What is the most important thing in your life? What do you value more than anything else? Your relationship? Your career? Your health? Faith? What’s at the very top of the list?
It may sound selfish, but for me, there’s been one thing that’s always lingered near the top of my list. It’s not my family, friends, or career. It’s not about money or fame.
It’s about leaving a legacy.
At my core, at the very deepest part of who I am, I have a passion that cannot be denied to do shit that matters. Experience things that entice indescribable passion. Work with people who ignite creativity that cannot be explained. Say “fuck you” to fear. Make mistakes. Learn. Create. And when it’s all said and done, make a difference.
All so I can leave this place saying, “Damnit, I lived. And I had an impact. I contributed. I tried. I improved. I did.“
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The mark of an entrepreneur? The ability to see opportunity, when others see challenge, obstacle, and impossibility.
As I shared last week, a recent Inc Magazine article offered up one of the best definitions of “entrepreneur” that I’ve ever seen:
“Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.”
Which means, if you want to start a business. If you’re dying to take the leap from your nine to five. If you’ve always wanted to test the entrepreneurial waters, there’s no better time than now.
The resources at your disposal may not be ideal. Money will be tight. Finding clients isn’t going to be easy. But, even in our challenging economic state, business-owners are growing and thriving in their ventures. For many reasons, of course, but maybe above all, because they take action. They’re willing to take the first step. They’re willing to try.
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“Don’t get old”. It’s a piece of advice my grandparents share with me almost every time I see them. As my grandpa takes my hand, he tells me that “Getting old is hell”. An former marine, now in his mid 80s, having the drive to do it all, but knowing that no matter how hard he tries, no matter how much his mind says “yes”, his body argues with a definitive “no”.
As we grow up, we’re enticed by the idea that after 30 or 40 years of hard work, we get to retire and enjoy our “golden years” traveling, playing golf, watching old John Wayne reruns, whatever we want.
Basically, it’s ingrained in our psyche, from an early age, that we have to work hard now to work less later. Save our money today to have money tomorrow. All in preparation for the future, at the expense of the present.
I believe something is inherently wrong with this line of thinking.
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When I was in college, I looked up to entrepreneurs as if they were deities. Just ask my partner Sam Davidson, who came and spoke to my Junior-year Marketing Strategy class, back when I was nothing more than a wide-eyed-I-don’t-know-what-the-heck-I’m-going-to-do-with-my-life college kid. He walked in thinking he was going to chat about the ups and downs of running a business, and walked out with a new best friend (ehem, that would be me), who couldn’t wait to grab coffee and soak up any and all knowledge that he, the almighty entrepreneur was willing to share.
And now, here I am, very much in the position that I looked up to only a few years ago, running my own business. Now I’m the one sharing coffee with college kids who have their own world-conquering plans and want to know everything about what I do, how I’ve done it, and how they can learn from it.
I used to think that entrepreneurship was this unattainable status that only happened to people who got really lucky or had a lot of money to throw around. If you think back to when you were in school, you probably thought the same.
Little did I know, back then, that the beauty of entrepreneurship isn’t in the success, the accolades, the respect, the money, and no, not even the freedom. But that the beauty of entrepreneurship is in the ugly.
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Create. Learn. Improve. Repeat. This is the “mantra” of Karol Gajda, a fellow blogger, entrepreneur, and world-traveler. It’s simple, yet speaks volumes. It’s a four-step process that can be applied toward nearly every decision in your life. And yet, many of us can’t seem to make it to step one.
Learning. Improving. And of course, repeating. None of that can happen if you aren’t willing to focus on the step one: Creating.
Creating is scary. Creating is daunting. Creating is challenging. Creating is uncomfortable. Creating is a risk. Creating doesn’t happen overnight. Creating is broke. Creating is ambigious. Creating is change. Creating is uknown.
Creating involves us looking inward and tapping into something previously untapped.
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