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Successful entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes, but they all share one essential trait. Find out how to make your own entrepreneurial dreams come true.

Much to the dismay of my long suffering father, in 1985 I exchanged my “fast track” career in the New York City based cable television industry for a job with a cash-starved, software start-up in bucolic North Carolina for half the pay. Shortly thereafter I attended my first meeting of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development that had recently formed in Research Triangle Park (RTP) to nurture entrepreneurship.

The speaker was a highly successful Silicon Valley transplant with what might be euphemistically described as “a bit of an attitude.” The first thing he did was ask all the entrepreneurs in the capacity crowd to raise their hands. Very few hands went up. Then he smirked, “Oh I get it, the rest of you are wannabes trying to sell something to an entrepreneur.”

He didn’t get much of a laugh but he soldiered on unfazed, “People are always asking me for the difference between Silicon Valley and RTP. Well, in Silicon Valley when someone quits IBM and starts a company everyone says, ‘What took you so long?’ Around here when someone quits IBMto start a company everyone says, ‘What happened, you get fired?’”

My own start-up failed a couple years later, but signing on remains one of the best decisions I ever made. Hell, even my Dad eventually agreed. Years later I was whining about how excruciatingly painful it was bootstrapping my own company. After patiently enduring my five minute sob story all he said was, “Yeah, and you wouldn’t trade places with anyone, would you?”

Much as it galled me to agree with the old man, the stunned look on my face gave it away, and now that he’s gone I cherish the memory of how hard he laughed at my tongue-tied chagrin until there was nothing left for me to do but join in…

*   *   *

When I first discovered all the discussion groups on LinkedIn I was licking my chops. I joined a gaggle of groups only to find that the term “discussion” is a bit of a misnomer. With few exceptions these discussions are merely an opportunity to post a static bill board without any reference to the comments that came before. Even when I directed my own comments at other posts in an attempt to “stir things up” I was usually ignored. Which only goes to show that despite the incessant hype about the importance of being “good listeners” we’re as addicted as ever to the sound of our own voice whether literal or literary.

But despite my disappointment, when I stumbled on a discussion entitled: What is Stopping You from Being an Entrepreneur? I couldn’t resist a topic with over a thousand comments. I eagerly read dozens of comments only to discover that they were little more than a litany of frustrated wannabe entrepreneurs bemoaning a lack of “capital.” Apparently if these folks just had money they would give Mark Zuckerberg a run for his own. It never seemed to occur to them that one of the things that makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur is his ability to find capital or, likeSteve Jobs, jump-start a company without it. When I posted this position it was not only ignored, but the very next poster blamed a lack of “financial wherewithal” for his own frustrated entrepreneurial ambitions. [youtubevid id="mFFtpd8VNN0"]

Philosophy has been my life-long passion. I’m often asked to apply this “useless” obsession to the practicalities of business, and all those LinkedIn comments about money and entrepreneurship presents an opportunity to do just that. Philosophers make a distinction between essential and accidental characteristics. It is essential to the “chairness” of a chair that it is something to sit on. Whether a chair is black or brown, made of wood or steel or has three legs or four is an accidental characteristic of a particular chair.

Essential and accidental characteristics are also related to another favorite of philosophers: the problem of identity. If you and I exchange heads, would I remain me with a different body or become you with a different head? In this case most would conclude that the head is essential and the body accidental. In other words, we are far more identifiedwith our head than our body.

Applying this distinction to entrepreneurship, it is my contention that being able to find the money to start a company is essential to being an entrepreneur while most of LinkedIn’s commentators considered it accidental. Mixing the essential with the accidental leads to many unfortunate mistakes in logic and therefore to bad business decisions. For many years personal computer manufacturers apparently thought that being boxy, steel grey, and uniformly ugly was essential to the nature of the PC. It took Steve Jobs to think different.

I’ve heard colleagues say that they are great at what they do, but they can’t do it under pressure. This argument is patently absurd. In business being able to perform under pressure is essential not accidental to being great at what you do. Business people who can’t perform under pressure remind me of the Zen story about the enlightened fish.

