"The problem with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur."
As invented quotes attributed to George "Dubya" Bush goes, that is particularly unconvincing -- not least because I wouldn't have expected Bush Jnr. to be familiar with the word "entrepreneur".
A group of people who are familiar with it, however, are Nick Williams' Inspired Entrepreneur Club. I had the great pleasure of attending a meeting of the club on Wednesday night, though I think of myself less in terms of entrepreneur and more in terms of artist. Or dreamer.
This is the kind of event you hope to find in London, a diverse collection of individuals meeting at the International Students House in Great Portland St -- which to my mind is a pretty inspired choice of location. Perhaps it was entirely coincidental, but as you walk in to the building you pass groups of young people from all over the world, all speaking different languages, all living in this big crazy city, so far from home. That is inspiration right there -- leaving behind the comfortable and the familiar to live in another country.
The meeting itself started with a few moments of quiet reflection. That scores points in my book right away, a few minutes of quiet with just my thoughts is rare for me -- time before sleep doesn't really count, since it rapidly descends into the nonsensical and from there dreams.
Working in sales as I do, so much of my day has to be spent on the phone. If I take too long to write notes between dialling numbers I am immediately picked up on, so the short times scheduled for admin in the day when I don't have to be actively calling don't give me time for my own thoughts. Every phone call I make during the day is monitored for length, I consider myself fortunate they aren't "recorded for training purposes".
You don't expect time for quiet reflection at an "entrepreneur" evening, but it was a far cry from the familiar networking events of people awkwardly mingling and swapping business cards and looking for who can bring them business.
The meeting itself commenced after the time of reflection, but even the networking wasn't "Hello, what do you do?" but instead was focused on sharing something -- or things -- that had inspired us. It can be a little alarming when your first thought is that you can't think of a single inspiring thing. I used to write "Things I Love Thursday" posts, which strangely enough stopped almost entirely when I got a new job last year -- I'm thinking now I might perhaps write regular posts on things that inspire me. Like the BBC TV programme "Wonders of the Solar System", mentioned in previous posts. What inspired me this week was seeing the girl in her show choir perform last weekend -- it took tremendous courage and dedication for everyone involved. Search on YouTube for Starling Arts "Summer in the City" event if you want to see videos from the performances.
It inspired me to want to sing. I already love music and part of me likes being the centre of attention -- which is part of the motivation behind my poetry and spoken word performances. I enjoy karaoke and a few months ago I was indulged shamelessly at a karaoke event with a real band, where I acted like a rock star and belted out versions of "Teenage Kicks" and "Are You Gonna Be My Girl". The benefit of singing with a real band like that was that I couldn't hear what I sounded like, but I cringe a little with shame when I think how terrible it must have been for the audience, since I am incapable of singing in tune. So the concert on Saturday has inspired me to make contact with the organisers and ask if singing lessons are possible and if it can be possible to be without help.
Naturally, with any entrepreneur evening there was also discussion of what we do for a living as well as our dreams and ambitions. I spoke to someone and told them of my passion for writing, how I write almost compulsively (it's not like I write this blog for the acclaim or wide readership). They asked me what made me want to start writing -- and the funny thing is I realised it's just something I have always done, always wanted to do, and always been quite good at. At school -- not unlike now -- I was never happier than when I was allowed to just write, to just be creative. I wasn't a very good journalist -- though I read professionals in newspapers who are far worse than I ever was -- but part of that was no doubt a certain lack of confidence and shyness about talking to people. Not great quality in a news reporter.
Late in the evening, one lady spoke of her ambition to be able to help people with cancer -- by way of an alternative to chemotherapy. There was some brief discussion of marketing, and it was suggested to her about setting up a blog. Being of a different generation, she seemed a little intimidated by the idea of having to learn new computer skills despite how simple she was told it would be. And I had a thought, there is another way.
I write here on occasion of a desire to work in web content, to combine my existing writing skills with web design skills. I would have liked to have been able to say to this lady, "Don't worry, I can help, just tell me what you want to say". Web designers come a dime by the dozen, and I am struggling to get started with learning design (Javascript may have been a dead end or a false start), but part of me thinks I could be happy doing something like that -- I can take what you want to say and make it more readable, I can take what you have and give you a way to present it. It's a thought anyway.
