Daniel LaRusso Got Beat Up: Seeing Entrepreneurship From a Third Way
Daniel LaRusso is 15 ½ and an only child. Along with his widowed mom, he is forced to move across the country in a barely functional station wagon from New Jersey to a cramped apartment in Reseda, California (“The Valley”). The promise of a better life is found symbolically in his mom’s promise that there will be a nice pool in the apartment complex, but it turns out to be mostly drained and green. We don’t know how Daniel’s father died, but he has been fatherless since about 8. Daniel has a whiny and chippy personality and his lack of a father may be the explanation.
Daniel has to start at a new high school, in a new town, make new friends, has no dad, and gets beat up at the first get together he is invited to because he is trying to defend a portable radio for a girl he just met named Ali. The only reason Daniel was at the beach hang out (a 45-minute drive away) was because he happened to meet an unrealistic and overly friendly kid named Freddy in his apartment complex. At the beach party, he is gaining a little popularity because of his beach soccer skills, or maybe it is his jorts? But it doesn’t last long until he is beat up by a popular and handsome dude named Johnny who is really good at something in life, namely karate. He is an alpha male, and has a sick motorbike and custom embroidered jacket. Danny is incredibly average and has a regular bicycle. He ends up day two in Greater L.A. hurt, lost and clueless and pathetic with his face down in the sand while the girl he has spent all afternoon trying to impress looks on.
This is the stuff of life, and also the beginning plot to The Karate Kid (1984).
Assume for a moment the film ends there. After taking a couple fist and leg shots, Daniel’s face is down on the beach sand and the film is not going to move the plot forward.
How would I solve Danny’s problem?
What even is his problem, if there is one?
Do I actually care about what happens next?
Do I want to see retribution against Johnny?
Do I care to see if Daniel eventually gets with Ali?
Sub question, what if Ali is only being nice and pities him because he is new? Or just wants to make her ex jealous?
What would I do if I were in his jorts?
Even if you know how the movie plays out, and you know that the classic and satisfying plot of a mentor-guide coming to invest in Daniel named Mr. Miyagi is going to give him the knowledge and instruction and call-to-action he needs to overcome his struggle, win the All Valley and get the girl, here is another perspective:
What if we removed the survivorship bias of that story? What if Miyagi is not coming to help Daniel? And metaphorically what if he is not coming to help us?
He is not going to fix your bike. He is not going to keep the bullies away. He will not help you with your Halloween costume. He will not give up hours of his time to take you to the beach and throw you in the ocean to work on your balance or instill techniques disguised as chores. He will not let you grab a Sprite out of his fridge. He will not apply Eastern medicine on your sore shoulder. He will not put up with your whiny Jersey accent. He will not give you the indefensible secret of the crane kick. He will not steal a belt for you so you can participate. And you are certainly not going to win the All-Valley Tournament in just 2–3 months of work.
Miyagi
isn’t
coming.
Now what? This isn’t a nihilism piece, but rather a starting point for considering teaching entrepreneurship from a third way.
The current experience of entrepreneurship widely varies from theory only, simulations, hand-holding, to fail fast or “hustle porn” varieties of teaching entrepreneurship. These all have their place. But the real value the world gets from someone’s entrepreneurial experience is not another consultant, DTC brand, economic output, or even a heart warming social enterprise, but rather courageous, creative people with spinal fortitude and character.
Entrepreneurship as a formal experience can be a great proving ground for these qualities regardless of a successful exit or even a decent MVP.
Whether born or made, entrepreneurs are going to entrepreneur. We are fooling ourselves if we believe our curriculum magically guarantees successful entrepreneurs. So what value does an entrepreneurship program or class or course have besides it being a sexy marketing point, or trying to keep up with the zeitgeist by turning Shark Tank into a major?
Since success from entrepreneurship isn’t formulaic, the selling point is typically selling the potential dream of making money and living life on your terms. Perhaps the value is in a strong network, maybe some fun spaces to play in, and at the very least being surrounded by like minded people to partner or leverage down the road.
And of course incredible skill-building: selling, marketing, problem solving, learning customer discovery, public speaking, negotiating, design thinking, business models, cap tables, pitch decks, value proposition, customer segmentation and minimum viable products are all valuable and should be practiced and understood. They are fun, build discipline, develop soft skills, and help to mitigate common startup mistakes.
All of this is great and this is usually enough value for students to invest their time and money. It might be enough to fill the seats, fill the workshops, fill the online courses and fill the application requirements. Teachers get to play the role of Miyagi and help students win pitch competitions and maybe get some grant money, and on occasion actually grow and exit. It can become like an All Valley Karate Tournament.
These are all incredible experiences for students, but the real entrepreneurial work and potential outcome often gets ignored.
Entrepreneurship, if being taught properly, are all these things and cultivating thoughtful risk taking. Even the origin of the word is to undertake something risky.
Students will rely on their courage, creativity, character every day of their life — qualities inherent in risk taking. Therefore teaching entrepreneurship with impact means entrepreneurship is really more about the art and science of thoughtful risk taking.
