The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

May 25Involuntary Perception

We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or absence is all we can affirm. Every person discriminates between the voluntary acts of their mind and the involuntary perceptions, and knows that to these involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due.

Ralph Waldo Emerson—Self-Reliance (1841)

Intuition is meant to play a starring role in the life of the entrepreneur. Emerson felt that was the primary reason we need to pursue self-reliance. That human beings, empowered to follow their intuition, were essentially good and moral and that, left to decide their fate, would choose the right path.

The bonds of the “voluntary acts” of the mind, so often determined by the rules and dogma of others, of churches, of society, make it hard to break free and follow your heart. Our senses are overwhelmed with what the world expects of us, and so we work to figure out how to fit in and follow what's worked for others.

Go into any Facebook group of like-minded business folks and you'll see question after question concerning how to do this or that tactic associated with speaking or writing or marketing or whatever.

This activity is little more than a way to mask doing the work, ...