Richard Lucas Entrepreneur.

We had Richard Lucas come in and speak who is originally from the U.K. doing business in Poland for about 19 years. He is currently a consultant for five different companies that he has started such as Unicard, PMR corp., Argos corp., SKK and ISL. He described how in the U.K. typical jobs you think of when you want to be successful are a lawyer, accountant, doctor, or a consultant but typically not as much an entrepreneur. Some of the bigger names in Western Europe for companies people would like to work for are Proctor and Gamble, KPMG and McKenzie.

Some tid bits of information he gave us as advice that has helped him has been the JRL rule which was a rule from his father who is a professor at Oxford. He said a class has been highly successful if you can remember at least one thing from the class very well. Just to take away one thing because it is hard to remember anything form classes a few years out. He discussed the importance of utility and how free information is always better than paid when you get shared knowledge from people that you know. Some generic things that he cued us in on from TED were passion, work ethic, practice, focus, pushing yourself, serving, creating value, ideas, and persistence.

Typically we are focused on celebrating individual success but we should focus on the success as the company as a whole. He discussed about emotional I.Q. where we should be mindful not to be an emotional idiot in insecurity where it is the "I'll show them" mentality to do well in business to build up a weak ego. Daniel Goldman discussed a little bit about how I.Q. is not the main determinant for success but rather we should be aware of our social and emotional I.Q. in dealing with people and seeing things form others point of view. Listening and understanding people allows you to motivate people. You need to see things from others point of view while having the ability to control yourself. We should be mindful to post pone instant gratification for something better in the future. He described how by the age of 4 people are typically set in your ability to control themselves and your make up as a person.

During his 19 years in Poland and 32 years in business he has typically started businesses and had other people go and run them. He has had several failures costing him millions of zloty in the past but has always tried to learn form his mistakes to make them better. Now he has about 350 people in 5 businesses that he has started and now consults for. Confucious was big on " Do and understand" So making sure you learn from your mistakes and thinking about your objectives is important.

He had some interesting points to make about Some important things to note in the market economy.

4 C's: Capital, Customers, Costs, and Competition.
4 P's: Profit, Product, People, Process.
2 S's: Service and Strategy.

While reaching success he made a note to be careful about complacency and watch out for other market entry. Michael Doll Noted that 90% of success in business can be attributed to how well you execute. The three f's of who you raise money with as a common joke in the U.K. Friends, Family and Fools.

One overarching thing that he noted was how Business in Poland is not so different from around the world. The important things here are typically the important things everywhere in Business.