will follow. But it doesn’t follow if you don’t put strategies in place.’

There is a belief that in order to be an entrepreneur, you must be ‘born’ an entrepreneur – that you are either good at business, or terrible at it. But just as the notion that there are ‘creative people’ and ‘non-creative people,’ has been debunked,  there may not be an innate predisposition to entrepreneurship so much as a set of circumstances that enables it.

Observing the cult of the entrepreneur, a recent article assessed the characteristics or ‘magic formula’ that makes a successful entrepreneur and found that the most common shared trait is access to financial capital and stability.

‘While it seems that entrepreneurs tend to have an admirable penchant for risk, it’s usually that access to money which allows them to take risks,’ wrote Aimee Groth, arguing that when basic needs are met, it is easier to be creative.

There is no special ‘risk-taking’ or entrepreneurial trait. Rather a study by the University of California found that the most common attribute among entrepreneurs is being white, male, and highly educated.