What Captain America Can Teach Us About Entrepreneurship

I rewatched Captain America: The First Avenger for the first time in five years— and one particular sequence of events stuck out to me.

Cap was injected with the super soldier serum and exposed to vita rays that would transform him into a super soldier in June of 1943. Though the experiment was successful, the doctor responsible for the serum was killed due to an assassination attempt. He was the only one who knew how to recreate the serum, so the only way to replicate this process was locked in Steve’s genetic code.

With Steve being the only super soldier, Colonel Patton would refuse to let him out onto the field. Rather than be subjugated to research and testing, Captain America would spend his time out on USO tours.

So for the next five months, Super Soldier Captain America would be dolled up, memorize scripts, and venture out for morale-boosting USO tours that would take him across the country.

He would push people to buy stocks and bonds instead of being out in that field because he had to be a science experiment. It wasn’t until he found out that the 107th, his best friend's platoon, had gone missing that he sprung into action. Without the Colonel’s knowledge or permission, Captain America had set out on a mission to save a platoon— and he came back a hero.

Imagine that.

A super soldier made out to be a theater actor. The great Captain America, for nearly half a year post-experiment, would not see a single moment of battle.

His first mission wouldn’t even be under the supervision of a superior officer. No, as soon as he landed, he would be on his own and without the aid of any agent, contractor, or soldier.

What We Can Learn From Captain America

I think there are two clear lessons from this scene:

1.) Even the greatest heroes have had to bide their time.

Then, when the opportunity presents itself, leaping head first into the fray. Just like Captain America.

So if you’re an entrepreneur, creative, student, or anything looking to do something great, I want you to know that it’s okay if things don’t work out the first time around.

You could graduate with the best diploma, have the best internship, or put out the greatest resume and still not land your dream role. That’s life.

There are external factors at play that we just cannot control. Whether it’s a Colonel that refuses a soldier’s service or a qualified applicant that loses a job to a better-connected competitor, these are facets outside of our hands.

Even when the stars align, and the perfect opportunity falls into our lap, we could still see it all slip through our fingers.

Does that mean we can’t do anything about it? Though the pain of happenstance will linger for as long as we trek towards our goal, what an entrepreneur, dedicated professional, and hero cannot do is stand idly by.

And that leads us to our second lesson.

2.) Dive in

One thing I love about Captain America’s origin story is that he wasn’t thrust into greatness. No one forced him to set out on a life-threatening expedition. In fact, everyone was telling him to do the exact opposite and do nothing, that he served a bigger purpose by staying on the base and performing his shows for the public.

You could argue that the Captain was lucky in that he just so happened to be in the 107th’s camp when the platoon went missing, but Cap still had the agency to make his own decisions.

So when Captain America saw an opportunity for him to make a difference and, without a second thought, hatched a plan and leaped into action. In doing so, he risked losing everything, including the outcome of the war. Had Captain America been captured by the enemy camp, they would have imprisoned the only super soldier capable of winning this confrontation.

Big wins come from great risks.

As an entrepreneur, I think the ability to stomach this risk and take action when the opportunity presents itself is a vastly underrated skill.

Great entrepreneurs aren’t made by idly standing by and invariably wasting their chances. Waiting passively and getting lucky is not the norm of this world, but an exception. Even when luck appears before our eyes, with a “sit back and watch” mindset, we still might watch it go by.

Luck is created by being prepared, waiting for an opportunity, and leaping at the first chance we get.