“All human beings are entrepreneurs. When we were in the caves, we were self-employed…finding our food, feeding ourselves. That’s where human history began. As civilization came, we suppressed it. We became “Labor” because they stamped us, “you are labor”. We forgot that we are entrepreneurs.
- Muhammad Yunus (Nobel Prize Winner and Microfinance Pioneer)

The Start-Up of You is a book by Reid Hoffman (Co-founder and Chairman of LinkedIn) and Ben Casnocha. The main idea about the book is the need to Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself and Transform your Career.

1. All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA, and creation is the essence of entrepreneurship. I have come to learn that the best way to predict the future is to create it. To adapt to the challenges of professional life today, we need to rediscover our entrepreneurial instincts and use them to forge new sorts of careers.

2. Whether you want to learn a new skill or simply be better at the job you were hired to do, it’s now your job to train and invest in yourself. These are the days of self-development; each of us must take responsibility for our own personal growth and development. The gap is growing between those who know the new career rules and have the new skills of a global economy, and those who clutch to old ways of thinking and rely on commoditized skills. The question is, which are you?

3. The business strategies employed by highly successful start-ups and the career strategies employed by highly successful individuals are strikingly similar. While the highly successful individuals may not have considered themselves entrepreneurs, their approach to life seemed every bit the Silicon Valley way: they were self-reliant in spirit, resourceful, ambitious, adaptive, and networked with one another. Like the best entrepreneurs, they did more than just dream; they went out and created the future they had imagined.

4. FINISHED must become a failure word for all of us. We are all works in progress. Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more, grow more, stretch more and push more in our lives, businesses and careers. For entrepreneurs, finished is a failure word. They know that great companies are always evolving; hence as individuals, you must make a lifelong commitment to continuous personal growth.

5. If you want to chart a course that differentiates you from other professionals in the marketplace, the first step is being able to complete the sentence, “A company hires me over other professionals because….” You must ask yourself;
How are you first, only, faster, better, or cheaper than other people who want to do what you’re doing in the world?
What are you offering that’s hard to come by?
What are you offering that is both rare and valuable?
In life, there are multiple gold medals. If you try to be the best at everything and better than everyone, you will be the best at nothing and better than no one. Instead, compete in local contest- local not in terms of geography but also in terms of industry segment and skillset.

6. Your competitive advantage is formed by the interplay of three different, ever changing forces;
Your Assets
Your Aspirations/values
The market realities; i.e. the supply and demand for what you offer the marketplace relative to your competition.
Competitive advantage underpins all career strategy. It helps answer the classic question, “what should I be doing with my life?”. It helps you decide which opportunities to pursue. It guides you in how you should be investing in yourself. Because all these things change, assessing and evaluating your competitive advantage is a lifelong process, not something you do once.

7. Your assets are what you have right now. Before dreaming about the future or making plans, you need to articulate what you already have going for you- as entrepreneurs do. The most brilliant business idea is often the one that builds on the founders’ existing assets in the most brilliant way. Your business and career goals from emerge from your strengths, interests and network of contacts. You have two types of career assets to keep track of; soft and hard. Soft assets are things you can’t trade directly for money. They are the intangible contributors to career success while hard assets are what you would typically list on a balance sheet.

Bravo

Ademat7:
Bravo

Thanks. It was a great read. Watch out for part 2...

Kudos to you

Xxpress:
Kudos to you

Thanks...