We have been repeatedly bombarded with the glorified message that entrepreneurship is a selective club of people working on ultrasecret projects, and that the people doing these are big risk takers. Through my experience with Play Physio and previous entrepreneurial projects, I’ve realized that the work that you do isn’t all that different from any other job. The only change is that you are individually held accountable for every single task that needs to be done, some of which you have no control over. The increased sense of ownership and responsibility often motivates people to prioritize and work more than they would have under other circumstances.
This glorification of innovation and entrepreneurship is good in the sense that it serves to inspire people to take up such projects and roles, foregoing the financial and career security of “traditional” jobs. Nevertheless, the excess of this message has also had an undesirable effect — more people now view these roles as far removed from what they are equipped to do. With the ever-changing competitive job market, this comes as bad news, especially when innovation is one of the key traits that is valued in every role. There are many different forms of innovation that don’t align with the “traditional” definition of the word — open source innovation, social entrepreneurship, process overhauls, policy changes, to name a few.
I am of the conviction that innovation is a mind-set that can be employed in a myriad of situations, and we students who will be shaping the market in the near future should focus on developing this trait further. Taking on roles with more responsibilities, assessing routine tasks to figure better methods, and determining the root causes of issues that crop up are some of the actions which could hone that skill. The decision to choose your roles, especially at the start of your career, is a difficult one. I hope that this outlook would assist in making that choice.