The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

February 28Your Sitting Place

The green trees whispered low and mild; / It was a sound of joy! / They were my playmates when a child, / And rocked me in their arms so wild! / Still they looked at me and smiled, / As if I were a boy; // And ever whispered, mild and low, / “Come, be a child once more!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1845)

There's kind of a weird thing about being an entrepreneur. Once you're immersed in a business venture, you lose the ability to see many things that are happening all around you and in your daily interactions with others. You're so deep in the business that you're no longer able to see the path of the business.

It's much as if you were to hike through a wilderness. Many things could be going on all around you that would escape your notice as you pushed through. Predators, highly attuned to their survival desire, would hide or run without making a sound; trees would whisper “mild and low”; and the songs of what seemed like a thousand little birds would go unheard.

That's just how it is—we're so determined to get to the summit or waterfall that we no longer see the miracles all along the path before us.

Outdoor guides and even hunters will tell you that the best way to capture nature is to sit and observe from the same spot day after day. Do this and the patterns and happening of the entire territory, not just the map, will openly reveal themselves.

Perhaps you did this as a child and have simply ...