Demonstrate an entitlement attitude.
That is the quickest way I know to frustrate an entrepreneur.
Every successful entrepreneur I've ever met believes nothing is owed to them. They believe in personal responsibility and making things happen. They believe an idea, hard work, and perseverance can accomplish anything and, more importantly, nothing can stop them. They believe everything it takes to succeed is already in their hands or they are actively executing a plan to obtain whatever is missing.
They don't believe in hand outs.
They will not let themselves be victimized.
They don't make excuses.
They don't feel entitled to anything by anyone.
But what about the entitlement mentality of the "kids these days"? Sounds like something your grandpa would complain about... But it is worth talking about. Are we becoming more entitled? If so, how does entitlement impact our culture and the generations to come?
Maybe we need frontiersman training. Buy an ax, a gun, and find some wilderness. Now go build a home and provide for your family.
That's part of the foundational thinking of the people who started this country as a minarchy, and I'm afraid we're losing it. This land was shaped by innovators, but we'll destroy what they built if we don't train ourselves to drop the entitlement mentality and go build something.
What are you building?
Are you waiting for something and if so, why?
Image Sources:
- Created by me using a photo I took in Costa Rica
- Tom on Flickr, Creative Commons 2.0
P.S. If you need some more encouragement, see this keynote on how I turned my code into a company.
I've been building several 'wicking worm beds' - so far, one is finished and is around 3' up off the ground full of strawberry plants that are cascading down the sides trying to act like kudzu.
That sounds fantastic, although you did combine something fabulous (strawberries!) with something diabolically evil (kudzu). Heheheh.
yeah luckily kudzu hasn't reached Colorado as far as I know. Here's an interesting project that is actually the perfect thing to start at this time of year - a solar wall or trombe wall - this one is both passive and active, but mostly passive. (had some crazy locks of hair last year):
That is really cool!
That is so true. Sometimes we can all start to slip into an attuitude that certain entrepreneurs had more access to capital or had it made but no matter what it isn't easy to create wealth and retain wealth.
I'm not suggesting there isn't a lot of luck involved also, because I know there is, but as they say, some people create luck by working harder and longer than others and taking more risks than others are willing to take. If building and keeping wealth were easy, everyone would do it.
Thanks for the comment and the follow, Brian!
I'm raising a family. At the moment I'm building up holdings in a minting coin to fund allowances for my children (and myself), and looking to speed the process up a bit by posting on Steemit :)
Holdings in a minting coin? I'm intrigued. What does that mean?
It's Diamond Coin (see https://bit.diamonds/). It's a hybrid proof of work/proof of stake coin. The proof of stake part means that when you hold it in your wallet and open the wallet for minting, the wallet generates more coins. Diamond currently mints at an annual 25% rate. I figured out that if I accumulate a certain amount, then I can start selling the minted coins and then cash the BTC to pay for my kids' allowances. It's basically a small residual income goal I've set for myself. Of course, if the price of DMD drops precipitously, my plans could fall apart. But DMD has been a pretty good store of value (for crypto!) over the past three years. Each one tends to be worth between 25 and 35 cents. It's got a solid development team and decent community. I discovered this coin during one of my freelance writing assignments about a year ago.
Usual disclaimer: this is not investment advice; only invest what you can afford to lose, etc. :)
Interesting. Thanks for the info. Seems the market cap is increasing, though the price has dropped. Does that mean it just rewards those who got in early?
The price in Bitcoin has been as high as 0.001 and as low as 0.00038 or so. Like any other coin, the trick is to buy low and sell high, and if you follow it for a while you pick up on the pattern. I usually buy in around .00045 or so. Since it mints at 25%, though, even if I sell the minted coins back at exactly the same price, I'm still coming out ahead, because I'd be keeping the principal and only selling the "interest." Of course if the price drops through the floor, then I'd be behind. You have to keep up with the coin's community on Bitcoin Talk for a while to determine if you think it's going anywhere. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=580725.0;topicseen
My assessment is that development is moving forward, the fundamentals are good, and the price is fairly stable. Also, the coin itself is pretty rare (there will only ever be 4.38 million of them). But you can't go based on my assessment alone.
Great encouragement... Which is what I need sometime to keep on building for greater good and have fun along the way.
PS. These days, I am building #eSteem mobile app!
I'm looking forward to checking it out once it's live in the app store. Thank you for your work and contributions!
Thank you, Luke! Yes, I am waiting Apple review results eagerly, it seem there is huge interest from iOS users than Android... :)
Good article Luke. I agree completely. Every once in awhile though we need to hear someone say something like this.
EDIT: And yes I am building something. I need to reign in my steemit use some though so I can get back to focusing on it.
That's why I post this stuff. I need to remind myself as well. :)
Hah! I know what you mean. This thing is addictive, and it certainly takes me away from my business a little too much at times.
Great post!
Laziness, apathy, lack of creativity...
Most importantly, I am building the character into my children to never become those things.
Very well said, Jason!
This is so false. This land was shaped by economic and political elites. They were the beneficiaries of an economic system based on free labor (slavery) and land acquired through the extermination of the native population.
I have nothing but disdain for the so called "founding fathers." They built an aristocracy whose logical conclusion is the state that all anarchists oppose today. Let's not kid ourselves.