One day a group of Zen students came running to their Master carrying a big fish. “Master, Master,” they said, “we just caught an enlightened fish! What should we do with it?”

“Eat it,” the Master replied, “what good is an enlightened fish?”

When I was growing up in Pittsburgh, an essential part of being a boy was dreaming about hitting dingers for the Pirates. Similarly, dreaming about becoming an entrepreneur seems essential to the American DNA. But the first step to actually becoming one is ruthless honesty. Entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes. It is accidental whether they are well educated or not, rich or poor, loquacious or quiet, male or female, young or old, single or raising six kids.

But what is essential to every entrepreneur is faith in himself and his destiny. Only faith overcomes the myriad fears that human flesh is heir to – the same unspoken fears lurking just below the surface of all those LinkedIn posts and just behind all their entrepreneurial obstacles. It is faith in yourself and your purpose that turns an obstacle like a lack of capital into a golden opportunity: an opportunity to demonstrate to the world, and far more importantly to yourself, just exactly who you are.

Finding capital is easy. It’s finding the faith that finds it that’s hard. This is why I attribute far more of my own success to the rarefied philosophy of the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Tao Te Ching than I do to the practical wisdom of the Wall Street Journal.

Augie – thank you so much!! Honestly, I am very encouraged. I also greatly appreciate you bringing Ray Allen and Jay Hall with you today. Their insight was extraordinarily useful as well. Thanks again for all your time! I am sure you hear this all the time, but you are absolutely brilliant! - Nasrin Azari

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Whether God exists is a legitimate question. That man needs a God is an incontrovertible fact. - Carl Jung

One day at Mepkin Abbey monastery, Father Christian and I were in the breezeway that separates the monastic offices from the refectory. While chatting we were approached by a self-professed atheist who said he was visiting the monastery from “anthropological curiosity.” Right in the middle of a casual conversation that had nothing to do with religion, the atheist, trying to catch Christian off guard, blurted, “Tell me something, do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and think that maybe God just doesn’t exist?

Without hesitation Christian replied, “Sure I do, do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and think maybe he does?

The man said nothing and walked away. But before he did, the look on his face was all the answer I needed.

*     *     *

It was a typical first class for a new year. I faced a room full of college students sitting in a circle, infernally fidgeting. So, as I often do, I started around the room asking each student why he or she decided to take a class on spirituality. As the first student shyly told me he was “curious,” I winced. I knew from experience that I was now in for a string of identical replies.

And so it went until I was half way around the room. Then I came to him. He was a big, healthy, ruggedly well-built guy, and he was several years older than the first and second year students who made up the bulk of the class. There was a seriousness, a smoldering intensity about him, and I couldn’t help but notice how calm and at ease he seemed compared to the others. He had remarkable eyes that looked straight into mine without wavering, and it was all I could do to meet his gaze. As soon as he began speaking the atmosphere shifted. He spoke slowly, softly, barely audibly for a kid his size. But this quiet intensity demanded attention and every word conveyed a mood of hushed expectation.

“Up to a couple years ago, I was the maintenance manager for a large plant that made ice cream. I’m from a small town in the country and this plant is the only real business around. I liked the job. For a kid with no college education the money was great, and I had a lot of responsibility. I had a great job, a wonderful girlfriend, and a brand new red Camaro paid for with cash. Life was good. I had it made.”

This last sentence was delivered ironically and was accompanied by a small, self-deprecating smile. He then hesitated. He was in no hurry, and the possibility that the silence might become awkward clearly never entered his mind. He looked away for a moment or two, lost in his own thoughts. Finally recalling our presence he picked up his story.

“Then, late one Friday night, I was going over everything one last time before the weekend. Everyone else had gone home, and I was anxious to leave myself. I went into the freezer to check the stock and the door swung shut behind me and locked. The light went out. Just like that I was trapped in a freezer at forty below zero in jeans and a t-shirt and no one around for miles. I knew I was dead.” He stopped speaking. Seconds slipped away. He no longer was looking at me. His eyes had found a spot on the wall behind me, and I knew he was back there in that freezer — alone.

