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.