You've Welcomed Me, You've Taught me

I've been fortunate to have met dozens of entrepreneurs over the past six years. While I'm employed as an educator, you have certainly been the educator to me. Here's what I've learned from my interactions with you, the entrepreneur:

• you don't accept the status quo
• you believe in a better way
• you work tirelessly on your craft
• you created something from nothing
• you are a nobody to the customers who don't yet know you or your business, yet
• you are a somebody to the somebodies that really matter (family, friends, customers that now know you)
• you recognize that the world is constantly changing around you and you adjust
• you try, test, revise...every day
• you recognize the value of business plans, but you didn't have one before you started your successful multi-million dollar business
• you looked past the naysayers
• you believed in your idea not because it was your idea, but because it was a really good idea; anyone would see that if they just looked at it
• you don't allow stereotypes of you or anyone else to trip you up; you focus on what matters and nothing else
• you harnessed your creativity
• you expected curiosity to count for something more than just an idle, lifeless thought
• you're not a critic, a cynic, nor an arm-chair quarterback*
• you are an adventurer, an explorer, and a doer of this world*
• you took a step off the Edge of Entrepreneurship and life's never been the same ever since

You've welcomed me into your shop,
        your bottling facility,
                           your factory,
                                     your lab,
             your studio,
                      your warehouse,
                                    your office
and I've been changed because of it. Thank you for allowing me to glimpse inside your entrepreneurial mind. It's a fascinating place.

*paraphrased from "Message to Future Generations" by Lt. Col. Ellison Onizuka who tragically died aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. These words are found at the Kona International Airport in Hawaii.