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Are women really cut out for entrepreneurship? 
What advantages do women entrepreneurs have over men?

Women…I love them.  I respect them.  But I don’t understand them.

Every internet marketing guru will tell you; you gain respect from the readers of your articles if you are perceived as an expert on the topic. 
Well… that blows me out of the water.

In fairness, I understand women as well as any other man.  Not a good start.

But coming off a low base like that, what I do understand is the entrepreneurial mind.  I understand it by doing it not just studying it.

The ability of women to multi-task and to think in so many directions at once has always fascinated me.  One of my wife’s girlfriends can have a conversation at a party with one group of people, seem intently engrossed in it, and yet be tuning in word perfect to two other conversations at the same time.  I struggle staying tuned in to one.

When I developed a simple business tool for entrepreneurs called The A.B.C Principle, it dawned on me why women can be such great entrepreneurs and why so many are. As author and trainer Mal Emery would say “I had a blinding flash of the bleeding obvious.”

The A.B.C. Principle is a road map for learning hungry success addicts. It identifies the three thinking different spaces in which business people function.  What entrepreneurs do best is balance their thinking across all three thinking spaces.  Not all business people can do that.  Let’s look at them.

A â€" The Abstract Thinking Space

Einstein once said “What counts can’t always be counted, and what can be counted doesn’t always count.”  That is what abstract thinking is all about.  It’s not tangible.  It doesn’t fit into a spreadsheet.  But the results that flow from it can. Thinking skills. Beliefs. Confidence. Imagination. Visionary skills. Optimism. Consciousness. Mindset.  And that’s just for starters.

B â€" The Business Intellect Thinking Space

B encompasses all the measurable business knowledge and skills we acquire. Facts. Figures. Data. Strategies. Analysis. Systems. Qualifications. This is where many business people feel most comfortable.  It’s Business Execution Intelligence.  Most big companies become over reliant on B thinking. 

C â€" The Creative Thinking Space

C is where great ideas are born. This is a natural part of all of us. Not just ‘arty’ types and designers. You use this thinking space every morning during the simple act of selecting your outfit for the day.  This is the space that supplies the fuel for your entrepreneurial engine.

Your Thinking Space Comfort Zone

The A, B and C Thinking Spaces naturally overlap.  For each of us one of them is our comfort zone.  Moving out of that comfort zone and into the other two Thinking Spaces is what entrepreneurs do best.  Corporate executives and big companies don’t do it anywhere near as well as entrepreneurs.  Some hardly do at all. 

Think of it as a diagram.  Imagine these thinking spaces as three circles which gently intersect and overlap each other.  Draw the three overlapping circles on a sheet of paper, as though the centre of each circle is at each point of a triangle. The three circles intersect in the middle of the page.  Do it now.  It will take two seconds. You’ll end up with an odd shape space in the middle where all the circles intersect.  This is the crucial zone where all three A, B and C circles meet.     

The Entrepreneur Zone

The space in the middle is where our Thinking Spaces are in harmony with each other.  It can be elusive.  I call it The Entrepreneur Zone.  It’s the best place to be if you want to think and behave like a true entrepreneur. 

The Female Advantage

When you grasp The A.B.C Principle as an entrepreneurial business tool, and you consider women’s capacity to multi-think, the advantage they have over aspiring male entrepreneurs is obvious.  To apply the A.B.C Principle one has to think in all three thinking spaces simultaneously.  Most women can do that naturally.  They’re wired for it.  We’re not.  At least not to the same degree.  Or at least not in my experience.

Now what was I saying?  Sorry, I was distracted by the footy score.  Can only focus on one thing at a time.

More Female Advantages

Another advantage women have over men entrepreneurs is their greater willingness to move into the Abstract Thinking Space.  Men tend to prefer things to be more logical and measurable.  That’s in the B space, the comfort zone for most businessmen.   

That’s a generalisation of course. But it now makes sense.  Whenever I’ve attended a personal development seminar, specifically one more focussed on Abstract Thinking, I often wondered why around 60% to 70% of the attendees were women.  It stands to reason.  Aside from a higher propensity to undertake personal development, women are generally more comfortable with Abstract Thinking than men.  And the ability to move into the Abstract Thinking space is one of the key ingredients of what makes a great entrepreneur great. Go girl!

On the other hand, I’ve met women who excelled at Abstract Thinking, but needed to improve their skills in the Business Intellect thinking space.  After reading about The A.B.C principle, a number of women have even admitted that to me.  What they liked the most was having it spelt out for them so clearly.  And they did the spelling.

There’s more good news here too for women.  Business Intellect is easier to learn than Abstract Thinking.  It’s logical.  It’s quantifiable.  Not that there’s a shortage of women who are brilliant in this area.  But trust most men to go for the easy option. Abstract Thinking can often just be too hard for us. So we do the logical thing.  We ignore it.

Take a powerful abstract concept such as giving for example.  The more you give the more you receive.  Giving can be one of the single most important things you can do to create massive wealth. For many of us, particularly men, that is simply illogical â€" even counter intuitive. How do you make money by giving money away?  Or how do you make money when you’re caught up doing goody two shoes stuff for other people?

The concept of giving can be a challenge for all of us unless we’re ready for it. Some men will dismiss it as just ridiculous.  Women on the other hand are less dismissive.  They’re more inclined to make the effort to try to understand it.  To talk about it.  Read about it.  Analyse it.  Talk about it some more.  Then typically – much quicker than men â€" get it! 

The A.B.C principle as a business thinking tool is non-discrimatory. It works for men as well as it does for women.  Watch out ladies.  When it catches on, we might even catch up!

If you’d like to read more about The A.B.C Principle you can obtain a free report at http://www.EliminateSmallBusiness.com

PETER J CAHILL

© Copyright 2009

Resource

A free e-book on The A.B.C. Principle is available at http://www.EliminateSmallBusiness.com

Eliminate Small Business is a Global Empowerment Initiative for all entrepreneurs and business owners.  It’s an idea born in The Entrepreneur Zone.

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This Entrepreneurship article was written by Peter Cahill on 10/28/2009

Peter is a Property Entrepreneur, Property Valuer, and Registered Builder. He has 33 years experience successfully dealing in the residential and commercial property markets of Melbourne Australia. Educated at RMIT University. Managing Director of Domain Hill Property Group. Special interest in helping and encouraging entrepreneurs. http://www.EliminateSmallBusiness.com