So, Where Does Being Enterprising Come In?

I was thinking about that viral Facebook reel again.

The woman said something I agree with: hard work is not enough.

She suggested learning three invaluable skills—communication, writing, and selling or marketing.

I wanted to add a fourth:

Be enterprising.

Then I started wondering if that advice is still relevant in quite the same way.

After all, technology has changed the game.

Today, you don’t necessarily have to go out looking for clients.

You can stay home.

Build a website.

Post on social media.

Run an advertisement.

Set up an online shop.

Let an algorithm find people who might want what you’re selling.

You can automate your replies, your payments, your bookings—even parts of your customer service.

And sometimes, while you’re having your morning coffee, a notification pops up:

You have a new order.

Wonderful.

So where, exactly, does being enterprising come in?

I think it comes in before the algorithm does.

An algorithm can find people who are already looking for something.

Being enterprising makes you wonder what people might need before they start looking for it.

It makes you notice the gap.

The inconvenience.

The unanswered question.

The little problem everybody has learned to live with.

It makes you ask:

“Could this be done differently?”

And perhaps that’s what being enterprising has always meant.

Not necessarily starting a business.

Not necessarily working harder.

Not necessarily selling more.

Just refusing to believe that the way things are is the only way they can be.

Technology can make it easier for people to find you.

But it can’t decide what you should create.

It can’t give you curiosity.

It can’t make you notice an opportunity hiding inside an ordinary problem.

It can’t make you think:

“Hmm. I wonder if I could do something with this.”

That part is still up to us.

And perhaps that’s why, even in an age of algorithms, automation and artificial intelligence, I would still put being enterprising on my list of skills worth learning.

Because the algorithm may bring the customer.

But you still have to bring the idea.