Chapter 17 Section 16: Be mentally prepared to challenge everything

So what does the above-mentioned entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and inventors have to do with us students who start out with $5, paper clips, and water bottles and challenge ourselves to create as much value as possible out of these little things?The relationship is getting bigger!These examples all underscore the same point: challenging the constraints of conventional thinking, figuring out the problems around you, and working relentlessly to solve them, can be very rewarding.Countless problems are waiting for people to come up with innovative ways to solve it.Of course, this requires keen observation, teamwork, the ability to execute solutions, a willingness to learn from failure, and innovative problem-solving skills.But first and foremost is the attitude, the attitude of believing that the problem can be solved.My students and I have found that the more experience we have with a problem, the more confident we will be in finding a solution.

Be mentally prepared for any challenge I recently traveled to Scotland to teach a week-long startup bootcamp.The camp, run by James Barlow of the Scottish Institute for Enterprise, was attended by 50 university students from around the country, with subjects ranging from criminology to cosmetology, and Most have no entrepreneurial experience.As soon as the course starts, many people are completely intimidated by the first assignment.I ask them to design a new product or service, and then sell this new product or service.At 6pm, I sent each group £50 as start-up money, which they had to complete within the next 18 hours.The purpose of this assignment is to get them out of their comfort zone and into the real world.Many students later told me that they thought, just turn around and go home.However, everyone persisted, and they were very pleasantly surprised to see that they had completed the task.One group became "umbrella companions," helping pedestrians stranded by sudden downpours; one set up an impromptu speed-dating stand at a local bar; and another set up a pop-up shoe shine on a downtown street.

This assignment was just the beginning. In the following week, they experienced various challenging tasks, including reading newspapers to identify problems, brainstorming to find innovative solutions, designing new business projects, meeting potential customers, Shoot commercials and sell your business ideas to successful executives.By the time training camp is over, they're ready to take on any challenge. There is one group that I think is very good.That group consisted of 3 young girls who had never faced a similar challenge.When the first homework was assigned, they were still shaking with fear.But when the training camp was coming to an end, they all came up with a brilliant idea, which was not only highly praised by the referees, but also received venture capital from investors.They invented a mobile door-to-door service - bra modification.The invention stemmed from their observation that most women found it awkward to try on bras at the mall, so it was often the bras that came back that didn't fit.Their ad was shot elegantly as well, successfully convincing everyone to agree with this interesting business opportunity.

On the last day of training camp, one of the girls said to me, "I know now that there is nothing I can't do".This girl, and all the other students, had mastered the skills enough to do amazing things.In fact, what we have done is to let them see the tangible facts, and then tell ourselves, "We can turn the problems around us into opportunities."