“I panicked. The door was locked, there was no one around, and even if there had been the noise from the compressors was deafening. No one could hear my screams. I knew this for a fact, but I threw myself at the door screaming and beating anyway. I was so cold and crazy that I broke every bone in both hands and wrists and felt nothing.”

Again he paused. A faint smile came to his lips. “You know, I always thought I was religious. I went to church on Sunday, said my prayers, and tried to live right. I even taught Sunday school and Bible study — you know that sort of thing. But when I was pounding on that door, there was only one thing in my head. A voice just kept screaming, ‘Oh my God! I’m dying I’m dying I’m dying and I don’t know if there’s a God. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me when I die. I don’t know anything.’ This thought was so intense that I don’t remember anything else until I found myself outside the freezer crumpled up on the floor, sobbing. You’d think as maintenance manager I would know that a safety door had been installed just two days previously. But I didn’t. And I don’t know to this day how I found it in the dark or how I opened it — I must’ve just fallen through it I guess — but I did and I’m alive.”

He looked around the room steadily, meeting the gaze of everyone, and, as if to remind himself, repeated very softly yet emphatically, “I’m alive.”

“I was in the hospital for five days with frost bite and broken bones, and in rehab for eight weeks. When I was healed up enough I drove to work. I walked into my boss’s office and quit. I drove over to my girlfriend’s house and broke up with her. Then I went to a used car dealer and traded that stupid Camaro for an old van and some cash. Then I left town.”

“For the last couple years I’ve been wandering around the country — camping out mostly — working odd jobs, reading everything I could get my hands on, and praying like I invented it or something. I’m telling you I’ve prayed so hard I felt like my head would explode and then I just prayed it would. And then I signed up for college because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

Again he hesitated. He looked down at his lap seemingly fascinated by his slowly clasping and unclasping fingers. I knew he was trying to decide whether to say something or maybe just how to say it. Then, his mind made up, he again looked me straight in the eyes.

“Because you see,” he said with finality, his eyes now filled with tears, “I still don’t know whether there’s a God or not. All I do know is that I’ll spend every minute of the rest of my life finding out.” Leaning over to hide his face he wept.

Then the spirit descended and the mood filled the room so thickly it was almost visible. And for over an hour a minor miracle occurred. Thirty rambunctious and forever fidgeting college students sat in stone silence. They looked like battle fatigue victims staring wide-eyed into the ether. They were like statues carved and custom fit with their own unique version of the thousand-yard stare. No one had the slightest inclination to break the spell. No one moved. And I was one of them.

Then after an hour that felt more like a moment out of time, I reluctantly had to break the mood. I spoke three times before anyone paid the slightest attention. Then, I watched in amazement as those still entranced kids stood up and shuffled out of the room in single file. Not one said a word, and neither did I. I remained seated in that empty room for a long time humbled by the awful nature of God. That awful nature of a God who is both so terrible and yet fills us to bursting with longing and abject awe.

Thomas Merton, the famous author, Trappist monk, and mystic said:

“Dread means that we cannot any longer hope in ourselves, in our wisdom, our virtue, our fidelity. We see too clearly that all that is ‘ours’ is nothing and can completely fail us.”

To be spiritual is to acknowledge that dread is an essential part of the spiritual quest. Aspiration is the heady inspiration that draws us to seek God, but dread is that scary feeling at the pit of our stomach that drives us to seek God. Dread trembles to know that nothing can satisfy but God even if there might not be one. Or even if there is, that he would have anything to do with a flawed creature like you.

St. John of the Cross said the last stage before the Unio Mystico or union with God is dread. It is when we are so utterly cognizant of our flaws, inadequacies, and contingent nature that we are tempted to despair as we imagine that even God cannot help us, or won’t help us. According to St. John it is this ‘dark night’ and the temptation to despair that is transcended through authentic surrender.

Michael Washburn in his book The Ego and the Dynamic Ground put it succinctly. “Dread is a wonderful thing. It is so painful and so unremitting that it is has the magical property of being the only thing that can force the ego to admit to its utter nothingness in the face of God. And with this admission the ego surrenders.”

