Thread: From Rags to Resorts... (Great Billionaire Success Story)

Great entrepreneur story with great entrepreneur take aways!

From Rags to Resorts - Doug French - Mises Daily

(Someone even recommends my book in the comments, yeahhhh!)

Nicolai Foss and Peter Klein stress an entrepreneur's judgment making "in the specific context of exercising control over heterogeneous resources in the service of satisfying future imagined customer preferences.

Define future needs, and attempt to control them.

However, for the seventh-richest man in America, it's much simpler. "This is the nature of entrepreneurship. It's the willingness to take a risk," Adelson said. "It's a willingness to do things a little bit different."

Hints of branding, and improving on things differently.

Also, it's apparent that entrepreneurial abilities lie outside the particular skills and knowledge needed in a specific industry. You don't need to know how to make a Bloody Mary to start a successful saloon. At the same time, knowing how to make a killer martini doesn't mean the bartender has the required business judgment to make the saloon successful.

Once again that big time entrepreneurs aren't engaged in "do what you love" and "do what you know" BS.

"Knowledge can be a subtle curse," writes Jonah Lehrer in his impossible-to-put-down Imagine: How Creativity Works. "When we learn about the world, we also learn all the lessons why the world cannot be changed. We get used to our failures and imperfections." Lehrer goes on to point out that to be creative over time, "to not be undone by our expertise — is to experiment with ignorance, to stare at things we don't fully understand."

What you know can limit your scope in the game of entrepreneurship.

Adelson, while now a billionaire many times over, started or acquired 50 businesses, and each time, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Howard Stutz writes, "he wasn't sure exactly what he was getting himself into.

Did he stop learning when he graduated? Nope ... the guy is in his 70's and still hasn't stopped learning.

This is really great. People usually get the misconception that you have to be an expert in something before you can start a successful business. I am learning that you have to be open, always self educating, solve problems for people or give value....all around you just have to be an expert in entrepreneurship.