We saw a great article over at Business Week by G. Michael Maddock and Raphael Louis Viton, respectively the CEO and President of Maddock Douglas.

They note a new phenomenon:

Large companies are hiring professors to teach them how to innovate.

The authors assert that it’s misguided:

“What big, process-driven companies need is to learn how to think like entrepreneurs. And it may surprise you that entrepreneurs hate risk, too. Unlike many professors, entrepreneurs feel comfortable not knowing what comes next, but they don’t see this as risk.”

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I feel stuck between two worlds – I’ve taught entrepreneurship at our local University for years and I’ve been an entrepreneur even longer.

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You have the heart of an entrepreneur, though, George. It’s definitely where your passion lies.

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According to the authors, entrepreneurs mitigate risk by:

• working for themselves instead of “putting all their eggs in one job basket.” Owning may offer more security than a job.
  
• failing quickly with little financial risk.
  

This is great advice for those of you thinking about starting your own business. Contrary to popular myth, successful entrepreneurs are not risk lovers. However, they are excellent risk managers.

They think differently. In business school, we learn that you have to take larger risks to earn a greater return.

Entrepreneurs know this isn’t necessarily the case. They focus on making the downside acceptable and let the upside take care of itself.

Do you have an idea for a business? Could you use some help reducing the risk? Check out our coaching packages.

Image in this post from mzacha

Baloney!

It’s a myth that we all aren’t constrained in the same ways. But there’s a bigg difference between the average Joe or Jane and people who ultimately reach bigg success.

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Remove the constraints!

The average person gives in to those constraints. Bigg goal-getters don’t see themselves as constrained so they don’t allow themselves to be constrained.

They don’t waste time telling themselves all of the reasons why they can’t do something. They focus, instead, on why they can do it and how they will get it done.

There’s a key lesson for us: By changing your focus – from “can’t” to “can” – you open your mind to all sorts of possibilities.

Your mind follows your lead

Your mind will let you take it wherever you want. Think about why something can’t be done and your mind will come up with all kinds of reasons to prove you right!

Think about how it can be done and your mind will start figuring out any number of ways to overcome every challenge that holds others back.

Sure, some ideas won’t work out. You won’t care. You know one of them will lead you to bigg success.

But if you never get out of the gate – if you just assume that you can’t win the race – you won’t.

The first part of the killer combo: Child-like imagination
People who reach bigg success dream bigg. You must dream again. You must dream the kind of dreams you dreamed when you were young.

Your dreams probably won’t be exactly the same as they were then. But they will be as bigg as the dreams you saw through the eyes of a child.

When the world was your oyster.
When there was nothing you couldn’t do.
When you could imagine all of the bigg things that you would accomplish.
When you knew that nothing could stop you.
When you couldn’t wait to grow up so we could get to all these wonderful ideas.

The second part: Experiential wisdom
But you’re not a child anymore and that’s good. You’re better equipped now to achieve your bigg dreams than you were then.

Combine that child-like imagination with the wisdom you have gained from your experiences. Together, they will help you achieve things that other people only fantasize about, if they allow themselves to think about them at all.

That’s the difference. That’s why you should celebrate your age. You have gained an asset that you didn’t have when you were young.

You have learned from your experiences, haven’t you?

Celebrate them! Take joy in all of them – the good, the bad and the ugly!

You have the killer combination to achieve bigg success! Because of it, the possibility of achieving the impossible is more probable!

Believe

But too much of the time, we don’t think about that. We stopped dreaming bigg dreams. We accepted being average and ordinary.

Deep in your soul, you know that you’re excellent and extraordinary. You have to believe again!

Believe that you can achieve what you can conceive! Then find a way to do it.

It only takes one person discovering one way to do anything that’s never been done before. Then people marvel at the accomplishment.

You’re still the one!

You are that one person! You were born to dream bigg dreams. You know it because you’ve done it. You were born to be excellent and extraordinary.

But first you must remove the limits that keep you from dreaming bigg. Dream.

Then think of ways to make your dream your reality.

Believe that you will win. Did you hear that? You will win. You will achieve your dream. You’re still the one!

Now, take action and you’ll be a bigg success!

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Thank you so much for the gift of your time today. Please join us next time when we’ll talk about why it pays to be small in business today. Until next time, here’s to your bigg success.

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(Image in today's post by asifthebes)