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The Compulsive Entrepreneur, the Mercury Syndrome

Being an entrepreneur it’s not only a professional choice, it’s not about accumulating the basic knowledge which helps you create the perfect site or the business of your life. It’s really a question of attitude, or call it obsession if you prefer.

At the beginning you perceive only small pieces of this obsession. While waiting for your order to be served in you favorite restaurant you start planning about how to improve the waiter’s efficiency by optimizing the number of trips to the kitchen, then you think about a better way to rearrange the food in the bar to increase the profits and end up building a site to sell fast food online.

Next clue comes when during a romantic dinner, after two or more glasses of wine, you start talking about the future and the startups you’re planning to fund or the sites you’d like to develop. That’s when you realize about your real potential as entrepreneur (and you also realize she stopped listening after the dish was served).

Then it’s done, you’re in and there’s no way back. Your mind creates a parallel mental process dedicated only to analyze the reality around you, looking for the business to be and the idea that will make you rich someday. You don’t realize it but it’s right there in you brain, processing information, changing the point of view to reinvent an old idea and make it the business hit of the year.

I don’t know if any prominent psychologist has already studied this case, who cares anyway, I’ve decided to give it its own name. From now on this mental state will be known as “The Mercury Syndrome”.

In the roman mythology, Mercury was a messenger and a god of trade, profit and commerce. It’s perfect as the improvised herald of this new mental illness, which by now, has no known cure…