Role Models for Entrepreneurs
I do not remember having role models while I was growing up, Sure, I thought a lot of my teachers and some of the other adults I spent time with, but it wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I began to think of anyone as a role model for what I wanted to achieve.
Even then, they weren’t people I could relate to directly. The first person I truly admired was Oprah Winfrey. I was working part-time as a production assistant for a film company and one of the producers was from Chicago. She had a poster of Oprah in her office and talked about her incessantly. I was intrigued and began to watch her talk show on one of the smaller stations that was carrying it in the Los Angeles area. Even then, Oprah was someone you had to admire for how she talked and carried herself. But it wasn’t as though I felt that I could emulate what she was achieving in her life. Instead, I merely enjoyed watching and listening to her over the years as she became a personality who impacted people around the world.
Recently Adrienne Dupree wrote a post about legendary women’s basketball coach Pat Summit, who passed away at the age of sixty-four after being diagnosed a few years earlier with Alzheimer’s. In her blog post she includes Pat’s “Definite Dozen” rules to live by:
“Pat Summitt had set of rules to live by called the Definite Dozen.
- Respect Yourself and Others
- Take Full Responsibility
- Develop and Demonstrate Loyalty
- Learn to Be a Great Communicator
- Discipline Yourself So No One Else Has To
- Make Hard Work Your Passion
- Don’t Just Work Hard, Work Smart
- Put the Team Before Yourself
- Make Winning an Attitude
- Be a Competitor
- Change Is a Must
- Handle Success Like You Handle Failure
These rules are rules that do not just pertain to basketball. They pertain to life. What if we all lived by these rules and conducted our businesses with these rules in mind? What a better place the world would be. When I think about the trailblazer that Pat Summitt was and the hard work and dedication that she had, I know that I can do better.”
These days I have several role models in my life, and they are primarily people I know personally who continue to guide and influence my life and my business ventures. Do you have role models in your life? What is your thinking on this topic of role models for entrepreneurs?
