The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

May 21Have Your Experience

I try to judge things for myself; to judge wrong, I think, is more honourable than not to judge at all. I don't wish to be a mere sheep in the flock; I wish to choose my fate and know something of human affairs beyond what other people think it compatible with propriety to tell me.

Henry James—The Portrait of a Lady (1881)

The use of the word “judge” in today's reading leans more toward the idea of making choices and decisions that are right for you rather than considering something as right or wrong in general.

This is an important distinction for the self-reliant entrepreneur. We make a lot of decisions based on intuition, laced with fear, and are quite often hard pressed to explain them to others.

In the preface to a later work, Lady Barbarina, James offers this:

The thing of profit is to have your experience—to recognize and understand it, and for this almost any will do; there being surely no absolute ideal about it beyond getting from it all it has to give.

So, you see, go for it, make the decision that feels right. No one will die (probably), and you can always change your mind. Just have your experience.

Challenge Question

1. How do you tell the difference between fear and intuition?