Global Entrepreneurship Week 2012

It’s been a while. No, seriously, it has really been a while since I’v written here. Its not that there hasn’t been a tremendous amount of change to journal. There has been plenty! It isn’t that my mind has just been languishing on the sidelines of existence and not creating any new juice. It has been creating tons of juice! No, none of those. It’s that I’ve been so freaking busy that I haven’t made time to document and reflect. My involvement with Bridgeway Behavioral Health and Juniper Communities has consumed by everything in a way that is not unlike a raging inferno consuming all that lies in its path.

This has taken its toll.

I recently found myself in Kansas City Missouri at the Kauffman Foundation undergoing a mental enema. Yeah, I said that. What else could you call it though. I had my mind flushed out of several of the misconceptions I had about entrepreneurship. For those close to me, you know that this can be quite a process for a hard-head like me however, it really wasn’t that difficult. I was able to experience the Ice House Entrepreneurship Program Facilitator Training and man, my mind is blown… blown open that is.

You see, I was somehow under the false assumption that to be an entrepreneur required some formula of planning and financial documentation coupled with the specific talents and drive to really make it. All of this contrary to my own experience (I really didn’t have any of these things when I started my businesses). This course (which I will begin facilitating in St. Louis during the early part of 2013) breaks down the entrepreneurial mindset in a way that is both refreshing and completely empowering. Through this program, the mystique surrounding entrepreneurship is distilled into 8 essential principles that completely dispel the myths surrounding not only starting a business but learning to recognize opportunity and marshal limited resources to take immediate action seizing these opportunities.

This is great news as the people I am working with in the field of reentry need a process by which they can understand that they matter too, that they are just as empowered as anyone else when using this method of opportunity discovery and resource wrangling.

All of this during Global Entrepreneurship Week 2012.

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Pretty cool man.

During this short exposure to this new way of thinking I realized in a completely new way that entrepreneurship, when learned and practiced in this way, is more than just a way to start a business but a way to empower literally everyone to a new way of seeing the world and the problems we face both individually and collectively not just here in my little community but globally. What a breath of fresh air!

As I said in my class, “I am super psyched about what comes next.” Be on the lookout for lots more from me as I wander down this path and please let me know what you’re thinking!