Street Smarts Vs Book Smarts, What Does It Takes To Be An
Entrepreneur
The latest series in "The Apprentice" features 2 distinct group
of candidates. One group, who are only high school graduates are
termed as "Street Smarts" by the Donald whereas, the other gruop
are all college educated with some having MBAs and advanced
degress. They were termed as the "Book Smarts".
What was revealed at the start was that the "Street Smart" group
were mainly entrepreneurs and had a net worth 3 times more than
the "Book Smart" group!
What this goes to show is that you do not need a college degree
to be an entrepreneur and rich. In fact, having a college degree
may be more of an impediment to being a successful entrepreneur.
Why is this so?
For one thing, entrepreneurs cannot be conformist and stick "by
the rules" and college somehow tends to train people to stick
"by the rules". Entrepreneurs will always come up against
obstacles and will have to find ways around these obstacles,
conventional or otherwise.
College tend to make graduates think in a similar fashion,
hence, they tend to be highly trained clones with no
personality. Entrepreneurs however know that they need to have
their own USP, or "Unique Selling Proposition" to be successful
and being entrepreneurs, will find or create their own USP to
make a success of themselves.
Entrepreneurs know that they need to think out of the box and
create a niche for themselves as they do not have the resources
to fight the big boys on their terms.
For college graduates, there is alawys the choice of going to
work for one of the big companies. For entrepreneurs, failure is
not an option as they would not get very far in a big
corporation without a college degree.
This is not to say that all college graduates are not
entrepreneur material but that in most cases, getting a college
education may not be the best route to being an entrepreneur as
the education system is designed to produce workers and not
entrepreneurs.