Entres change direction often, since we live in a world of forks. And as Yogi Berra so eloquently suggested, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” So we can be found taking forks a lot.
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- Your entre needs to have freedom to survive.
Your entre partner sees freedom as a non-negotiable. We live for it, with it and in it. Freedom drives us, and it leads us. It pulls us constantly toward it. We are willing to risk all to feel free. Once you learn this, it’s all downhill from here. We value waking up each day knowing that our lives are in our own hands. No one else is going to make or break us. It’s totally up to me. Yes, it is a drug. And it’s highly addictive. Once we’re hooked, it’s likely that we’re never gonna let go. I often think back to the founders of the republic. I picture them fighting for this freedom, then it just feels justified. It feels right to risk all for my true freedom.
- Your acceptance of pay fluctuations is paramount.
Your entre needs you to accept that there will be days when money flows heavily and there will be times when it vanishes. We learn to live with this reality and you must also. If you are the type that needs security and a feeling of consistency, you are in for a long ride. If you can understand and even support these ups and downs, you have a chance. As creators, we never know what will work and what won’t. Our world is highly speculative and we usually enjoy this. You need to embrace the “not knowing” feeling too if this partner is the one.
- Your entre is dreaming constantly.
Do you have to ask your entrée what’s on their mind? Do they seem disconnected or do they often daydream? This is quite normal for us. We are thinking about how we’re gonna change the world today. Cuz we are. While many of us were raised in an era where dreaming was looked at as a negative trait, your entre values dreaming or daydreaming as a gift. We need the constant flow of innovative, creative juices and ideas flowing in and out. When we feel a good one coming, BAMM! We grab on and hold tightly. “This is it,” we cry! That’s the idea of the day. Or minute, or second. Learn to appreciate dreams and you’ll have a happy dreamer.
- Your entre needs to share often.
Prepare to engage on myriad projects, topics, thoughts, solutions, inventions, remedies, business plans, pivots, changes, improvements, hair brained schemes, fantasies, winners and truths. If you’re lucky, your entrée partner will see you as their main sounding board. Frequently. Like all the time. Every day. Are you ready to hear about some great new things? Part of filtering this stream of consciousness is the need to run ongoing tests for validity and quality of our ideas. We want to engage you with our excitement. We do want your honest opinions, but we have to share all of it with you. The good, the bad and the oh my god that’s ugly. You need to see, hear and feel it all. If you are a good listener, you have one of the key tools to love your entrée partner.
- Your unconditional patience is required.
We will test you on all fronts. We need to know that you can be trusted with our beautiful minds and hearts. Can you be in this for the long haul? Do you have the stamina to see us through the marathon? Since much of what we build, create and state is uncertain, you will need serious patience. Not the standard edition, we’re talking premium level patience. The really good kind. We’ll show up late sometimes, we’ll work longer and harder than expected. We’ll make our project a priority. You will need to endure, encourage, support and survive. You will be asked to join us in our i\nsanity. We want you to wait, understand, praise and pet us. You can’t do this without ample patience.
- We’ve gone to the laboratory.
Your entre will have a laboratory. It may be at the office, or at home, or above the garage. It might be underground, or in a tree. It may be super-neat or a cluttered mess. But we will have a lab. This lab is a dangerous place. There are experiments going on in there that you won’t understand. You may not even see them. They are sometimes concealed as piles of paper, equipment, office supplies, photos, quotes or musical instruments. They can look like baseball mitts, flat screens or game consoles. I’ve even seen a box of wrapping paper used to hide our work from the untrained eye. A bookshelf with seemingly unrelated literary works is a sure sign that your mad scientist is hard at work on a new cure. Not sure for what yet. But it’s coming. And yes, that bookcase does have hidden hinges on it, and there is a secret room behind there.
- We’ll change direction and pivot.
Entres change direction often, since we live in a world of forks. And as Yogi Berra so eloquently suggested, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” So we can be found taking forks a lot. Changing direction is necessary for the entrée. You might see it as flaky, undisciplined or inconsistent, but it’s just the opposite. The ability to turn on a dime is actually a valuable skill to us, now known as pivoting, experts now see this as a key to success in the entre world. If you can see our changes as a normal part of the journey, you are well on your way to success with us.
- You’ll find it hard to harness us.
You may have hopes of harnessing your entrée lover. Good luck with this. We like to be free. We need to be free. If you detect early on that you have found a true entre, and they are letting you put the saddle on them, watch out. They are gonna buck at some point and you will be thrown off. It will be a much better idea if you recognize this early and learn to walk beside your bronco. During our thinking moments, we may look like the other horses, but when the time comes to act, look out. We are not going to worry much about breaking some glass when we’re creating or launching.
- You must embrace our wonder.
We wonder about things. We ask ourselves questions. We ask you questions. Who, what, when, why and how are part of our process. We think. We ask. We think. We ask. Then after we think and ask, we do. Then when we see what happened, we start the process again. Think. Ask. Do. Repeat. You may not understand it, but if you get on board, your life will be filled with freshness. You’ll be taken deeper.
- We are not always realistic.
