2. Open your eyes to opportunities. Be opportunity-oriented.

Entrepreneur vs. employee -- a phrase which could refer to two things. First, it could refer to the antagonism between capital and labor, management and rank-and-file, or whatever you may want to call it. The interests of the entrepreneur, as the creator and manager of the business, are often different from that of the workers. Management strives for higher profit. Workers fight for higher pay, or, worse, their jobs.

It could also refer to the entrepreneur-employee distinction. In relation to this, Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad) pointed to a paper entitled "A Perspective on Entrepreneurship," written by Professor Howard Stevenson and published by the Harvard Business School. One of the differences between an entrepreneur and an employee that Mr. Kiyosaki found to be especially insightful, based on "A Perspective on Entrepreneurship," is this: Employees are resource-oriented, while entrepreneurs are opportunity-oriented.

How many of your probinsyano friends, or even those you've heard about, who came, or wanted to come, to the city to look for work? Many of us probinsiyanos are in search of employment, which is the same thing to what someone said about many, if not majority, of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) going outside looking for work. This could possibly be a manifestation, although not necessarily, of the "employee mentality".

Now, I could almost hear someone say: "Of course, nobody would want to remain an employee. We want to be entrepreneurs, but we don't have the capital yet. That's why we're working as employees in the meantime." The focus of an employee mind is on the resources, rather than the opportunities. An entrepreneur sees the opportunity, then finds the resources to maximize that opportunity. The trick, as Mr. Kiyosaki puts it, is to ask: "How can I afford that?"

We've been told not to spend more than what we have. This, of course, is a sound advice, as nobody could seriously argue against the virtue of spending within our means. If you earn P100,000 a month (and lucky you if so), it makes money sense not to spend P200,000 for that month, something which probably applies to both employees and entrepreneurs. Any similarity ends there, as the entrepreneur will most probably spend that P200,000 -- or look for ways to raise that amount -- so long as there's a business opportunity.

Someone can't ask "how can I afford that?", unless he has seen the opportunity. An entrepreneur's mind is always open to prospects, pretty much like going business hunting for every waking second. The entrepreneurial spirit is not about looking first for the resources before taking note of opportunities.