Entrepreneurship in Focus: A Side-By-Side Comparison With Freelancing and Permanent Employment

Issue #16 🧩 Lessons in entrepreneurship from the Chilean mine rescue 🧩 The world of entrepreneurs vs. employees 🧩 Differences in mindset 🧩 Detailed comparison, incl. freelancing as a middle ground

Welcome to this 💎 premium edition 💎 of BPMexplained🧩, the newsletter that helps us manage better. For more information, check out the About section.

---

Photo by Jaime Spaniol on Unsplash

Life is all about choices.

And your career choices are some of the most important ones. Nowadays, you can be anything you want: an employee, a freelancer, an entrepreneur, or something in between. Each of these has its positive and negative sides.

So how do you choose?

Keep reading 👇

---

📑 NOTE: Treat my posts like mini-guides: choose what’s relevant or interesting.

---

🔦 The Chilean Mine Rescue: Lessons in Entrepreneurship

On August 5, 2010, a massive collapse at the San José copper and gold mine in Chile’s Atacama Desert trapped 33 miners deep underground. This accident was unlike typical mining incidents due to the extreme depth, unstable rock formations, and the mine's poor safety record. Initial estimates put the chances of finding the miners alive at less than 1%. Yet after 69 days underground, all 33 miners were successfully rescued, an extraordinary feat broadcasted globally.

The effort to save the miners unfolded in two phases: first, a search to locate the trapped men, and second, the design and execution of a rescue plan. Both phases required skills like problem-solving, improvisation, and the willingness to seek solutions beyond established norms. The leaders didn’t simply rely on existing protocols; they empowered their teams to innovate and explore untested methods, much like entrepreneurs navigating uncharted business territory.

Source: HBR

Faced with this unprecedented crisis, the rescue team had to develop and implement innovative solutions. They used three different drilling technologies, labeled Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C, to create wide boreholes for lifting the miners in specially designed rescue pods. While the drills worked on reaching the trapped miners, technicians built and refined these capsules to ensure their safety.

Targets in meters: planned vs. actual. Source: Wikipedia

Plan B's drill was the first to reach the miners after 40 days, but additional time was needed to prepare for the actual extraction. Once the operation began a few days later, all 33 miners were safely brought to the surface even faster than anticipated.

The entire rescue effort was an international collaboration that involved not only technology, but also the cooperation and resources of companies and individuals from around the world, including Latin America, South Africa, Australia, the United States, and Canada. NASA played a role too by helping with the designs of health plans and the rescue capsule. Even though many countries participated, the operation remained a Chilean-led initiative and thought process. As one NASA expert said, “The Chileans are basically writing the book.”

Ultimately, the success of the San José rescue demonstrates the power of thinking out of the box in crisis situations. By combining control with creative freedom, the team not only managed the chaos but turned it into a triumph. This approach proves that balancing decisive action with the flexibility to innovate in the face of uncertainty is key to overcoming complex challenges.

---

🎭 A Tale of Two Worlds