To be spiritual is to be at home with dread. To be spiritual is to search for God like an entrepreneur with two mortgages, maxed out credit cards, and a bunch of former friends who think he’s nuts. To be spiritual is to take whatever incremental steps you must until you live each moment like the boy dying in that freezer and wanting God with his whole heart and his whole soul. It means arriving at a point where you search for Truth as if your hair were on fire and want it only for its own sake and regardless of the price. T.S Eliot called it a “condition of complete simplicity costing not less than everything.”

I never saw that boy again. I knew I wouldn’t. But I will never forget him, and I sometimes pray for him. And yet I don’t really worry about him. Blaise Pascal once said: “You would not seek Me if you had not found Me.” And I know in my heart that a hunger as deep, as awful, as his will not — cannot — be denied. I am continually asked why I do the work that I do. The answer is simple. I do it for him. I do it for that boy in all of us, trapped in this freezer called earth with no time to lose, alone, terrified, and groping for that emergency door. An emergency door custom fit for each of us, installed eternally from the beginning, and that some people call God.

It was 9:30 in the evening and I was wrapping up an SKS meeting with some undergraduates at Duke University when Meredith Parker, the student president, asked if she could walk me to my car.

“Uh oh,” I thought, “she wants something.”

I was running two cash starved start-ups at the time, and I was so worn out that it was all I could do to facilitate these weekly meetings. Despite my fondness for Meredith, I promised myself that I would politely but firmly turn her down.

In 1988 I was invited to give a talk at North Carolina State University for the University Scholars Program; a program designed to “broaden the horizons” of first and second year students. I developed a talk called Five Years with a Zen Master about my mad cap adventures as a college dropout studying Zen Buddhism under a wild, wonderful West Virginia hillbilly.  The talk became the catalyst for a student organization called the Self Knowledge Symposium (SKS) that sponsored the nondenominational meetings that I volunteered to chair and that students voluntarily attended.

Gradually the SKS spread to the University of North Carolina and then Duke, and now, some eight years later, the SKS was the love of my life. As well as a massive demand on the same time and energy that my companies were so determined to keep for themselves.

As we walked toward my car, Meredith told me that Duke offered courses designed by students for credit. If a faculty member agreed to sponsor the course and the syllabus was approved, anyone could teach one. She asked me to teach a course in the upcoming semester.

Though I was reluctant to smother her initiative, recalling my promise, I was determined to beg off.

“It’s a great idea Meredith,” I said, “but what about our regular SKS meetings?”

“We’ll have the course on a different night, and if you don’t have time to lead the meetings, I will.”

“Getting approval sounds like a lot of paperwork, and I don’t have time –”

“I’ve already submitted the paperwork,” she said without blinking.

“But we still need a faculty advisor -”

“I already took care of that,” she replied, “and I already sketched out the syllabus. All you have to do is fill in the blanks.”

“But to make it worthwhile,” I doggedly continued, “we’ll need fifteen students who –”

“That’s what I thought you’d say,” she interrupted. “More than fifteen and we lose the intimacy. I’ve got fifteen already signed up and five alternates in case somebody backs out. I told them they still have to attend the regular meetings so we don’t lose our momentum there.”

Suddenly she was grinning at the dumbfounded look that I apparently had on my face. Game, set, match. Once again I had been completely outmaneuvered by this 19-year-old sophomore that the other kids worshipped and affectionately called “The Boss.” I taught the course that Meredith (who else?) decided to call What Is Zen? It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life….

*     *     *

I built a career on sales and marketing and eventually sold two sales driven companies, but I’ve never met anyone as persuasive as Meredith Parker. The case study above holds the secrets to persuasively getting whatever you want –whether you are actually in sales, trying to get the go-ahead from your boss, or just trying to get buy-in from your people.

