Why is Sylvester Stallone counted as an entrepreneur? What is the relation between the career of an actor and entrepreneurship? Richard Branson has the answer: “For a successful entrepreneur it can mean extreme wealth. But with extreme wealth comes extreme responsibility. And the responsibility for me is to invest in creating new businesses, create jobs, employ people, and to put money aside to tackle issues where we can make a difference.”
The early-success life-story of Stallone proves his young ambition towards his dream, and this is how entrepreneurship starts. We are not here to speak about how he improved his acting career by being a writer, and then by being a director too or how learning more about the different angles involved in your main career will make you a better “manager” or a better “director”.
Stallone once said: “I am not the richest, smartest or most talented person in the world, but I succeed because I keep going and going and going.”
In any case, we are not here to speak about the past. We are here to speak about the present, the contemporary entrepreneurial Sylvester Stallone, as a business case-study.
Stallone has always been successful and has always led his own life; however, recently he started to change his business strategy into an ingenious one. Instead of focusing entirely on building personal success in his career as an actor, writer, athlete and director, he started to “utilize” all this into inspiring his colleagues and collaborating with them, some of whom were at some point his direct or indirect competitors. Stallone’s different approach and mentality have made all the difference. He said: “There’s no one in the world close to Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is a phenomenon. He’s brilliant.”
Through working on “The Expendables” project Stallone was not only able to build a bridge between the contemporary and classical movie starts, but also managed to unite them all under the vision of one flag. Some would agree that this flag is “limitless success”, or “teamwork”. By heading this project, Stallone was also able to unite the fans of each of those stars.
Imagine a whole movie series including stars like: Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Steve Austin, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Aaron Saxton, Harrison Ford, Wesley Snipes, Mel Gibson, Antonio Banderas, Chuck Norris, Jean-Clause Van Damme, Charisma Carpenter, Clint Eastwood, Mickey Rourke, Steven Seagal, Liam Neeson, Terry Crews, Pierce Brosnan, Glen Powell, John Travolta, Danny Trejo, Denzel Washington, Daniel Craig, Jackie Chan, Hulk Hogan…etc!
Businesswise many companies spend their money and time on contending with their competitors. But at the end of the day, these competitors serve their client with somehow similar products and services. The different companies may all have the same aim in the end; to “serve the client”, and therefore serve the society.
The shortcut to this long equation is exactly what Stallone has done. This way the product diversity will continue to exist, but it will reach a wider range of customers or audience, with better equality, and it will keep all companies in the market, without a fierce competition that works on excluding one after the other.
In the end, I believe that an entrepreneur is an achiever. He or she has something to believe in, something that serves humanity and serves that person as well. Humanity’s ambition is one of its greatest qualities and for this Sylvester Stallone summarizes our beautiful struggle into this quote: “If you don’t have a mountain, build one and then climb it. And after you climb it, build another one; otherwise you start to flatline in your life.”
Written by: Mahmoud Mansi
Edited by: Nada Adel Sobhi
Quote Sources: www.brainyquote.com