The Monk And The Riddle Analysis

Arianne Polonsky
Professor Mary Gale
Entrepreneurship and opportunity
September 16, 2014

The Monk and the Riddle Ever since I was a child I wanted to follow my parent’s steps and become an entrepreneur. I have always thought that the most important rule when thinking about a new business project was to think financially what would benefit me rather than to think personally. After reading The Monk & the Riddle I agree with Komisar that an entrepreneur is most likely to be successful when following his/her passion.
The most surprising thing to me about entrepreneurship in this book is the assertion by Randy that the business is like creative work like printing, and not necessarily a financial institution. Many people think that the importance

As an entrepreneur, I believed that one should consider business risks rather than personal ones. This is because they will determine the success of the business. However, the author said that people should consider themselves and do what makes them happy (Komisar and Kent 3). One should consider pursuing things that bring joy to one’s life rather than doing business for the sake of getting money. We should consider the environment that we work in and the value that it adds to our lives rather than thinking about the financial benefits only. Another takeaway I got from the reading was that at the end, the journey is more important than the reward we are going to get from it. This idea of enjoying what you do as an entrepreneur made me realize, why for example professional athletes live a more satisfying life than many other business people. Most of the athletes are so passionate about their sport that their hard work, training and the actual game that they live for the experience and their passion rather than the check they will receive at the end of the

I think Lenny is the stereotype of young entrepreneurs. He can do anything to make sure that he makes profit. He believes in getting customers by offering cheap deals in order to attract a large share of the market. He has the mind of a venture capitalist whose desire is to learn the market, and know that the business will thrive (Komisar and Kent 7). To him, he can even embark on dirty business as long as he will make money from the job. As we can see at the beginning Lenny did not understood the main rules for being a successful entrepreneur. The same way I learned how to be a successful entrepreneurship, Lenny learned it from Randy.
Randy was willing to give Lenny his time to teach him how to not make the same mistakes as he did. Not only that, but Randy told him that he sees a lot of potential in him for becoming a successful entrepreneur. Lenny explained to Randy that to him money and profits matters more than anything else, which moved Randy to assist him right away. He helped him in order to change him to take business as a creative institution rather than a financial one (Komisar and Kent