The hero in the entrepreneur

Not all heroes wear capes. I hear this all the time when people talk of ordinary people doing extraordinary things to help others. As someone who once dreamed of becoming Batman, I would have to agree that one doesn’t need to wear a cape to become a hero. Batman’s alter-ego, Bruce Wayne, did his do-gooding as a private citizen-billionaire and left the caped-crusading to Batman when he donned the mask and cape. In real life, some heroes wear aprons, working gloves, hard hats or slippers; they are the heroes who save our neighborhoods, our cities and our country, simply by being entrepreneurs.

I have heroes on my mind because today, the country takes a break from work to celebrate the annual commemoration of the Philippine national hero Jose Rizal’s sacrifice in 1896. Filipino schoolchildren everywhere know of Jose Rizal; he has admirers overseas who’ve built monuments to him. Some of our Southeast Asian neighbors even regard him as a champion of nationalism among countries in the region.

But I think it is interesting to also appreciate him as a model of the enterprising Filipino. He was clearly an intelligent man, but he also possessed a knack for calculated risk-taking, resilience, resourcefulness and enterprise – all valuable characteristics of a successful entrepreneur. He was also an overseas Filipino who wowed other nations with his intellect and skill as a physician.

There are many accounts of how Rizal was an entrepreneur, and one could spend hours just reading about this aspect of his remarkable life. Rizal, in his letters, described his life in exile in Dapitan as being half-physician and half-merchant. In school, we were taught that he studied ophthalmology and how he, like many contemporary Filipino medical professionals, honed his skills abroad.

But he was also an OFW-turned-entrepreneur. He spent many years practicing as a physician overseas and came home to establish a clinic in Calamba. He used his reputation as an excellent eye doctor and built a thriving practice in the Philippines. I think this narrative can apply to many of our OFW professionals abroad who used their training not just to make money for themselves but also came back to help people back home by opening small businesses that generated jobs and helped the local economy.

I would imagine Rizal is also a model for professionals who want to become entrepreneurs. If you think about it, specialists like eye doctors and dentists (and in the old days, general practitioners or family physicians) who run clinics are practically business owners. They have to understand accounting, hire assistants and secretaries and do almost everything a small business owner does.

How many of our OFWs have taken their years as successful engineers, doctors, scientists, even professional managers and poured all that expertise to found businesses back here in the Philippines? Plenty. Some brands and companies founded by OFWs-turned-entrepreneurs have even become household names.

Another lesson we can glean from Rizal as an entrepreneur was that he didn’t waste his money but instead actively put that capital to good use. One interesting bit of trivia is that he once bet and won the lottery; he used his winnings (estimated to be around P3 million in today’s pesos) to buy fruit trees, which he planted in the open lands of Dapitan where he was exiled.

He was said to have had some training in agriculture, so he didn’t go into this business blindly but instead did his research before buying land and seedlings. From accounts of this time in his life, he was said to have bought 50 lanzones trees, 20 mango trees, macopa trees, some 50 langka trees, santol trees, 18 mangosteens, some 1,400 coffee trees and 200 cocoa seedlings.

Moreover, he understood other aspects of entrepreneurship. Beyond agricultural production, he also engaged in trading, which is a side of the business that is important if one is to understand the effect of supply on demand and vice-versa. He was said to have traded hemp, then a valuable commodity for shipbuilders. Trading in commodities is good training because one learns to be diligent in monitoring changes in market prices and be nimble enough to respond.

But beyond being an intellectual and a savvy businessman, Rizal took it one step further: he was also an entrepreneurship mentor. He saw how going into business can lead to freedom: “I have taught the poor inhabitants of Mindanao to unite in order to do business so that they can make themselves independent and free themselves,” he wrote.

Had he been alive today, Rizal would be what people would call a social entrepreneur. He viewed his role in the community as more than someone who runs a business, but as someone who shares his knowledge and empowers others to lift themselves out of poverty by teaching them how to become financially independent. He saw that if business is done right and with other people’s welfare in mind, it can create positive social change in the larger community and leave a lasting impact on people’s lives.

I think most small entrepreneurs, whether they are aware of it or not, are a net positive to their communities. They start businesses, they take risks and they are optimistic about the future. Rather than put their capital in speculative investments, they put it to good use by directly employing people, generating revenue and contributing to taxes. Their dynamism is infectious and their work can be inspiring.

Not all heroes wear capes. Unsung heroes wear more practical garments and quietly yet powerfully impact our communities by being entrepreneurs who create jobs, drive innovation and strengthen the fabric of our neighborhoods, cities and nation. Their heroism is in the daily grind of building businesses and powering our economy. They are the heroes who save and sustain us, simply by pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams.