Do you know what a runner, an alpinist, a pianist and a neurologist do together in a room, surrounded by approximately 450 people, most of them between 15 and 18, coming from 7 different schools of Bilbao and surrounding area? You can think about it for a while or read this post and find it out.
The choice is yours. I can wait as much as you want.
Are you motivated to read it? Good, let’s begin.
Last Wednesday, 29th of March 2017, the WOP Foundation, perfect example of social and supportive entrepreneurship, jumped again into the pool, this time without ducks, and decided to organize the 1st WOP Congress. They reserved nothing less than a room for 441 people at the Bizkaia Aretoa.
The truth is that it’s nice to enter the room and see so many young people waiting to listen to 4 inspiring people, 3 men and 1 woman, who on Wednesday demonstrated they deserved the seat they were invited to. Begoña Beristain, Joaquín Achúcarro, Adolfo López de Munain and Alberto Iñurrategi accompanied us and passed on their stories, dreams and lives to us.
Just as the act started, they were already echoing, among applause, words like effort, compromise, goals, passion, emotion, risk, discipline and happiness, which were gaining space to others like laziness or boredom. The point is that, little by little you could see that we were in front of people who, for their perseverance, determination, constancy, sacrifice, daily fight, wanting to progress, enjoyment, hours of training and a lot of resignations and sacrifices, some of them, voluntary, had achieved to make their dreams come true. There was, of course, one thing that came to mind while I was there: examples of big entrepreneurs who, like Bego, Joaquín, Alberto and Adolfo, one day focused on what they liked and wanted to achieve and, after many hours of “flying” over a plan designed beforehand, they achieved it. I have to admit that each time I see it more clearly that a person has to be an entrepreneur and share certain values to achieve the success each of us hopes for (and makes to achieve it).
That Wednesday I was able to see by myself that no matter what field you are in, culture, sport or science, to name some of them, you have to think and act with the mentality and spirit of an entrepreneur, because that’s what is going to allow you to put fear aside and take the necessary steps to reach your goal. And let’s not fool ourselves, fame costs, as the great master Achúcarro said::
“The effort we have to make to achieve our dreams is bigger than we imagine“.
Life is not about having a lot of “likes” in a picture or a comment, it’s about work, passion (which in the words of Dr. Adolfo López de Muniain “makes you put in hours”), the desire to improve (because, as the famous alpinist Alberto Iñurrategi said “things cannot be done in any way”), concentration and a lot of organization and constancy. After all, the journalist and runner Bego Beristain was already saying it:
“We have to take time from other things you like to achieve your dreams“.
Tell me how many entrepreneurs you know who sleep more than 7 hours a day, don’t have problems to make ends meet, achieve their dreams in a short time, don’t have to take risks, have their life sorted and boredom tires them. If you know anyone, please, introduce them to me, I will be delighted to have some of their time, if they want and can. I, meanwhile, will bet on Bego, Joaquín, Alberto and Adolfo while I think about who will occupy their place next year. Congratulations to the four of you and to WOP for this new initiative.
Enjoy the week.
Translated by María Ubierna Quintanilla and supervised by Arantza Arruti.