BEFORE Tunisian food vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in December 2010, thus igniting the Arab Spring, he didn’t yell, “Death to America” or “Allahu Akbar!” He cried out, “I just want to work!”

The police had taken his food cart away — his means of earning a living — and he set himself on fire because of his relationship to a job, not his relationship to America or Allah.

It is a sobering thought and one that bears thinking about. What Bouazizi did was strike a nerve throughout the Middle East and set off a regional revolution that deposed despotic rulers and changed the sociopolitical fabric of the region.

For us Malaysians, here is food for thought and the real deal — most of us have a deeply embedded sense of dignity. We are not against charity. Like Bouazizi, we want to work and earn our living. We could be operating a stall in the night market or employed in a multinational corporation, or own an internet business — we want to work and support ourselves.

We want to pay our taxes fairly and strive for the great Malaysian Dream. We want to create wealth ethically. And we want to work smart, leveraging the technology of the times.

For us baby boomers, the reality that shaped us was that we had to study hard and go to college and graduate, and then seek employment. Our goal was getting a steady job and a good paymaster. In essence, we were told that the harder we worked, the more products we made, the more money the company made, the more we would be paid. And everyone was happy.

Most of us did that but slowly found ourselves trapped in the rat race. Yes, that’s right — the rat race that was born in the Industrial Revolution’s factory mindset of the mid-1800s, back when factory owners maximised profits by paying people very little to work for as long and as quickly as possible.

Initially, workers were excited about starting work as early as they could, stay as late as they could, and take minimal bathroom and meal breaks to maximise their earnings. They were thrilled that money could be earned throughout the year, independent of seasonality. After all, who wanted to toil in the fields in the cold, withering light of winter?

The owners, to their collective benefit, began extolling the virtues of hard work, and the serious workers who were so committed that they didn’t have time even to think about a vacation were praised and given bonuses and raises. That gave rise to the mindset of “If you are not a hard worker, you are a lazy good-for-nothing”.

The Industrial Age gave birth to many innovations that made our lives easier, thanks to the hardworking brains in the factories and laboratories. Some say the world witnessed more innovations and inventions in the second half of the 20th century than it did in the whole millennium before!

Today, there is another set of workers for a new world with accompanying new skill sets  — Gen X, Gen Y and the Millennials — and they are the entrepreneurs. And work has taken on a new meaning.

The internet has taken off, and we no longer need to have bricks and mortar to be considered a business owner. Now, you can function in a place called cyberspace. Barriers to becoming a successful business owner were entirely destroyed as bricks and mortar switched to click and order. More and more people are working on to their entrepreneurial calling, leveraging internet tools for their own success. The Information Age (and Transformation Age) has arrived.

Wait, did I say entrepreneurs?

Yes, they realised that the rat race would eventually suck the life out of them, so our younger generation has taken the entrepreneurial route. It helps that they loathe working for others. Entrepreneurs, people who notice things and act on what they notice, are a different breed, but they are workers too. They are multidimensional, wearing various hats and taking on numerous projects. And they need a little support because they exist to create jobs.

Throughout Malaysia (and the world), there exists a premise that great ideas and innovations drive economies, that new businesses spring from those ideas, and then somehow, new, good jobs magically appear thereafter.

Reality check: the above is not true. According to Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO of Gallup, jobs and gross domestic product growth do not follow innovation. Jobs and GDP growth do predictably follow entrepreneurship. Put in another way, entrepreneurs create customers who, in turn, create jobs and economic growth.

Innovation is essential, and we need it. But the real magic starts with the entrepreneurs, with people who are born with the rare gift to build successful businesses.

In future, we will look back at this decade (2010 ­— 2020) as the beginning of an economic revolution as significant and world-changing as the Scientific Revolution of the 16th century and the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century.

We are currently standing on the cusp of the Entrepreneurial Revolution. This revolution will permanently reshape business as we know it, and more importantly, change the quality of life across the entire planet for all who come after us. In Malaysia, our budding entrepreneurs need as much support as we give to our innovators.

To our entrepreneurs, I say: If you love what you do and do what you love, that’s the best. Who cares if others do more, bigger, louder or differently? They are just playing different games, and in the same way, they can be winners in their games, you can be a winner in yours too. Godspeed.

Zakie Shariff is CEO of a state-owned GLIC and co-founder of hCap Associates, a talent search company

This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on April 20 - 26, 2015.

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's AppStore and Androids' Google Play.