The Entrepreneur Mindset: A Revealing Story About The First World's Monopoly

Entrepreneurship 101 | What is the entrepreneur mindset? 

      The terms 'entrepreneur' and 'entrepreneurship' are not so well rooted in the minds of people. What I mean is that everyone, especially the experienced ones in the field, was a different approach over these two well-related terms, as you can see from this article by Business News Daily  

     All of these things in a single person: visionary, problem solver, people oriented, seeing opportunities everywhere, passionate to learn, and a lot more. This is a lot, seems very complex. Yet, by continuously training your brain for engraving these traits in its synapses, these traits become involuntary behaviours, like reflexes. These would be associated with your intuition. Basic biology. Thus you form some sort of entrepreneur mindset, by encapsulating these behaviours in yourself.

     Generally speaking, an entrepreneur is someone who takes the risk of opening a business. In spite of every behaviour one would be advised to adopt, venturing to something that requires so much hustle and even struggle at times. That's why, one must learn to relieve stress. 

      All of these characteristics one person is needed to have and so many things one must do. It is overwhelming when only reading it. 

Well, is it, really? A lot of entrepreneurs encounter hard times and last minute cancellations which becomes frustrating. And they complain about the difficulty their career has. Not this guy:  

     Who is this guy,  you wonder? He is Thales from Miletus. The one who also made The Thales Theorem. 

     You may wonder what is the link between Thales and Entrepreneurship. I have a story for that, which you can find here, as well. I will use another style of storytelling. 

     The timeline is that of Ancient Greece, 600 BC approximately. In those times, Greek people were the satisfaction of the harvest gods is proportional to higher yields, using the mindset: more sacrifices = higher yield. 

 Thales was a mathematician and astronomer (these two careers seem some of the most distanced ones from any other which would involve the entrepreneur mindset). He observed that the gods are not involved in this natural process. He has observed, yearly, that a certain amount of rain would generate a certain amount of yield. After years of observations and calculations, he forecasted that in a certain year, the olive yield would be rather generous. He made a connection in his head, that the olives are used to make olive oil, mostly and he saw this as an opportunity. As he was sure on his forecasting, he rented, in a specific time that year, all the olive presses in Miletus. 

     What happened, you wonder? He basically got rich by creating the world's first recorded monopoly. And it was about olive oil. 

      His only justification was 'I just wanted to show you how easy it is to get rich.' He didn't even need the money, he was already incredibly rich. Although, I've heard some sources which say he was actually poor. Anyways, his financial situation prior to the event doesn't matter. 

Here is a podcast which contains this story ( which begins at around 14:35).

Conclusion

     What did he actually do here? He doubted the status quo and believed in his own idea and vision, he observed and calculated the environmental elements and the market trends, he identified the needs of people and he solved those needs. This is not 'opening a business' as the dictionary would say. This is venturing, this is entrepreneurship. This is the entrepreneur mindset. Observe, draw conclusions from that observation,plan, strike.

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