The Five Classes of Entrepreneurs
Class I. Opportunist
Class II. Lifestyle Entrepreneur
Class III. Problem Solver
Class IV. Visionary
Class V. Game Changer
How do you know when somebody gets GTD?
“It’s very simple. If they at all feel out of control or if they feel they have not the right focus, they know exactly how to get back to it, by themselves. That’s how I got a black belt in karate (“if you can train yourself”). Doesn’t have to mean you’re always in shape but if you know how to get yourself back in shape because you know the game and you know how to put yourself into the game when required, that’s it.
So, if you’re feeling out of control in any situation and you know how to get that control, or you’re feeling like I don’t have the right focus right now and I need to get the right focus. If you know how to do both of those, you’re on.”
Understanding this may help to answer an important question: why Europe grew so powerful. Was it something about the geography of Europe? Was it that Europeans are somehow racially superior? Was it their religion? The answer (or at least the proximate cause) may be that the Europeans rode on the crest of a powerful new idea: allowing those who made a lot of money to keep it.
Once you’re allowed to do that, people who want to get rich can do it by generating wealth instead of stealing it. The resulting technological growth translates not only into wealth but into military power. The theory that led to the stealth plane was developed by a Soviet mathematician. But because the Soviet Union didn’t have a computer industry, it remained for them a theory; they didn’t have hardware capable of executing the calculations fast enough to design an actual airplane.
In that respect the Cold War teaches the same lesson as World War II and, for that matter, most wars in recent history. Don’t let a ruling class of warriors and politicians squash the entrepreneurs. The same recipe that makes individuals rich makes countries powerful. Let the nerds keep their lunch money, and you rule the world.