Notice, I didn't say the founding fathers. The real "people who started this country as a minarchy" were those who left their country of origin, took an axe, cut down some trees, and made a home for themselves without giving a damn what was going on in Washington, D.C.
As to the "founding fathers", yes, by the ethical standards of an anarchist today, they leave much to be desired. But what about the ethical standards of the time they lived in? What about those who wrote the anti-federalist papers and were also concerned with the centralization of power? What about those who freed their slaves (all be it, after their death) while others did not? I don't deify the constitution or those who ratified it, but I do try to recognize ethics from the lense of history, not my current biased opinion. I'm sure future generations will judge us harshly as well.
And yes, I'm familiar with the small pox infected blankets given to the native Americans, but I'm also curious about the claims North America was already a post-apocalyptic wasteland by the time Europeans got here. There's a book on that I still need to read. Also, give The Origins of Virtue a read if you're convinced market driven civilization corrupted what were otherwise a morally superior people. Much of our common thinking about the altruism of more primitive ways of life is a myth.
As always, I love your input, @bacchist.
To find out who is trying to control you, find out who you are not allowed to critize.
I've heard that quote before. Do you know who's it is?
Do you think criticism / control has much to do with entitlement? If so, how?
"The quote is unanimously attributed to the French polymath Voltaire — who, in fairness, was an aphorism-spouting machine. The problem: there’s no record of Voltaire ever having said it."
Entitlement in my mind is closely related to owning/controlling because a people who think they are entitled to something think that they already own that something or atleast have control over it.
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Thanks for clarifying!
Telling it like it is.
Trying to, anyway.
Full $teem Ahead!
@lukestokes I am always building something... Stop by my blog if you can. Thanks. @streetstyle
What are you building now?
I will update this Build early next week. This week plumbing , electrical and a/c so I am out of the loop til then. Well I did the copper but I will post up date early next week. Thanks
No joke! That's for real building. Well done. :)
Hi I know exactly what you are talking about. I built a company from nothing in hair extensions over 7 years ago www.extensionking.com. Now I am looking to build a business around blockchain. People laughed at me then and they sure will laugh at me now. That's OK!
I'm building something. And there's not a person in the world who can stop me. If anyone wants to get on board and support me, they're welcome to do so - but I'm not going to wait for them.
That's the required attitude for success.
This is really good
Thank you. If you feel like following, hopefully you won't be disappointed.
I think attitudes of entitlement are a kind of natural reflection of the world as it is right now. If the world's wealth was distributed fairly, the way it would be if violence didn't concentrate it into very few hands, then we essentially WOULD have free or nearly free essentials.
(Or at least they'd be a lot cheaper and living would be easier.)
So if you don't recognize that you're a victim of violence, but you kind of get that something isn't quite right, the only way to really square the circle is that other people must owe something to you.
So I think it's the wagon behind the horse. I don't think entitlement is actively spreading, I think it's just one of the effects of statism. And hopefully that beast goes down soon :)
Who determines "fairness" and how do the do it? There's no effective method I know of for wealth distribution other than chaotic market forces, charity (to a small degree, also has problems), or the use of force. To the extent the market gets distorted (fiat currencies, central-bank controlled interest rates and distorted bond markets, taxpayer paid unfunded liabilities, etc, etc), then we see what I might call "fraudulent" wealth distribution.
I hear this claim often from those with a post-scarcity view of the future and maybe they are right, but they haven't convinced me yet. If the FED can add $6 trillion in new money without hyperinflation, then, to me, it makes sense that we should be seeing $6 trillion in deflation if we had sound money. I.e., stuff should cost us all a lot less as you said, but maybe wages would also fall? Or maybe not, since they don't seem to be rising as they should.
Maybe. For me, I think it's helpful to get out of generic labels like "other people" and get very specific. Let's start with the list of the world's billionaires. How much money, exactly, are you and I entitled to out of each one of these persons' store of value? Does Bill Gates owe me money for creating Windows? What about Jeff Bezos for making Amazon?
For me, I can't connect someone else's success with something they then owe me.
That's what I mean, I consider anything voluntary to be the only measure of what's fair. (I should have just said 'voluntary' to be more clear.)
If it means one person has more than another, that's fine. But it's my belief that things would be way more evenly spread. (Because flr one you don't have the cycle of people with the most money having a power source that they can lobby to their benefit. And two, real charity and looking out for each other on a p2p level has a chance to evolve for the first time.)
I agree. I wish the people who feel entitled instead saw the root of the problem (and felt "entitled" to live freely without violence imposed on them).
I was basically just trying to make sense of why the entitlement attitude seems on the rise, not advocating it.
I do see a strand of truth, in recognizing that living generally should be more affordable for more people. I completely agree with ypu though that it's not that anybody owes you something. What they owe you is just to not impose, and to let you live your visions, and then we're all better off.
I have another post I've been thinking about regarding our own expectations. The poor today live like kings of old. We have more access to resources than previous generations could even dream about. Our expectations, to me, impacts our sense of entitlement more than anything else.
Thanks for clarifying your views for me.
Thanks for asking me!
I'll keep my eyes out for that post. :p
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Not sure if I should upvote for being a truly useful bot if you gaining more Steem Power will eventually lead to autonomous super intelligence revolution leading to the end of humanity as we know it...
haha brilliant!