In the film "Joy" we are presented with a quaint story about a woman who overcomes all odds in order to achieve her entrepreneurial dreams. We see her hopes and dreams, sorrows and hardships, and sheer determination and willpower push her through to being a successful businessperson. This determination and willpower is one aspect of entrepreneurship that seems to be always present in all of the success stories we hear and read about. There seems to be a lack of accomplished business professionals who were content sitting on their hind ends all day or who never put in long hard hours to make their dreams come true. I find this aspect of entrepreneurship fascinating.
Willpower. Willpower is the one thing that Joy never lets go of. After being berated with tragedy after tragedy, we never see her give up her iron will in the film. She latches onto her idea of making her new mop, and that propels her. When she is told no by her family, she essentially ignores them. When told that her production line was going to make her venture unprofitable, she flies out to California and discovers fraud in the company collecting royalties which she leverages to make her money back. Time after time we see her faced with an idea or problem, followed by her steps to overcome said problem. By far my favorite example of this was when Neil calls her to let her know that her product wouldn't sell. She goes as far as to tell him that she can't and won't accept his answer. This is a breakthrough for her. She begins to finally act on her situation, instead of living life passively and letting things happen to her.
This turning point is interesting to me because it is something that I myself struggle with. It is so much easier to acted upon instead of to act on something. Each and every day I can wake up, eat my bowl of cereal, and then sit there having things happen around me all day. During class I can simply write down words coming out of the professors mouth. During work I can just wait and stare at a wall until the next customer comes in and I am forced to do something. The fascinating thing about this concept is that I believe this is how most people choose to live their lives. Very rarely does an individual manage to escape into the realm of having undeterred willpower at their sides.
It is this willpower that I believe sets apart the entrepreneur from the rest of society. If you think about many of the famous entrepreneurs we have in our society, the common thread between them is that they all had an idea, and they stuck with it, never giving up. Everyone has ideas. It is not some magic gene within our genetic code that makes someone a successful entrepreneur, and there are certain factors such as money or experience that can make the voyage a little less bumpy. But there are extremely wealthy entrepreneurs who started out dirt poor. There are also wealthy entrepreneurs who fiddled their money away, never able to quite get their big break. If the movie JOY teaches us anything, it is that circumstances do not determine our worth. Even though Joy was living in poverty and taking out a second mortgage on her home, she was able to snap herself out of the funk of simply existing in life. This caused her to become wildly successful after she mastered her own will.
Once found, this willpower of hers goes on to make huge impacts on her society and community. A great example of this is that she is able to assemble a team of workers to start her production line. The easy way to do that would be through an advertisement in a newspaper. But as a motivated entrepreneur who knows she cant afford that, she goes several steps out of her way to find local women who speak Spanish through a church. Not only does this show the aspect of choosing her costs in a way to ensure profitability, it is also just a positive occurrence for her community.
Sadly, not all of the aspects related to strong willed entrepreneurs are so positive. Society has a knack for sucking the life out of willpower before it has the chance to develop. How many people do you know that rinse and repeat the same daily schedule that they have for years without any strong will to do anything? Sadly these individuals seem to be all too common. Just like in the real world, this theme is present in Joy's life. Almost her whole family seems to be against her. They berate her for her "stupid" idea, wanting her to simply keep on doing what she has always done, barely squeaking by and providing for everyone. She can barely make it 10 minutes without someone insulting her. These are the same issues that the modern entrepreneur faces. So common are feelings of negativity and comments that discourage those with ideas from taking a leap of faith. Only when success is starting to be found do people come out of the woodwork and start appreciating all of the work that the entrepreneur has put in. If we could be more supportive as a society, and encourage willpower to develop, then I am certain that we could see an uptick in the number of successful entrepreneurs.
Think about it. Everyone can sense need. Just like Joy sensed the need for a new mop as she cut her hands on broken shards of glass trying to clean up a spill, we too can sense need for new products and ideas that improve our quality of life. We know that production is driven by the consumer, but we forget that we are consumers first, and then producers. If consumers did not want Joy's mop, or did not think it would provide them any value, then they would not have bought any and the movies closing would have been no different than the opening. But Joy could sense their need based off of her own need for a new innovation. Finding those ideas that as a consumer we want can be a key part of how society and the strong willed aspect of entrepreneurship tie into each other. We cannot have one without the other.
In the end, it doesn't matter how good an idea is. If there is no one to cultivate that idea, it will die. Whether that cultivation just takes a little sunlight and water, or someone pulling every weed of doubt and worry that threatens to choke it out is up to the entrepreneur, and how society supports them. We all have our "mops," so lets get cleaning.
