The 12 Greatest Entreprenuers

From Jim Ritchie:

My Friends,

 Fortune Magazine wrote a piece about "THE TWELVE GREATEST ENTREPRENEURS OF OUR TIME and what we can learn from them" .

 As I read their stories it stirred my memory - and my soul - of the 'olden' days when I easily  got 'excited'  over an idea or a piece of dirt or a vacant building  or a half built trailer park or  an ad in the newspaper  or a barter opportunity or stories of a gold rush in Montana...just to recall some exciting 'adventure' incubators of the past.   Many ideas, whether great, mediocre or bust, were generated by reading Success Unlimited, a weekly magazine of yesteryear where the brightest and best, up and coming superstars revealed their most intimate ideas of success and how they had turned their IDEAS TO GOLD DUST...and especially exciting were the stories where their first success had given them the confidence and enthusiasm for their next RISK and their NEXT...and how once it got into the blood stream, entrepreneurship can turn a spark into a raging wild fire. 

 Reading the twelve stores in Fortune Magazine revealed each Entrepreneurs inner drive - the FORCE, if you will - that motivated each of them...it was seldom about money...money was always an outcome - a by product of THE DEAL.  THE DEAL was always the DRIVER. The IDEA!  It always began with an IDEA.  But everyone has Ideas.  But the difference between these twelve (and all successful entrepreneurs)  and most other human beings  is that most IDEAS come to DREAMERS and not DOERS! 

 We used to share at the Great Idea Conference at BYU-Hawaii that Ideas were a dime a dozen and we would give the winners an ice cream cone for THINKING up an idea.  Then, in the Spring during the EMPOWER YOUR DREAMS competition when their Ideas had moved from a mental thought to a written 'doable' vision, the prize or awards also moved from Ice Cream to the big money.  That's the way the world works...the Doers, not the Dreamers,  get the big bucks and  usually the best looking girls.  

 #1: Steve Jobs, naturally, was top of their list: He created Apple with over $100 Billion in sales, 63,000 employees and a market value of over $500,000,000,000 (yes, that's a "B" or even more scary...that's a half a Trillion with a "T").   Asked about how much research was done to guide Apple, he said, "None.  It isn't the consumers' job to know what they want...". Instead it was his own intuition,  None of Apple's blockbuster products would have come about if Jobs had relied heavily on consumer research.   Very strange personality - and dead at 56 - but certainly a THINKER and a DOER and a well deserving candidate for 1st place in the list of Entrepreneurism.

 Nuff for tonight... I have to shut down my Apple, read a book on my iPad and check my Text messages on my iPhone before I go to bed...sure glad Steve Jobs never got any of my money...ha...  I'll share #2 and others when cyberspace is not so busy and after you have had more time to digest the differences between how Jobs was successful and  in the same market place most of us struggle to get 'launched'.  WE need to learn from others...get ready for more ideas.

 Gotta Run, I can feel an idea about to burst forth...

 bro JIm

Two Paths

In every life each of us has at least one mountain to climb.

Around the bottom up to the top are at least 2 paths that we can choose. One is a gentle winding pathway never steep, often sandy and wide. It is an invitation to slow down, relax, get comfortable, not push ourselves too hard. It is a siren song to be ignored, a temptation to stray from our deeper desires to reach the pinnacle that summons us up and makes us stronger, shows us who we really are.

A second path is a narrow and steeper climb. It is wrought with rocks. It calls to all who prepare with living water and commit to diligent training. When we choose these paths and while more narrow and steeper to climb, they move us closer to our ultimate goal for our lives.

The illusion of the gentle path is that we can do it alone, with noone's help but those we choose. The fact of the steeper climb is that we have to have others help to make it, and we must help others too. For before the journey's through and we come off conquerer, first having placed our desires to be comfortable into perspective, we will then know that many hands lifted us on our journey and we have earned a place at the top with those who also struggled and sought to find the way.

Some individuals will reach the peak quickly and move on. Others of the noble birthright will wait just to help those of us less capable along. Most of us will wander and struggle, stop and wonder. But in the end through God's grace alone, we will all know that we can be made equal to the challenge and climbs before us. But only after believing in and trusting in other's hands, God's hands. That He will lift, lead and guide us to His Throne, to His Home.