Entrepreneurial Tenacity& The Quest For Freedom

Dateline: 30 July 2014

I am an entrepreneur. I have had an entrepreneurial mindset from a young age. Someday I will chronicle here some of the money-making and business ideas I've had in my life (besides Granola Bars). It will be somewhat entertaining.

Only in the past few years have I realized success as an entrepreneur. I don't mean success as in making a lot of money. I make enough money to more than meet the needs of my family, and that is important, but that is beside the point. 

My desire to be an entrepreneur is not to make a lot of money but to have a measure of autonomy from the industrial system— a system that wants to cram me into its mold, that wants to make me a dependent corporate wage slave.  Autonomy is a word that means self government. Another word for autonomy is freedom.

Today I read an essay by Oliver DeMille on the subject of freedom and entrepreneurship. If you are interested in this subject, you may want to read it… A Missing Piece of Entrepreneurship. 

Mr. DeMille makes the point that a nation of entrepreneurs is  a nation that is more free. I think he is right. 

Mr. DeMille also writes…

"To succeed as an entrepreneur, a person must exhibit the character traits of initiative, innovation, ingenuity, creativity, wise risk-taking, sacrifice, tenacity, frugality, resilience, and perseverance."

Well, I sure can relate to that, especially tenacity. I didn't realize the entrepreneurial success I dreamed of until I was 54 years old.

The challenge is to cultivate those character traits in our children and grandchildren. I think that will require tenacity too.