I have a gripe with the way entrepreneurship is generally talked about or even taught.

Most of the aura associated with entrepreneurship kind of suggests that it is the ultimate professional nirvana and the path which everyone worth his salt must tread.

The truth couldn’t be farther.

Entrepreneurship is not for everybody despite what numerous B-school professors or entrepreneurship experts might have to say and this is irrespective of the eventual outcome of the “entrepreneurs born or made?” debate.

The truth is its like any other professional choice you make. It requires different kinds of skills and attitude and temperament, is exciting like hell for some and can be equally depressing for others. Bungee jumping may be exciting, sexy and adventurous but is not so for all. Now, even if the bungee jump example is over-glorification of entrepreneurship, not liking bungee jumping doesn’t make one a “lesser man”. I, for one, am too scared to bungee jump.

A more pertinent question may be, if it is for me. Again, no decision tree algorithm exists which can help you figure that out. For most of the entrepreneurs, it is some mysterious voice in their stomachs which keeps telling them, “You HAVE to do it”. This is distinctly different from the moments of frustration and anger with your boss or your company which may happen to most of us some time or the other. Deciding to be an entrepreneur becaue your job/boss/company sucks is bad decision making.

This voice of the gut is so persistent, it gradually starts consuming you with drums beating all around your head. This persistent crescendo from within you brings you to a situation when you tell yourself that even if you were all alone, stripped of all the good things you cherish, you’d still do it. In this somehwhat metaphysical sense, entrepreneurship no longer remains a choice.

What all these entrepreneurship courses/trainers/professors could do then is to encourage students to listen to their inner voices and know themselves more. What makes them happy, what gets them excited, what gets them depressed. Self discovery should probably be the first chapter in any book which wants to tell the truth about entrepreneurship.

The steps, structure, financing, strategy, marketing – are the details. Once the inner game is set right, all else follows (yes, that’s the truth no matter how philosophical it may sound; entrepreneurship, in that sense, can have highly philosophical overtones).

And this is where I agree the most with Sunil Handa’s Laboratory in Entrepreneurial Motivation (LeM) course at IIM Ahmedabad. He doesn’t talk about financing, strategy, recruitment, the works. He tries to get the inner game right.

In that sense, the guys who did the course were lucky. It helped identify the inner voices and convinced a lot of us that following the gut was in no way less scientific or more superstitious than following an enormously involved decision making algorithm.

The directive for the curious, then, should be that if you do not hear that crescendo in your head day in and day out, the pesky little voice screaming, “Why the hell did you not get started already?”, either the time is not right or you’d be happier not doing it.

For a first generation, first timer, the reasons have to be all internal. Unless and until internal reasons gather enough steam to become unbearable, don’t do it.

Just back from a two day trip to Ahmedabad. The event: IIMA Entrepreneurs’ Meet.

Good fun. Good to see so many of the off-roaders meet and share their experiences. Sanjiv Bikhchandani (naukri.com), Deep Kalra (makemytrip.com), Shantanu Prakash (Educomp) and a host of other successful entrepreneurs – the event had to be an enriching experience.

A lot of beliefs corroborated and most important amongst them was that wisdom cannot be transferred. It had to be experienced and everyone has to find their own path.

Questions like what business to start, when to start and how to start are the questions no one can answer for you. Infact, if you still believe you need someone to answer these questions or even guide you in the quest of these answers, you are not yet ready for entrepreneurship.

A very interesting question came up during a general conversation with a fairly senior alumni. “What was the source of motivation to be an entrepreneur? What made you certain that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?”.

It may look an innocuous question but its actually difficult to answer. What made me think I wanted to do it, more so, so early in my career. I quit my campus job in 4 months knowing from the day one that it was not for me and then joined a startup IT services company. My next job was with a small IT products company and all these moves were just to prepare myself better for eventual plunge that I was going to take. The question is how come I knew I wanted this in my second year itself.

The fact is, you just know. It is an instinctive feeling that that’s the only thing you want to do. External factors do help, for example, the biggest contribution of Prof Sunil Handa is that he shows you that you are not the only one to have to pass through a tough phase thereby rationalizing the pain and making it easier to bear. The economic environment helps, supportive spouse helps, encouraging friends help, even Maniratnam’s “Guru” helps – but finally, its that queer little voice in your belly that screams.

It’s something like fire can only burn, it has to burn for that is it’s Dharma or destiny or whatever you may call it. A scorpion HAS to sting and an eagle HAS to prey. Similarly, an entrepreneur HAS to do that, he’s got no choice. The queer little voice inside would not let him do anything else.

At least that’s what happened with me, though being true to my craft of entrepreneurship, I cannot suggest to anyone that that’s a model scenario and that’s how it has to be. Find your own truth – for that is the essence of entrepreneurship – finding your own path.