The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

December 12On a Tangent

I say that conceit is just as natural a thing to human minds as a centre is to a circle. But little-minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five minutes' conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine their whole curve.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.—The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858)

You've got to love a good geometry metaphor.

Circles will play a role in your growth on your journey. Think of it in terms of networking. We need circles of influence to spread our message. That's how it works today. Our expanding and overlapping circles hold more potential than any billboard in Times Square.

But there's always a but, right? They also have the potential to constrict, as Holmes suggests: “little-minded people's thoughts move in such small circles.”

Further in the essay he adds this: “A circle of clever fellows, who meet together to dine and have a good time, have signed a constitutional compact to glorify themselves and put down him and the fraction of the human race not belonging to their number.”

We must intentionally leap between the radical centers of intersecting circles in order to find and expand our true tribe. (Radical center is a geometry term, the power center of three circles, but dang, it fits here.)

Do this, and your entrepreneurial and life circles take a shape more like a heptagram—a seven-pointed star that also happens to appear on the flag of the Cherokee Nation.

Width and diversity in our circles brings ...