Being Thankful for Entrepreneurship

As we enter into the holiday season I thought it important to pause and reflect on what I am grateful and thankful for in my life as an entrepreneur. Whether you are a business owner, an entrepreneur, or an employee, see if you resonate with what I am expressing here. And if you do not agree with this summation of business from my perspective, please do not hesitate to contact me so that we may open the conversation about being thankful for discussion.

My online business is now a decade old. Depending on your experience and point of view this might be a relatively short time in comparison to your years as an entrepreneur or small business owner. If you are just starting out, then a decade seems like a fair amount of time. What will never change for me are my daily thoughts of thankfulness and gratitude for being able to choose this lifestyle and make it work.

I am thankful to be living in a country where small business is recognized for the contribution it makes to society as a whole. Without waxing political, just be aware that most countries have a much more stringent set of requirements and barrier to entry for those wishing to start their own business. And we are in one of fewer than thirty countries in the world where online business can supplement a brick and mortar business or stand alone as a business model.

In addition, I am thankful for Internet connections that many take for granted. In the United States we are able to obtain some of the fastest data transfer rates on the planet, enabling our businesses to run faster and with fewer interruptions day in and day out. The speed at which I am able to run a business from my home is faster than that available to many governments around the world.

I am also thankful to the people I have met as a result of becoming an entrepreneur. More than ninety percent of the people I interact with regularly are ones I would not have come to know if I were still a classroom teacher and working pert-time in real estate. They are members of service organizations, networking groups, and charities that exist to serve those less fortunate, both locally and abroad. These people have opened my eyes to a perspective of hope and joy I had only previously imagined, and for that I am truly grateful.

For a period of over thirty years, from when I was a teenager until the age of fifty I was primarily an employee. I did have a real estate business for many years, but that was a service business where I followed the rules and regulations of the industry. I had very little say over the day to day operations and simply did my best work in exchange for additional assignments. It wasn’t until I started my online business in 2006 that I understood what a gift this truly is for people like me who want and need to work from home.

I am thankful for the motivation, inspiration, and work ethic that has become my “new normal”. And these days I find that I have more respect for what I experienced during my years as an employee than I did during those thirty plus years. We are all at liberty to recreate any scenario that worked for us in the past. I used to leave very early each morning to beat the traffic while I was teaching school, and I regularly parked in front of the post office to read and think before driving two more block to the school. Once I arrived in that parking lot I was no longer my own person. Now I read from the comfort of home, or from wherever I happen to be each morning. These daily hours of study and reflection have become a ritual for me and yet another way that being thankful has affected my life.

In short, owning and running a business of any kind is a valuable gift. No matter what type of products or services you are engaged in, you are giving back to the world in a number of ways. What are you being thankful and grateful for in regards to your working life right now?