Our social perspective is totally biased when it comes to the ambitions and a drive to become rich. Tenth century onwards, new emerging philosophies mostly professed simple life, abhorred richness and trusted in good deeds to have the better life after death that penetrated our psyche so much so that we became moreover destiny centric and disinterested in the present life. Everyone thought the present life is an outcome of the deeds of the past life and hence nothing can be challenged! The zeal to make efforts to change the circumstances almost died. People were in the traditional businesses but with the lack of any motivation, they stopped to become innovative. The glory and prosperity of the past vanished to leave them to rot in the poverty for almost over a millennium!
To the Indians, it was only God who had already designed their life and there will not be any change in it. Saints too preached that with all contentedness live the life the way God has chosen for you. In the early last century, we saw an explosion of literature, arts, cinemas they almost all glorified the poverty. As if being poor was a boon and the sign of honesty and richness was dishonesty, an evil!
These philosophies of renunciation those aimed at the better life after death made our mindset inactive. If everything was predestined there was nothing in the hand of a human to change it. In such an atmosphere, there could not be any kind of innovation and ambition. Rather the ambitions were connected with the greed. Being ambitious was considered an evil! Even many entrepreneurs also thought on the same line and restricted their growth. The post-independence era saw a great rise in the job seekers but the enterprising class was almost difficult to find.
Rather no specific efforts were made to change the socio-psychological environment that had become inactive and ambitionless. It did not occur to the modern educationist that for the wealth creation you need to shape the social mindset of the citizens in such a manner that it not only creates entrepreneurs but also the specially skilled generation that assists the entrepreneurs with equal ability to achieve the common goals.
The education system is designed in such a way that can only create unprofessional job-seekers. Rather entrepreneurship is not considered as a necessary academic discipline. Our economists do not think that entrepreneurship is the basis of the economy and hence it has to be focused. The books available in the market on entrepreneurship are mostly anecdotal stories of few business tycoons or guiding on the superficial elements of the entrepreneurial qualities. Many books just claim to give business ideas those contain inadequate and superficial information. In fact, nothing can help any to understand different types of entrepreneurship and different entrepreneurial behaviors.
It is essential to understand that entrepreneurship behavior is interconnected closely with the psychological and sociological elements such as the personality traits of individuals and socio-cultural environment. We need to prioritize the entrepreneurship psychology and should help the youth to mold their mindset in an order to create a burning fire of the ambitions in an appropriate manner to strive for it!
Our social psychology does not encourage the risk appetite. No one wants their children to be struggling in an area where there is no any kind of certainty. The job is the only solution to them. But we are well aware that there cannot be enough jobs unless there are a good number of job providers. One must think of becoming the latter rather than preferring standing in the endless queue of the job seekers. This is why most of the time jobbers' mentality does not match with the aims of the enterprise and mostly they become a hurdle in the growth.
Becoming an entrepreneur only because there was no choice is mostly a common fact in India. Many have to run the family business because they have no choice. They are not in business because they had own desire and ambition to become one. Some are impulsive and in an outbreak of the emotions leave their jobs or education to start the businesses they have taken instant fancy in. They think they have the right and revolutionary idea and if time is lost they will lose an opportunity. Many fail in their ventures, many keep on struggling for a long time repenting on their impulsive decisions.
In fact, every kind of venture needs a different kind of the psychological setups. Getting consumed by some idea wouldn't help much. Inspirational talks won't come to their rescue. In fact, there is no shortcut to success. One has to develop a logical mind before making any decision regarding the venture and an idea that has driven him or her. They should know well in whom to trust and in whom not. The impulsive decisions many times leads to the disaster, sooner or later. Before taking any step one should know first how much risk reasonably can be taken and whether he has enough patience and tolerance level to face the bad days those may land upon. Though entrepreneurship needs good planning and even if he has, things never go as planned. Many things are beyond the control. Sudden unexpected jolts need to be expected. Entrepreneurs mind needs to have prepared in advance so that he can find ways to get rid of them with the calm and unconfused mind.
The man had been enterprising since the remote past and the present fruits of the development are the product of their innovative entrepreneurship. We the Indians lost our zeal as we fell in the crevasse of discouraging philosophies and this is why we are still underdeveloped. Individual psychologies need to be nurtured so that the generation of the good entrepreneurs can be ready to take challenges of the present and future!
-Sanjay Sonawani
