Entrepreneur. Ok, so we know the French don't have a name for it, but where does it come from? Is it something you can call yourself, or only something you are called by others, like ‘over the top’ or ‘dishy’ (not me)?
 
I guess ‘entre’ must be ‘between’. Which is, I’m sure, how all entrepreneurs feel. Squeezed in between shareholders and the team. In between crises, if not in one. Caught between managing the short term and the long term. Between a rock and a hard place. Between meetings. And between you and me, a little weird.
 
Management Today has invited me to join their merry band of bloggers and to fly the flag of the entrepreneur. Like Alesha Dixon on Strictly, I feel that I may take some time to settle in (although I think she’s really starting to come into her own, wouldn't you agree?). But as this is our first date, maybe we should give ‘a little personal history’, as they used to say at P&G. I'm John. I am married to Katie and have two kids. Girls. Natasha and Eleanor. I am the co-founder of a small £10m, growing - if we play our cards right, assuming that's not mixing Brucey metaphors with Strictly - business called Leon. We (Henry and I) are trying to create 'good fast food'.

And at the same time, I work with my hardcore industrialist friends Vivian (that’s a boy’s name) and Jacques (that's a French name, although he’s actually Greek South African) on turnarounds. We took a £200m Scotch whisky business called Whyte and Mackay, and in four years turned it into a £600m business. Some luck, some hard work, some good work. I started in sales and marketing at P&G, and then spent seven years at the strategy consulting-moonies we call Bain & Company. And I am a fully signed up member of the cult. My working life, I like to think, is about making companies better and the world healthier - in every way.

Which is what I think being an entrepreneur is about. From space, all of us entrepreneurs probably look alike. Up close, I wonder if there aren't at least a few types of us. Some work at the helm of their particular company for twenty or thirty years. Some start or buy more than one business, but always within a particular sector and are proud and forthright in their determination to stick to that. For example, I had the real pleasure of meeting Theo Paphitis last week, and he was a great person. In answer to my deliberately open question: ‘What do you do’, he replied: ‘I am a shopkeeper’. And he meant it.

Then there are the third type - entrepreneurs whose eyes and thoughts wander more widely, and who can't help looking at the world for all its flaws, bad service, poor execution, greed, stupidity, and waste, and want to make it better.  We haven't got too much time to do so. At one time, society took 'progress' for granted. But there is no such thing as automatic progress. It takes constant effort, imagination and graft to stop things going backwards. We can't let governments and big companies strip us of freedom, courage, love, creativity and a sustainable society. We must end the destruction and poisoning of nature. And we must stop the huge waste of human talent that is still all around us. As entrepreneurs we need to get onto it. So let's begin.