This is not some epic call for a paradigm shift or renaming the course. It is simply moving the narrative and teaching from a third way. Moving from: Miyagi is actively helping you solve the problem and winning the tournament; Or your face is in the sand and no one is coming, figure it out. To Miyagi is with you, but allows you to figure it out so you may realize you have what you need all along.
There are at least two roadblocks with this framing. First, the instinctive educator’s concern is “this seems nebulous, how do you measure this?” “Won’t this make me look like an ineffective teacher?” Furthermore, “what place do I have teaching character? That is for parents and religious institutions.”
There is no major overhaul. There is nothing to buy or add. We are not assessing risk. The magic is in how we frame entrepreneurship. Risk is already built-in, that is the nature of entrepreneurship. But it is in the teacher being intentional and aware about these moments that can make a lasting impact.
If students get lost only in spreadsheets, cap tables, slide decks, empathy maps, even selling, their view of the world is too small and we do a disservice to them and the world at large. Sure, this is what they paid for and signed up for and no, a student doesn’t need entrepreneurship to become a risk taker or courageous. But why waste an opportunity to encourage the human beings which cross our path?
Through teaching an entrepreneurship class, I have had students taken advantage of in cap tables by adults claiming to be mentors.
I have had young insecure students meet with potential investors and be told straight up: you do not have the charm or the mindset or even that great of an idea.
I have had students get their idea stolen by friends and the other party quickly formed an LLC.
I have had students experience extortion for the first time in their lives by freelancers.
These examples run along with the typical experiences of rejection, failure, losing, hearing “no” multiple times, money not getting paid back, things not arriving on time, hitting the wall at 2–3 months, vendors going out of business, red tape, overpaying for things, losing money, internal coups, having partners bail or teammates drop the ball when needed.
The stuff of life.
Many of these more extreme experiences were never intentional or scripted into the curriculum, but simply situations arising out of the freedom to really try and allowing them the margin to take a risk. Maybe I am a lousy teacher for these moments happening, but I walked with them through it as they figured it out, and these students are now much more equipped for dealing with even more “face in the sand” moments.
And for much of the world, we find our collective face down in the sand as we emerge from this pandemic.
Even more encouraging, I also know that these students when faced with integrity decisions are much more likely to do right and lead well.
This is not advocating masochistic-entrepreneurship or another form of struggle/hustle porn. To be sure there were even more moments of success and joyful transformations in the experience, but that is not the scope here.
But these more extreme experiences bring up the second roadblock. Schools and institutions are understandably risk averse. They are trying to avoid lawsuits. They get plenty as it is. This of course has a massive impact on the formation of our students. The path of least resistance and “play not to lose” mentality gets reinforced unintentionally. More and more students are given no margin for exploration or risk taking except for regulated risk taking (sports, competitions, etc.) Students are left with risk taking outlets with virtually no growth or reward. Even entrepreneurship may get unsupported and reduced to case studies and simulations because it is safer to do so.
Like most things, this isn’t a binary issue between safe versus being reckless. Of course, there is always some wisdom needed to guide a risk taking pursuit well…a third way.
But it is the act of risk taking the world gets ordered for the better. Things once considered in the minority and subversive are now celebrated as life dignifying: Justice, Civil Rights, and Abolitionist movements to name only a few were all rooted in risk taking. Even on a smaller level, it could be standing up against bullying, refusing to exploit others, and going out of your comfort zone to help another.
And to be reminded by the words attributed to Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
If anything, the entrepreneurship experience should leave them with the spirit of “do something!” The consequence of too much safety has an effect not only in business and social issues but even in our storytelling and art. We rely on stories to communicate experiences and deeper truths and without these experiences we are left with more base art and stories that fail to move the heart and mind.
The point is, entrepreneurship is not just for young capitalists. It is for everyone, because life is basically serial entrepreneurship and getting up off the sand.
This is not a call to change how we teach, but some practical things to consider: are you allowing margin for risk? Are you engaging the risk side with good questions? For example, consider asking some questions early and often to entrepreneurship students to create tension. Here are a few to play with and if you want to get really intense, ask “why” 5 times to get to the root:
What do you want?
Why do you want to do this?
Do you just like the idea of it?
Are you trying to prove something?
Are you doing this because you think you should?
Are you doing this to please someone else?
Are you doing this to make money?
Are you willing to suffer to see this through?
What are you willing to sacrifice to see this through?
How much could I pay you to get you to quit your pursuit?
What is considered a failure with this idea?
If you are teaching or including or developing or considering adopting an entrepreneurship or innovation course or class in academia or the workplace, it has the potential to not just ship new innovative and hopefully socially responsible products, but also ship courageous human beings. Equipping serial entrepreneurs and building into our economy is a great work and needed now more than ever. And if we are careful enough, we might also yield integrous leaders and better yet, subversive students pushing even more life dignifying movements or something in between.
I leave it to you to help write the rest of the story when Daniel gets up off the sand.
