8 Lessons in Military Leadership for Entrepreneurs. Robert T. Kiyosaki
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Delayed gratification is also another indication of emotional intelligence. For example, a person who buys something they cannot afford—just because they want it now—is a person who cannot delay gratification. This is a sign of low emotional intelligence.
Military training does an outstanding job developing a person’s emotional intelligence. How else can a person stay cool under fire, advance in the face of death, and persevere when others quit?
Most people remain employees rather than develop into entrepreneurs because they cannot control the emotion known as fear. Anyone who has served in the military knows that military training and service does not eliminate fear. The military trains you to think and operate in spite of your fear. It is the same ability required of entrepreneurs as they take on the challenges of launching and growing a business.
Emotional intelligence is located in the stomach. This is why people will say “I have a bad feeling in my gut” about something or someone. And this may be why ulcers, caused by fear and worry, are found in the stomach or intestines.
In my opinion, people with low emotional intelligence should not become entrepreneurs. Saying this in a more positive way: Becoming a successful entrepreneur requires the on-going development of your emotional intelligence.
The true leaders, in any field, have high emotional IQs.
Spiritual Intelligence
Spiritual intelligence is located in the heart. That is why the word courage comes from the French word, le coeur, which means the heart.
Greatness comes from the heart. So does death, which is why people die of heart attacks or from the devastation of a broken heart.
Again, the military does an outstanding job developing the spiritual intelligence of new recruits. People with high spiritual intelligence operate with a sense of mission, putting the mission and the team ahead of their own life.
As General Douglas McArthur said:
“It is fatal to enter a war without the will to win it.”
Training Entrepreneurs
To develop as an entrepreneur requires:
1. Spiritual Intelligence
Spiritual intelligence is the most important of intelligences for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs require a strong sense of mission, a commitment to a higher purpose in life, a reason for going into business, apart from simply a desire to “make money.”
My first day at the Academy, my first job was to memorize the mission of the Academy. We were taught “mission is spiritual” and that spiritual power, spiritual intelligence, is what would get us through four years of hell.
As General George Patton once said:
“Live for something… rather than die for nothing.”
2. Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the second most important intelligence for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs must know how to remain cool under pressure, to think rather than react, and to know when to wait and when to strike.
Another quote from General Douglas McArthur that seems appropriate:
“Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.”
3. Physical Intelligence
Physical intelligence is the third most important intelligence for entrepreneurs. A person must have “know how.” In the world of entrepreneurship, you achieve success and all that comes with it… only if you know what you’re doing, and do what you promise to do.
As Winston Churchill said:
“We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.”
4. Mental Intelligence
Mental intelligence is important, but it is the least important intelligence in the world of entrepreneurs.
Robert A. Heinlein, a civilian military contractor, summed it up this way:
“Civilians are like beans; you buy ‘em as needed for any job which merely requires skill and savvy. But you can’t buy fighting spirit.”
This may be the basis for why some of the greatest and richest entrepreneurs never finished school. Being a great entrepreneur or serving your country requires all four intelligences, especially spiritual intelligence, the power to keep going when everything else is gone.
A classmate of mine from elementary school, Richie Richardson, was an Army LRRP, Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, and spent as much time in Laos as in Vietnam. He once said to me: “I am alive today because dead men kept fighting.”
Being an entrepreneur requires the same spirit.
A few entrepreneurs with strong spirits, but who never finished school are:
Steve Jobs: Apple Computers
Bill Gates: Microsoft
Henry Ford: Ford Motor Company
Walt Disney: Disney Productions, Disneyland, Disney World
Oprah Winfrey: Oprah Winfrey Network
Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook
Richard Branson: Virgin Group
Michael Dell: Dell Computers
Thomas Edison: General Electric
A good college education is essential for people who want to be doctors, lawyers, or executives, but it is not essential for people who want to be entrepreneurs.
You may be familiar with this saying: “Education is the door to the middle class.”
My rich dad said, “Entrepreneurship is the elevator for the rich.”
Mission, Courage, Sacrifice
In August of 1972, I was flying off LPH-3, the helicopter carrier USS Okinawa off the coast of Vietnam. My door gunner, a young corporal, had just received word that his wife had given birth to their first child, a son.
As the new father finished inspecting his M-60 door gun, I tapped him on the shoulder. I wanted to be sure he was OK with flying that day. I asked him, “Is it OK with you if your son grows up without a father?”
Understanding my concern, the young Marine smiled and said; “Yes, sir. It’s OK with me. I’m ready to go.” He then smiled again, assuring me he really was “ready to go”—ready to die if necessary. Then he said: “Lieutenant, you do your job and I’ll do mine.”
Five months later, the young father returned home to meet his son for the first time. He had done his job and I had done mine.
As General George Patton said:
“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”
Two Years Later…
In June of 1974, my contract with the Marine Corps was fulfilled. I had been in the military for nine years, four years at a military academy and five years in the Marine Corps. In many ways, I had grown up in the military.
I drove off the Marine Corps Air Station at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii and went to work for the Xerox Corporation in downtown Honolulu. It took awhile to adjust to the change in cultures.
It was not easy learning to work with civilians. It was not easy working with and associating with former “hippies,” and people who spit on us and called us “baby-killers.”
It wasn’t easy