WHAT MAKES AN ENTREPRENEUR?

I didn't come from a history of entrepreneurism, my parents believed in working at a job faithfully, then retiring on the pension your employers gave you and making that do. There's nothing wrong with that. In doing so they were able to raise families, help their grandchildren, and have a modest living that would sustain them in the sunshine years.

So where did I get this insane longing to break the mold?

I've been longing to build dreams, big and small, and this longing has become a relentless worm in my belly. As I've begun to explore my ideas, I sometimes meet other dreamers, who are all looking for ways to make their ideas become reality. Quite often (and quite mistakenly), they often presume I have the resources to help them fulfill their dreams, free of charge.

Like I said, I have no great history as an entrepreneur, but if I could share a few tips with the person who wants to be one, I would say this:

1. Everyone you meet is not an opportunity. Quit looking at the person who takes a casual interest in your idea as someone who is interested in funding it or giving you free labor. Sometimes the listener is just being kind, or just wants to learn about what you are doing without any added pressure. Receive their interest as a benefit and leave it at that.


2. Do your homework. If you wanted to be a carpenter you would go learn carpentry. It's the same with the business you want to be in, so get the training and put in some work.

3. If you don't have resources there's no point trying to get it from others who don't have anything either. It doesn't take a genius to see that your ROI (return on investment - it's the hip new business term but basically it means success rate) will be low.

4. Don't expect to start at the top. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither are most businesses.

5. Believe in your vision. If you're not sure about it why would anyone else support you?

6. Get lots of advice from people who've done it already. Learn from their mistakes, get their tips on what worked. It may save you a lot of pain.

7. Have a trusted advisor, preferably more than one, who you trust to tell you if that next step you're about to take is a dumb one.

8. Prepare for hard times - find a way (a legal one) to make sure you can eat and keep a roof over your head while you're building that dream. Childbirth is tough, so is giving life to a business idea. No one loves a moocher. Don't take advantage of your friends and their kindness - it's not their job to support you.

9. Join a community of like-minded people. The information exchange will be priceless.

10. Avoid over-sharing. Not everyone wants to know what you're doing, and not everyone will wish you well. Be strategic in your disclosures. Your supporters will encourage and give you good advice, your detractors will always be your detractors.

Ticker Tape Sensitivity

I was in Manhattan this week when the New York Yankees won the World Series. New York can now claim the distinction of holding baseball's highest ranking for all of 27 times. Yankee fans are fanatics, so there was all this excitement, shouting and laughter, people rushing into the street and crowding Times Square as the game ended in victory, lots of celebration and plans for a big ticker tape parade in lower Manhattan today.

And then yesterday, something awful happened in Texas. Another kind of fanatic knocked my attention away from over-excited New Yorkers. A soldier shot 51 of his fellow soldiers and civilians on an Army base. He didn't kill himself, or try to; and we’ll never really know if that was part of his plan, since someone stopped him. I saw the report on the news, and like many others, I cried.

So it seemed quite surreal to me to be caught in the crowd returning from the ticker tape parade today. There was great festivity and jubilation, some of it maybe alcohol-powered. Grown men didn't have to hide their tendency for childish pleasure today, so many big little boys acting true to form in their Yankee shirts and caps. I strained my ears to hear a single comment, looked for any sign that the revelers even remembered yesterday’s heartbreak, but nothing.

Such a disconnect, it seemed, from the latest failure of humanity. I couldn't help but think people really have unplugged from bad, painful news altogether. Just last week, the talking heads on TV peddled their shock and outrage that young people in California stood by and watched a woman being raped. That was a tragic and disturbing incident. We heard about desensitization then. Today, in New York, I wondered if this wasn't more of the same. Had anyone noticed?

CAROUSEL

Tonight, on a whim, I thumbed my nose at the world and defiantly planted a flag of conquest! Conquest over the notion that some things are just not my age to do. I rode a painted pony on a carousel at the shopping mall.

Yep, I jumped into the saddle like a pro, wearing my dark Kasper pantsuit, freshly trimmed silver hair and fabulous jewelry and grabbed the pole that kept my horsey in check like my life depended on it. Quite a sight, I imagine, but I really didn't care. I smiled as the horse pranced its paces through the musicbox songs, and sat with my back straight and flashed a great smile!

Every now and then we need a literal return to innocence, I think, otherwise we might become jaded, or stuck in our thinking.

The music slowed down and the carousel lady asked in a kind voice, "Did you have a good time?" I said, "Yes, every minute of it," and sashayed away.

All a part of getting ready for the next phase of my life...

Stages of We

When you're in your 20s, childhood issues are annoyances you stash away and try not to think about or talk about.

When you're in your 30s, childhood issues become more painful and you start to realize you can't carry them around anymore without doing something. So you start to verbalize. The low side is that you can also start to act out from the pain you're feeling. This is a fragile time.

When you're in your 40s, you get help.

What happens next I don't quite know, but maybe somebody who's ahead of me on this curve can tell me? I want to think by the time I get to my 50s I will have processed it all and found a stable and profoundly healed and healing place. I think that's what God wants for all of us.

We weren't designed to lug our emotional baggage through life. Too hard.

