Baker or Eater?

 2/22/21

“People in their late teens and early twenties often have a misconception about life. They believe that their greatest challenges will come from unforeseen events and external circumstances. This turns out to be untrue. The greatest challenges always come from within.” (Acton Business School, A Message to Garcia: Will You Deliver It?, Austin Texas, USA, 2008)

               Now, being in my late 20s I can say this statement is true. I was always trying to prepare for unknown challenges while simultaneously being my own greatest obstacle. As we have heard a few times throughout the Intro to Entrepreneurship course, the only thing that can stop us from achieving greatness is ourselves. There are many things that must be overcome on the entrepreneur journey, both external and internal, but as the Acton booklet states, “The greatest challenges always come from within.”

               The Acton Business School teaches that developing the right habits can help you overcome those challenges from within. These habits include getting to work right away, if your objective is clear. If the objective is not, don’t be discouraged, instead get curious. Work out the best questions to ask, the resources that would be most helpful, and be willing to enlist help if needed. Remember the old adage underpromise and overdeliver. Mistakes will happen, make sure they are small and correct them quickly. Stay positive and active in your mission. These habits will lead to being an active participant in your life and avoid the passive mindset prevalent today.

               In one of the videos from this week from Stanford Technology Ventures Program featuring Guy Kawasaki, he speaks of the aspects of building trust. Kawasaki states that in business trust must come from the business first. If you trust your customers than they will trust you. He gave a few examples including Amazon’s ebook return policy. It is a five-day window; many people could read a book in that time. They are trusting in us and in turn earn our trust. Kawasaki then speaks of bakers and eaters. Eaters see a pie and start to think how they can get the most of it. They think in zero sum gain, others gain is their loss. Bakers want to produce more pies and bigger pies. They are the trustworthy people. He then gives us the third aspect, “default to yes.” When you are networking be thinking of how you can help them. Most people are reasonable of their requests, if they are not, then that is probably someone you wouldn’t want to work with anyway.