Fear of failure is what sets apart the normal worker-bee from the entrepreneur. A difference in levels of fear results in a preternatural acceptance of or disinclination to entrepreneurial activities. When I accept the possibility of failure and embrace that I am more likely to take a risk, I can begin to act entrepreneurially.

Recently, I came across an article about Dragon’s Den, the British TV sensation where entrepreneurs are given a chance to pitch their concept. The article profiled one inventor, hairdresser Shaun Pulfrey, whose invention was brutally harangued. “And when he asked for an £85,000 investment in exchange for a 15 per cent stake in his fledgling business, he was bluntly advised that he was not worth it.” However, Pulfrey got the last laugh. His “turnover in the past ten months has been £800,000 - landing him a profit of £200,000.” His initial failure on the show didn’t slow him down, a bit. (more…)

Entrepreneurship is a a response to something new and unexpected – an idea, a technological innovation, a lucky accident, an emergent demand. It is by nature difficult to predict, sometimes responding to a niche customer group forgotten by others. Such is the case with FLDSDress.com, the new apparel website started by women of the YFZ (“Yearning for Zion Ranch”), the community of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus that made headlines this Spring for reasons completely unrelated to entrepreneurship.

To give some background, earlier this year Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) in April removed all children from the compound, arguing that minors were at risk of sexual abuse. CPS dispersed many of the children in foster families throughout Texas, separating them from their parents. Mothers, worried that CPS would not be able to furnish modest, FLDS-style clothing for the children, made their own clothing and set up an online store for CPS to use. The children are now out of state custody, but many of the women who followed their children to their new temporary homes have not yet returned to the YFZ Ranch, and they need to pay for rent and food. The store, then, presently serves the more practical purpose of basic sustenance for these uprooted families.

Apparently, the store is tapping into an oft-ignored demographic: (more…)

Some mornings I wake up with the knowledge that if I pushed myself hard enough I might be able to change the world. Sometimes, I push myself; sometimes, I hit snooze and roll back over. The thing is that in my 20s,  I wake up earnestly thinking that something I do today  may  drastically effect my life and others. I imagine by the time I’m in my 40s, I may become slightly more jaded. But even if I don’t, I’ll certainly be much less willing to risk all I’ve got.

Right now I have nothing.  Therefore starting a new venture will have little negative effect because there is nothing to lose. At 40, I may have other worries—kids, job, mortgage, etc. Julie Meyer brings up this specific issue in a recent opinion piece she wrote for the UK’s CITY AM. (more…)

On Friday, I found a copy of Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Work Week. On Saturday, aboard a plane to Boston, I thought I’d skim its contents. On Sunday, I had not only skimmed the book but finished the entire thing, reading every line. On Monday, I quit my job.  (Okay not quite— if I left who would blog for you everyday?!)

Tim’s book is the Bible for the Millennial generation. For kids who want flexible work schedules, meaningful work and a lifestyle to rival the Beckhams’, this is pay dirt. Ferriss  advocates streamlining our lives, embracing technology and living globally. In short, he is the new age global renaissance man.. He makes his money online; he lives abroad renting homes in foreign nations with American currency; his travel plans are dictated as much by his learning goals as by the culture of his destination (Spanish in Spain, German martial arts in Berlin, Salsa lessons in Argentina). (more…)

Make Your Mark has released the first issue of its policy newsletter, Enterprise Insights.

To download the first edition and to subscribe to future ones, click here.

Having just spent my first day in Abuja with the Global Entrepreneurship Week Nigeria team (lead by UNESCO Centre Abuja), and some of its partners, I am feeling totally inspired.

In the first half of the day, I did a short presentation on Global Entrepreneurship Week and its aims, and gave a brief background on Enterprise Week and its history. About 40 people joined us for the meeting and it was held in the offices of the team’s recently acquired strategic partner, the Abuja Enterprise Agency. Many of the attendees travelled very far for the meeting (it is over 300 miles apart), from different states, but they were all passionate and united by the same thing - building economies and communities through youth entrepreneurship. Attending organizations included Junior Achievement Nigeria (it’s called Young Enterprise in the UK), the Nigerian Association of Students, SIFE Nigeria, and a range of other NGO and state representatives. We were also joined by the Global EW Host organization from Cameroon, Youth Business Cameroon. (more…)

Post reproduced from pluGGd.in - written by Sanjay Anandaram…

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games would have just begun by the time this article appears in public. 10,500 athletes will be participating in 28 sports and 302 events for personal and national glory.

The Indian contingent consists of only 57 athletes representing the dreams of a country with over a billion people! With the Indian hockey team failing to qualify for the Olympics for the first time, the Indian contingent will compete in shooting, track and field, boxing, archery, tennis, wrestling, rowing, table tennis and badminton. For the first time, interestingly enough, India’s medal hopes rest not on a team sport like hockey but individual sports like shooting and boxing. Our national game has been reduced to becoming an inconsequential non-entity on the world stage. (more…)

Depending on the size of your country, it can be a daunting task to coordinate a national initiative that ties in to a global movement. Here in the United States, we continue to tirelessly recruit partner organizations to plan activities during the Week (we currently have almost 1,000 partners committed). To help do this–and to help them along the way–we use a network of Regional Directors that take control over a region or state. Everyday, it seems, I get new information from them about the activities being planned for the Week. For example, Recently, Michelle Proctor, who is coordinating Global Entrepreneurship Week/USA activities in the state of Tennessee, sent me a brief update from the monthly conference calls she holds with partners in the state. This is from Michelle’s e-mail: (more…)

Let’s talk creativity. What do you do when everyone in your profession goes on strike and your find yourself mindlessly walking around, eating all day and becoming really comfortable with daytime TV?Well if you are the cast and crew of Saturday Night Live, you learn from the experience and then you use that experience to do something totally cool. After the now infamous writer’s strike, which occupied much of the fall and winter, the SNL cast has learned how to do more than just be funny. Many former and current SNL members recently got together to spend their summer vacation filming an online miniseries called “The Line”. The series surrounds the stories of those waiting eleven days for a science fiction film premier.The premise is based on the experiences of the actually actors and has attracted a wide array of followers. Done through a very low-stakes medium and distributed on the web, the experience has been a first for both the actors and the production company. By learning from a difficult situation, these actors have found a new way to express their talents. They are also finding a whole new ocean for exploration. Direct to internet series may be the new wave of the future and an option for those unable to get financing for billion dollar pictures or television series. For more information about this, look to our previous post on From Here to Awesome.

Have you recently found yourself in a similar situation? Rather than bemoan the lost time, try to put your creativity to use. In the end, you might just make a fun(ny?) discovery about yourself or your medium