From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Many entrepreneurs are deluded about their odds of success, that evidence is very clear. This creates problems… Should a government subsidise entrepreneurs who greatly over-estimate their chances of success?
So many people say, 'Jacqueline, I would love to change the world- but I don't know my purpose yet…' Purpose doesn't come to people sitting at the starting blocks and thinking about purpose. You have to live it.
Instead of saying 'I'm a technology entrepreneur…' you might say, 'well, I run a technology business, but I love philosophy and playing the piano…' the person you're speaking to now has a few more dots to connect!
One of the most powerful business skills is the ability to listen, not just act. As entrepreneurs and business leaders, if we're going to focus on what truly matters, it starts with understanding what matters.
To follow your dreams and imagine the unimaginable. Everything man-made that we see and touch on a daily basis has been invented by someone, by an entrepreneur. Life is exciting and you can create your own destiny, just as long as you believe in yourself and step outside of the box.
A lot of philanthropy is making bets, seeing if they work, staying with them…it is more like being an investor in other people's good entrepreneurial ideas.
I got into boxing promotion by accident. One of my cousins was a boxer, so I used to go watch him fight as an amateur and then when he turned pro. He had a fight, I went to watch it… he got beat and had a return match… he beat the guy… they had another match, but they wanted to pay them crap money. I went to the meeting, turned around and said, '…I don't need you, we'll promote it…' I don't know why I even said that! The next minute, I was in the promotion business and helping to get this thing together; I got bitten by the bug, and it went from there.
I tend to go with scholarship that argues that there no people called entrepreneurs but people perform entrepreneurial functions at different times. Edison performed great entrepreneurial acts. But he was also fierce opponent of innovation when it threatened his business interests.
Too often I feel there is also a search for 'the next' Steve Jobs or Joanna Shields. These are extraordinary people and yet I believe we should not treat entrepreneurialism as requiring a narrow checklist of certain characteristics.
Scaling any business is about creating a model, debugging the model, making sure you understand the ingredients that need to be scaled up, and making sure you have a process to scale. All of this needs to be wrapped-up in a financial model that allows the scale to be funded.
I never started off with money, I started off with love. The love of being an entrepreneur. The love of being a lawyer. The love of being an athlete. When you start off with love, people will love and respect you and you will always be monetarily rewarded.
I'm just a person who loves to do things before others. I'm very open to listening to young people, and always have a good relationship with them. I'm curious. Thanks to this, I try to do things before they become huge – I feel the market, the world, and try to be more-close to the world today.