The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

October 17Creating History

The student of history is like a person going into a warehouse to buy cloths or carpets. They fancy they have a new article. If they go to the factory, they shall find that their new stuff still repeats the scrolls and rosettes which are found on the interior walls of the pyramids of Thebes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson—“Uses of Great Men,” The Oxford Book of American Essays, ed. Brander Matthews (1914)

Spanish-born philosopher George Santayana popularized the adage, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In a 1948 speech to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill paraphrased the quote slightly when he said, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

Both meant this as a warning to those who did not study the failings of past as a guide to the future.

What if you saw your entrepreneurial journey in a much different light? What if by recognizing that your “new stuff still repeats,” you created your own history?

Starting today, could you look at content creation and journaling in the way that a documentarian might? Could you start to document every aspect of your journey as a way to learn from yourself, learn from your mistakes, your triumphs, your daily observations of the mundane as well as the thrilling?

You have much to teach yourself by stopping and taking note, and there's a very practical element from a brand standpoint. Sharing your journey and using your documenting practice is one of the strongest ...