Guest writer: Prof. Oliver Schlake/from my blog: youth for nepal

I came across an interesting chart yesterday that may be inspirational for young entrepreneurs, especially when you are about to finish college, grad school or high school.

The chart showed two circles (with the idea that those two circles in this kind of chart usually intersect and in the intersection lies the message). In this chart, the circles do not intersect an stay separate. Circle A is the smaller one. It represents the available jobs for a young person. Circle B represents the jobs the young person is interested in. Everything else is Entrepreneurship.

Meaning: If the jobs you really like to do are not available, don’t settle for less and become an Entrepreneur. There is another interesting aspect of Entrepreneurship that is often overlooked from a developed world perspective: Entrepreneurship can overcome many strong traditions, societal constraints base on race or class.

For young people to become more than their parents or class, running your own business can catapult you out of the social constrains you were born into. And lastly, the Entrepreneur is empowered to help the community he lives in by - hopefully - provided a work environment for people to enjoy and thrive.

Exploiting people to make a profit is really not that challenging - but making a profit while helping others to grow, too - that is true Entrepreneurship. Goes for my most favorite Entrepreneurship movie: Schindler’s List. If you don’t get what I mean, watch it again to see the transformative power of Entrepreneurship.
Author is Professor at RH Smith School of Business(University of Maryland) and also an Entrepreneur.

he can be reached at: oschlake@rhsmith.umd.edu