Choices and pathways: finding your purpose (1 of 3) – Enterprising Mindset

In this module, we’re going to go over choices and pathways.

Young people need to be prepared for a world that is changing rapidly. Jobs you might end up doing do not even exist yet! It’s incredibly important to develop the skills and attitudes to cope with an unpredictable future and be prepared and ready for the world of work, including self-employment. Enterprise encourages young people to develop skills for life, learning and employment and from an early age, children have a natural ability to be enterprising. 

Throughout education, there is an infrastructure there which tells us where to be, and largely, what to do. This will partially disappear if you choose higher education, and completely disappear within the world of work. The importance of our choices becomes paramount. 

“The quality of your life is built on the quality of your decisions.”

Wesam Fawzi

Key questions

1. Do you know what options are available to you at 18 years of age?
2. Have you considered the respective pros and cons of higher education, a gap year, alternative employment options or starting work immediately?
3. Do you know how to set goals which will inspire you to achieve rather than intimidate you into inaction?

Within this module, we’re going to cover;

Lets get into it!

Enterprising Mindset & qualities of an entrepreneur

What is an Enterprising Mindset?

Young people today often say they want to be their own boss, to start their own company or to make a living from a personal passion (Research shows that six in 10 young adults now plan to be their own boss by the age of 30!). An enterprising mindset will help them to do that successfully, to their own benefit and that of the economy and their local community. ‘Financial choices’ is a standalone module, and therefore we will focus here on the mindset and skills which make up an enterprising mindset, or that of an entrepreneur. Whether you want to start your own business or have a great career in an organisation, the skillsets have significant overlap.

Enterprise capability is the ability to be innovative, to be creative, to take risks and to manage them, to have a can-do attitude and the drive to make ideas happen.

Employers want to see young people coming into the labour market with good communication skills, team working and problem-solving skills, business and customer awareness and an enterprising attitude.

Qualities of an entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs usually have to display the following skills:

This can be an intimidating list – you don’t need to be good at all these things. Being an entrepreneur doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be on your own. In fact, the wonderful thing about working in partnership is the cross over in skills, and how you can compliment and offset each others areas for development.

Businesses have to adapt and develop new ideas, products and services to keep up with technology and new trends. Business ideas can come about through the development of an original idea, or the adaptation of existing products and services.

Thinking of a new product or a new idea can be challenging for anyone.

Entrepreneurs need to be creative but also insightful about what customers want. For example, Trunki designed a unique suitcase product for children that many other companies are now trying to copy. Original ideas can be an invention or an innovation:

• Invention means creating something that did not previously exist, eg/ ..a smart watch that can detect diseases! Entrepreneurs are always trying to think of new products and services to launch. Its extremely challenging to both come up with a new, unique idea, AND make it commercially viable.
• Innovation is the successful commercialisation of an invention, or the adaptation of a product over time. It involves creating new, more effective processes, products and ideas. Some examples of innovation would be Dollar Shave Club (delivery of razors to your door!), or Amazon using robots in the warehouse to save on costs.

Case Study One – A Coffee Shop

To offer services, or goods, a business will need to make various decisions around what resources to utilise, and how much risk they’re willing to take. The resources involved will often include land, labour and capital (though not always all these things!)

For the coffee shop example;

• Land; it is likely that physical space will be required
• Labour; human effort, skills and knowledge. Staff who can facilitate customer requests (make coffee!)
• Capital; money to buy or hire equipment (and the land and labour) to provide the services, coffee and cake etc

Case Study Two – Shipping Containers

In the past few years, the challenge of starting and growing a business has been idealised. TV shows such as Dragons Den and the Apprentice, as well as podcasts such as Diary of a Millionaire, have proved hugely popular by showcasing the challenges faced in setting up a business. Entrepreneurs such as Steven Bartlett, Lord Sugar and Sir Richard Branson have made significant (further!) wealth by inspiring the next generation of leaders. Additionally, there are thousands of books by entrepreneurs and others describing “how they made it”, “my first million” etc.

Entrepreneurs play an important role in society. They make a major contribution to economic activity. Imagine how many jobs are created by the thousands of new businesses that are set up every year and by the small businesses that prosper and take on more staff.

Entrepreneurs encourage innovation through investment and risk-taking. Many of the products and services you use every day have been developed through entrepreneurial activity rather than in the research laboratories or board-rooms of large multinationals.

However, it is important to realise that starting a business is rarely glamorous. In fact it is nearly always very hard work. For every success story there are almost certainly many more business failures or businesses that don’t meet the expectations of the people who set them up.

Finding opportunities and a job has been considered within the ‘work and career’ module, and in the next section we consider alternatives to starting work immediately. If you have secured a new job however, a few tips on what to expect in your first few weeks;

• Transition period; the first few weeks of a role, particularly your first, will feel like a ‘transition period’ where you will be expected to attend training and meet your co-workers. This will also be where the details of your role are outlined.
• Schedule; most education courses do not operate 9-5, therefore the change in working patterns can be a shock. Where you can, take breaks when you can in your first week, so that you don’t get worn out. Its not uncommon to be exhausted by 4pm for the first week or so!
• Workload; education and particularly university often means setting your own deadlines,  projects or priorities. However, it is likely that your manager will decide this for you. Working collaboratively on predetermined projects may be different to university, but you will get used to it and get to know your teammates better too!

Learn about alternatives to starting work straight away in lesson 2 linked below.