Thursday 8 August 2013

Sound bites for entrepreneurship

There have been 8 sound bites – that have impacted the nature of my work in entrepreneurship. Some of it has come from Ashrams, some from CEOs, some from research and others are just kind of in the air. 

These sound bites are listed here and will be explicated – in brief - in the coming weeks so that if any of the sound bites has a particular appeal we can reflect on them together in a discussion to follow.

Here is the list:

When the mind is full of little thoughts where is the space for big ideas (Vedanta Ashram, Bangalore)
We are not a small growing company – we are a big company starting small (Scott McNealey – Sun Microsystems, California)
Think big, act fast and be fearless (MIT – one of the faculty at a conference, Boston)
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high…(Tagore, India) – Sorry this is a poem – not just a soundbite!

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

We need risk tolerance more than risk mitigation to alter society (Vyakarnam – based on a co-authored paper with Sahakian et al, 2008, UK)
Affordable loss as a principle to stimulate enterprise (Sarasvathy et al and home truth common sense, USA)
Seek forgiveness not permission (Unknown but all over the internet)

 Entrepreneurs are not made or born – they are killed (Peter Dawe - on a train journey from London!)