Some Thought That Secretariat Was A Film Just about Race Horses
I finally got a chance to view the film Secretariat. In general I believe it really is tough to create a good movie when everybody knows how its likely to end when they walk into the theater. Therefore my hat’s off to the folks that made this movie it was a great one. I expected a fun movie about horse racing and the incredible will to win from the horse.
But what actually got my attention was the entrepreneurial spirit belonging to the owner. Penny Chenery, is an amazing entrepreneur who was willing to do whatever it took to hold on to Secretariat and ensure that she was in a position to be an integral part of her horses legacy. For me the scene in the film that explained it all occurred right after her father had passed away.
The family was going to lose the ranch because of inheritance taxes and needed to get $6M to cover it. Her whole family wanted her to sell Secretariat, except she refused. This scene showed the difference between a pragmatic business person and an entrepreneur. As pragmatic individuals, all they had to do was sell the horse, they could have kept the ranch and had money left over to keep it going.
But Penny was all in, she believed she had a winner and was prepared to risk everything because her belief was so strong. She might have lost it all if she was wrong. We all know how it turned out. But this is a superb illustration of what it truly requires to become an entrepreneur. So for anybody who is pondering whether or not you’ve got what it takes. Place yourself in Ms. Chenrey’s shoes and ask yourself, could you have risked losing the whole thing to gamble on your dream.
Entrepreneur’s Have To Be Sure
If you are not certain which way you’d go on this one, perhaps you are not able to be an entrepreneur. There is nothing wrong with that, but better to recognise ahead of time and not take risks which you could’t follow through on.
By the way, there is one added part to the story, that also showed what sort of an entrepreneur Penny Chenery actually is. Once she decided to go ahead with her plan to raise the cash to race Secretariat, it did not go well. She failed practically every time to get investors on board. Except she kept going and going until she finally was able to crack the code and once she did, she raised over $6M and was able to race the horse. Ask yourself, what number of telephone calls would you be ready to make once you got rejected again and again, till you gave up.
Entrepreneur’s Focus On Winning The Race
It did not get any better for that Secretariat race team, when he lost a necessary race just prior to the Kentucky Derby. Thus, another chance to throw up their hands in defeat. But again, because of their unwavering will to succeed, they pushed forward and, well, you already know the rest.
The bottom line here is that difficulty and problems are a part of what it takes in order to be a successful entrepreneur. You also have to dust yourself off and get back on the horse (sorry for the bad pun), no matter what. If you can’t take the Penny challenge, then you should run, not walk away, because you are not meant to become an entrepreneur.