We can be outrageous at times. Some of our ideas will be ridiculous to you. Your opinion may not be able to sway us. Your pleading may only serve as encouragement to go even more in our own direction. We see realistic people as the enemy sometimes. You represent the comfort zone. We like discomfort zones more. If you fight this, you’ll lose. Just know that we need to stretch the boundaries of reality. We need reality to get bigger to include us. Even the act of you reading this right now has enlarged your reality. That’s our gift to you. You’re welcome.
- Our destination is not always clear.
We don’t live with a necessary destination. We can travel without a map. We can set out on a journey without knowing where we’re heading. In fact, the greater the unknown, the more exciting the ride. We feel like we may have just discovered a new path. A new way of doing things. It’s exciting for us to seek uncharted waters. As explorers, we know the only way to true fame is to go into the darkness without fear. If you need an address, before you leave home, you might have to learn some new skills in order to co-exist with your partner.
- We might not think of work as a job.
Your entre may not view their work as a “real job.” So if you have a traditional occupation, or prefer your own work style, you could be on a different wavelength from your partner. We strive to love what we do and do what we love, and that often means we take great pride in doing it differently. Our work may take place at 2am, or at a coffee shop, while you may be on the clock at an office building or school. We often implement unique ways to combine our work and personal lives that just feel right, or help us to stay stimulated and motivated. We also try hard to ensure that we’re having fun doing it.
- Your entre fits out, not in.
If keeping up with the Joneses or being politically correct is important to you, don’t be surprised if your entre partner doesn’t really care about either. We have our own groove. That doesn’t always include what others think about us. In fact, we may do what we see as the opposite of status quo simply in rebellion to it. Our biggest fear is being like everyone else. We want to be different. We want to blaze a trail out of the brush, to a new world, a new reality. We love to fit out. Maybe you can step out a bit with us, get dirty, tell us you get it. You might even have a little fun yourself.
- We may want to teach the children to be entres.
We will want to share our road with the children. More and more we see alternative decision making taking hold in places it was unheard of just a few short years ago. One place is in parenting. More role reversal at home and work has allowed us to question things like college attendance, stay at home dads, mompreneurs running businesses, and modern family structures that look nothing like Leave It To Beaver. If you have expectations of raising your kids the way you were raised, and nudging them toward educational and career choices like the ones you made, you may find your entre partner pulling them over to the other side. In my own experience, I found myself trying to enlighten my sons to the way of the entrepreneur long before they got to college. We do look at entrepreneurialism as a lifestyle versus only a career style. It permeates every facet of our lives.
- Your entre has to invest in themselves, rather than traditional expenses for biz.
There are unexpected investments for us entres. We may have to purchase a coaching program, tools, software and equipment that differ greatly from your company’s purchases. Some of these tools may not seem important or necessary to you, but we feel the need and want to invest in ourselves the same as any other worker. If you come from the corporate world, where many of these things are paid for by the company or division budget, you may not advocate any individual paying for their own stuff. Try to see this as education. We pay for knowledge and systems to help us reach new customers, create better processes and foster more efficient ways of marketing and networking, just like your bigger, more established company. It’s great to talk about it, but if your boss said you need to do something for work, I bet you would without expecting your partner to say anything. Be more understanding that we are doing the same thing.
- We often collaborate with unique people.
We often collaborate with others to bounce ideas off of, to exchange support, to mentor or be mentored, to get inspired and even to refuel. These collaborations take on many different looks and should be viewed as a necessary part of being an entrepreneur. We connect through social media, by phone, at trade shows and conventions, at a seminar or book signing and at destination retreats. All designed to bring us together with our next funding source, customer and/or staff member. We work with virtual assistants, coaches, vendors, publishers, entertainers, athletes and healers. We go out and find the people we need to help us reach our goals. They may not all look like your co-workers, but to us, they are our family. Be open minded about our peeps.
- We see the big picture.
The big picture may be the only picture we see sometimes. If you wonder why your partner can’t focus on the little details, or what seems like the next logical step to you, it may be that we hover above looking at the entire landscape. Not just the task at hand. We may also take the long way to Point B, whereas you may think we should go straight for it. Very often your entre will want to learn more about their process and is not as concerned about the destination as quickly as you are. Perhaps this is a great time to play to each of your personal strengths, rather than try to make them conform to your expectations. Divide the tasks by what you do well rather than by quantity.
- Your entre takes big risks.
Prepare to live in the face of risk. We entres LOVE to take risks. Sometimes these may seem crazy. You don’t think your partner has enough money to start this new business. We do it anyway. You say they don’t have experience. We say we’ll use this risk to get it. You think we won’t sell anything because there’s nobody else doing this. We see that as the exact reason to do it. We want to be first, get there before the competition even knows there’s a segment there. We don’t want to simply survive, we want to dominate. We love the feeling of exhilaration we get when we leap. The feeling we get from taking a risk is like a drug. It’s the feeling of being alive, possibly losing it all, for the chance to have it all. Maybe you’d like to come along. We’ll love you for it.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
Great Article Rick! As a Marriage Coach, working with Executives an Entrepreneurs, I agree with many of your points. Talking about these realities is key!! Bravo!