An Entrepreneur's Parable
If you asked me, point blank, if I could do anything career wise my answer would be to become a cast member of Jackass.
It has nothing to do with the celebrity, merchandise or video games (I own it. It was free.) but rather with doing the unexpected, taking tremendous risk and living to laugh about it.
At the end of the day that should be the mantra of an entrepreneur. Is that my life? On some days it is. Others, not so much, which explains my lack of retirement.
I’m a proud graduate of Babson College. I specifically went there for the entrepreneurship program, which was just named numero uno in the country for the 14th consecutive year.
Because of this it always bothered me that Babson had an accounting program. You go to Bentley for accounting, not Babson. You also go to Bentley when you want to work for a Babson grad. On a side note if you never hear from me ever again please send the authorities to the home of Bentley grad, CC Chapman. He definitely did it in the living room, with an iPad.
This is a story about young men doing something that they never should have done, yet having an experience, living to laugh about it and getting an A on a paper. It’s also an entrepreneur’s parable that teaches you with a little guts and timely luck you can achieve success.
It was Spring semester of 1993 and my friend, who we’ll refer to as Hamburgler, because he would eat McDonald’s at least once a day, came up to me with a dilemma. He committed to writing a paper titled “The Pressures of a Modern Day Athlete," which pre-Internet, texting and mobile video/photo was pretty tame. However, the professor insisted that Hamburgler interview some athletes and persons within the industry, thus causing the dilemma.
Babson’s a small school. It’s most popular sport was soccer. There are no alumni pro-athletes. There was no warm pool to reach out to. Well the closest thing we had was Brandeis, which at the time, was where the Boston Celtics practiced. Without hesitation I suggested to Hamburgler that we go to practice and see what we can find out. If you know me then you are aware that I love pretending to not be me every so often. I’m the guy at Starbucks who lies about his name when they want to write it on my cup. Crazy huh? If you see Hernando or Franklin walking around the streets of Boston say hi. As a result I suggested that we pose as reporters from the fine publication known as the Babson Free Press.
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