GEORGIA ON MY MIND

Atlanta really is becoming a retirement community. The unemployment rate today in the metro region is 10.4%, which is higher than the national average of 9.2%. Among African-Americans and other minorities, the number of people without jobs is even higher. The fastest growing jobs in Georgia include musicians, singers, manicurists and pedicurists, go figure! This news doesn't strike a great chord of hope in the 99.9% of the population who can't sing, play an instrument or do nails. There are some more predictable choices too, such as physician assistants and computer software engineers (note to teens - you must go to college for these careers.)

The unemployment problem is a shame, because Atlanta is such a great place to live. Before moving here, I heard about the traffic, and it can indeed be horrific. I heard about the infernal heat in the summer, but that's actually not so bad. And folks are pleasant for the most part. But it's the lack of jobs that is driving (or keeping) people away.

Yes, it's a great place to live. But pretty soon I may join the ranks of the jobless if I choose to stay.

THE MAD HATTER'S TEA PARTY!

The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: `No room! No room!' they cried out when they saw Alice coming. `There's plenty of room!' said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

- Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll


Has the whole world gone mad?

It's almost a year after the presidential election. The new President has taken office, attacked the economic disaster with plans to brink us all back from the brink, championed the removal of our shame as a first-world nation with people dying for lack of health care, and yes - brought dignity, intellect and compassion to the Office of the President. But instead, what do I see?

Tea parties and rabid protests from those most of the change in our country is designed to help (oh, if only they would read more...) How soon we forget the past 8 years!

Lunatics armed with weapons facing off the Secret Service and FBI at Presidential events.

Incitable folk refusing to send their kids to school because the leader of the free world wants to encourage them not to cut class.

A preacher, and God knows who else, praying for the death of another believer.

People who benefit from the limited socialized medicine we have (Medicare) screaming that letting others have the same kind of care would be communism come to town.

Official insolence from elected congressmen, governors and mayors - a clear departure from the basic respect on which our republic was founded.

And yes... open racism disguised as everything but (at least have the guts to say what you really are). President Carter called it accurately today.

Oh Alice, your tea party sounded much saner than this! Ugh!

Quicksilver Friendships - Handle With Care

I went to a party tonight and it got me thinking about mercury (aka quicksilver).

This party was an all-girl affair (men intentionally not invited since everybody didn't have one to bring, I suppose) with women I've known for less than a year. No bosom buddies,in fact some definitely not so, but we laughed, ate great food, drank good wine and danced like kids at a 5-year old's birthday party. And it was good for us. We didn't leave the party being closer friends, but we left exhilerated from the sheer human enrichment of socializing with others. And I've come to realize there is great value in that.

Years ago when kids learned chemistry (so I'm told), they did experiments with mercury, which is one of the few metals that is liquid at room temperature but doesn't explode or spontaneously burst into flame in open air. It is a metal in every sense, a silvery liquid, with so much surface tension that when poured into droplets, it forms beads that immediately coalesce to form a seamless whole as if they have a life of their own. Fascinating metal, mercury. Because of its unique properties, it can be used in ways solid metals can't, for example in measuring temperature and pressure changes.

So what does this have to do with the party?

Well, now we know that mercury is toxic. That beautiful silver liquid can linger in my body and cause all sorts of damage. What we know today about how mercury behaves has made us way more cautious, right? We don't touch it with our bare hands, we clean it up quickly when it spills and take lots of precautions to do it. And we don't want to accidentally consume it - or too much of it - so we limit our fish intake. That sure is a big change in the way we view the beautiful metal. I was thinking tonight that my savvy about friendships has kind of evolved in the same way.

When I was a teenager, I only counted as friends girls I liked and who I thought would be loyal, just like me (or even me like them), and who definitely would do no harm to me or my other friends. Fast forward a bit, well maybe a few years, and there's a new reality. I've learned that even people who I genuinely view as friends can sometimes say and do things that are not loyal, loving or kind. Surprise! Plus, all friends don't serve the same purpose in my life. Some are closer and we let each other into the intimate details of our lives. Some have to be taken in small doses, because they're still in a phase of personal development where they can be just toxic enough to cause pain if I'm over-exposed to them. And it's OK.

The beautiful thing is I now consider all these handle-with-care relationships to be part of the cohesive positive thing that friendship as a whole can be in our lives. Even the ugly parts of friendship can add to who I am. I've been betrayed by a close friend. That taught me to be careful in what I say and to whom. I've been disappointed when a friend has not been there. So I learned to re-evaluate the expectations I set in my own mind for others, and I learned to broaden my circle. So some friendships are quicksilver, you have to measure carefully, understand where they add benefit to your life and where they do not. Take the right precautions, and consume in very limited doses. But maybe we can bring positive value to a relationship with a toxic person as well. Review carefully though, if there is no benefit coming out of this friendship to either party, it may be time to throw it on the "biohazard" pile.

This post is not about all the great friendships we are sometimes blessed to have. We all know about the virtues of those. This is about the others. We all fall into those too. I say look for the good, the character-building value, and absorb the emotional deposit that we get from having a social interaction even if it's not a deep one. If that quicksilver friendship hits a spot in your present, acknowledge that and keep going, and growing.