The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

March 8Your Own Day

Dead poets, philosophers, priests, / Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since, / Language-shapers on other shores, / Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate, / I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left / wafted hither, / I have perused it, own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it,) / Think nothing can ever be greater, nothing can ever deserve more / than it deserves, / Regarding it all intently a long while, then dismissing it, / I stand in my place with my own day here.

Walt Whitman—Leaves of Grass (1855)

It is somewhat ironic and telling of the nature of things that Whitman gives credit to the past when he himself would not be considered a great poet until he was also a dead poet.

Leaves of Grass was written at a time when America was still trying to find its “brand.” To this point, what others said about America (mostly European) shaped its perception.

Fifty years later, Whitman would be called a prophet and the first truly American poet because he so often defined his uniqueness through conflict and contrast.

The self-reliant entrepreneur must often dismiss what has come before as a way to inform rather than direct, mesh rather than copy.

Today, stand in your own place with your own day here.

Challenge Question

1. How can you use conflict and contrast to make your idea/venture more potent?