In the beginning the heavens looked down on me. I was on the earth, without an idea of what to do with this life. My future was void, my life was dim. The entrepreneurial spirit, however, was hovering over me.
*creatio ex nihilo
Driving around hairpin corners at 55 mph in a Jeep Cherokee can be slightly unnerving. When gasoline is priced near four and a half dollars, however, the risk of barrel-rolling to your death is outweighed by the financial loss that an application of brake would cause on your momentum. This are the cost-benefit analytics that border insanity within the business mindset.
I’m driving along the winding roads as I approach my family’s home in Omena, MI. It is late in the evening and my headlights focus on each corner as they eliminate the surprises out of view. The action out of the car windows plays out in a near monochrome palate with the yellow road paint playing speedily along the foreground. My mind darts to the woods on either side. “These woods must be teaming with critters,” I think. “Agile, mindless critters, running every which way within the woods and likely out across the road from time to time.” I realize I wouldn’t be able to avoid a suicidal chipmunk or raccoon along this route; only a brief reflection of the animal’s cornea to warn me. My mind automatically spawns the worse-case-scenario: a deer. A collision with a sizable quadruped could be fatal. I mentally prepare for the possibility, but continue at my efficient rate of speed.
I arrive at my destination and pull into the gravel drive. As I kill the headlights and get out of the car I am greeted by the deepness of the night sky. My pupils expand as I take in the scene. The stars demonstrating the fullness of creation as they populate every available space in the dark canvass.
These are the moments that make you feel small. Small in a good way. A moment that gives you sudden clarity to an old reality that is always true, yet rarely realized. “It’s not about me.” I think to myself. A comforting thought in the daily complexities and bowling-pins we juggle. “I am but an infinitesimal spec in whole of creation.” A bit player in a game bigger and greater than anything I could every hope to comprehend.
My role in this game: entrepreneur. I’ve been pressured to take French Language classes from early on in my education which allows me an unnatural enjoyment of all things French, besides the people, of course. The french life-pressure mostly stems from my family’s partial Swiss heritage and a longstanding perception that it is advantageous to be as snooty as possible while still maintaining friend groups.
Definitions of entrepreneur range from heroic to greedy, and from genius to clinically insane. Suffice it to say, that an entrepreneur is someone who starts a business; and that a business is something formed to bring a good or service to market. The entrepreneur can be found in a range of fields, touting weird ideas, and forming a multitude of different businesses. Yet whether the business is Carl’s Bait Shop or Coca-Cola Bottling Group it has something to add. The crawlers and carbonated corn sirup that these businesses bring to market have value.
Yet not all value is created equal…
