PR for People Monthly November 2013 The Entrepreneurial Mindset | Page 29

Everyone’s
An Entrepreneur
By Andrew Mellen

It’s true. Some of us just have more experience
at it than others. Every time you say yes to an opportunity, whether that’s meeting for lunch or developing an
app, you’re exercising your entrepreneurial spirit.

When I started my business 17 years ago I was
responding to a very specific need. My client, a Nobel
Peace Prize winner needed one thing —his photographs
had to be organized. Through an old school social network, the telephone and email, I shared this project with
friends and colleagues. They began referring me to their
friends and colleagues who needed help getting and
staying organized. There was no business plan — there
was only a skill set, a vision and a market.

In January, I’ll launch Unstuff U 2.0, a virtual
university where anyone, anywhere at any time can walk
through a series of simple steps designed to teach you
how to organize a particular kind of stuff—Everything
from papers and filing or email and digital files to sentimental objects and photographs. This project likewise
grew out of a vision, a skill set and a market.

The key here lies in the word yes and ignoring
or discounting the fear that says, “who do you think you
are?” or “why do you think anyone would care?”

Change is inevitable and death is unavoidable.
If we can accept those two facts, then it becomes much
easier to identify what merits fear and what doesn’t.
Objectively, it seems ridiculous to think that you won’t
disappoint someone at some time, so let’s instead focus
on who you might help and how. That too is the entrepreneurial spirit.

Every time you can identify a problem, strategize a solution, eliminate or minimize the objections,
focus on the practical objections and exercise your
entrepreneurial spirit.