1. Seize the initiative. At every step Meredith maintained the initiative. She forced me to react to her.  Every decision whether with a client, your two-year –old, or your chess partner will be determined by the person who maintains the initiative.
2. Anticipate the Objection. Meredith anticipated her “customer” so well that she overcame my objections before I even thought of them.
3. Don’t Over Rely on a Business Case. Meredith didn’t get the sale by recounting the benefits that the course would have for end users—in this case her fellow students. Nor did she build a business case around why the course would be good for the SKS brand.  Instead she focused on the personal constraints that her client –me- was dealing with.  Companies and organizations don’t buy things. People do and these people are busy.
4. Action Bias. Meredith didn’t overcome my objections by intellectually suggesting solutions. She took the initiative and did all the work upfront: work that most people in a similar situation would consider my job. She didn’t just overcome my objections, she preempted them by offering what we salesmen call a turnkey solution.  As CEO, I always had 100 opportunities that made perfect business sense for every one I could actually implement.  Whether it was a vendor, a subordinate, or my girlfriend, the person most likely to get the sale was the person who took work off my plate and put it on their own.
5. Seize the Moral High Ground. By taking the initiative Meredith not only preempted my objections, but seized the moral high ground. Once I knew how much effort she had already expended I felt a moral obligation to go along.  Most people are decent human beings and when you invest in them they will feel morally obligated to invest in you. Never wait to be asked. Just roll up your sleeves and do it.
6. Don’t Forget Politics. The day of the single decision-maker is gone. Decisions today are driven by consensus. By signing up twenty students before even approaching the “decision-maker,” Meredith built a consensus for the class. It was no longer just a matter of disappointing her; it was matter of disappointing everybody. Again, she didn’t go back and build consensus after hearing my objections; she preempted my objections by  getting out ahead of them.
7. It is Better to Ask for Forgiveness than Permission. Meredith is such a prime example of this leadership nostrum that I have nothing more to add.
8. Theory of Mind. Meredith’s real gift was her amazing ability to put herself into another person’s shoes; an ability psychology calls a theory of mind.  Her persuasive power resulted from an uncanny gift for predicting the reaction of others coupled to a willingness to treat them the way she would like to be treated.

*    *     *

One time WalMart went looking for sun glasses. The vendors lined up and each one made a compelling case for why consumers would so love their sunglasses that WalMart would make millions. But one vendor took a different tack. They showed up with a floor plan of WalMart’s stores that highlighted a bit of space that WalMart had overlooked.  Then they brought in a display case customized to fit this unused space already covered with their sunglasses. Sunglasses that were already equipped with WalMart price tags and bar coding. Then the vendor pulled out signed manufacturing contracts with their own vendors that guaranteed WalMart just-in- time inventory no matter how many sunglasses they sold.  Finally they unveiled a turnkey cross promotion that would not only move lots of sunglasses but increase floor traffic as well.  This vendor got the sale.

I haven’t heard from Meredith in almost ten years, but when I heard this story it crossed my mind that maybe she went into business making sunglasses…

Follow me on Twitter @augustturak, Facebook http://facebook.com/aturak or check out my Forbes blog http://blogs.forbes.com/augustturak/ for more tips and strategies for becoming a great leader – and to discover how service and selflessness is the secret to success in business and in life.

Streaming audio version: Listen to Brother John Essay

Six years ago I turned this experience into an essay titled, Brother John, and submitted it to the John Templeton Foundation’s Power of Purpose Essay Contest. Of all the wonderful compliments that Brother John has garnered over the years, none means more to me than my brother’s.

One day my brother Chris told me that he had mentioned Brother John to a colleague at his law firm.

“You mean to tell me,” his colleague exclaimed, “that with no previous experience, your brother cranks out an essay in a couple of days and wins the Templeton Foundation’s grand prize?”

Chris nodded.

“Boy, is he lucky.”

“You don’t understand,” Chris said. “My brother’s been working on that essay for 35 years.”

With the benefit of my brother’s comment I realized that this Christmas story was more than an essay. It was a manifesto crammed with everything I’ve learned from all my teachers and the monks of Mepkin Abbey.

But most importantly, I realized that the man I was when these events took place could never have written Brother John. It was only with the help of Brother John, Father Christian, and all the monks of Mepkin Abbey that I finally received the grace that let me share Brother John’s umbrella with others.

With this post so close to Christmas I’d like to offer you a copy of Brother John. I offer it in the hope that you will find this story of a simple monk’s Christmas gift as powerful and inspirational as I did. My best wishes to you and your loved ones in this holiday season.

Choose your gift option:

Streaming audio version: Listen to Brother John Essay

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