Re-imagine what it means to be an entrepreneur

Like the majority of people, I grew up in a household where people worked in jobs - they were employed by other people. I hardly knew anyone self employed or entrepreneurial when I was growing up. I always believed entrepreneurs to be slightly dodgy and unethical people, like Gordon Gekko In The 80's film Wall Street or if you live in the UK, Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses or Arthur Daley in Minder spring to mind - loveable rogues! I certainly didn't fancy being one of them. I had very few great role models I could look up to and say, "I want to be like that."

A few years I read a tribute to Bernard Goldhirsh, the founder of Inc magazine for entrepreneurs. He was quoted as saying, "Anyone who writes for me has to understand that I believe that a true entrepreneur has the soul of an artist, and their business is the canvass of their expression." I suddenly felt like someone had articulated what I was and had always wanted to be - I have the soul of an artist, by business is my canvass and my work is the way I express myself in the world and make my contribution - and I get paid for it! That is my vision of being an entrepreneur - someone whose business is the way they share their gifts and talents with the world, are always curious and looking for new ways to serve their fellow human beings, and are willing and able to profit by doing so.

For me it is a constant journey of unlearning much of the unhelpful thinking I grew up as well as learning how to speak the new language of being an inspired entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is a different way of neing the world and seeing the world in a new way, more as a world full of opportunity and possibility rather than a world full of problems and obstacles. My motivation as an inspired entrepreneur is "How can I reach and teach more people about how they can be happy ad fulfilled in their work?" The more ways I find to inspire and educate, the more people I help and the more I prosper.