FreedomWorks

As is the case with so many other people, I vividly remember the unsettling time when I wondered, “What should I do when I grow up.”  I don’t wonder about that any more.

I graduated from the Virginia Military Institute with a degree in History and Liberal Arts and toyed with the idea of becoming a military pilot or going on to law school.  As it turned out, my first job after graduation was as a television reporter covering Virginia’s government.  I worked as a journalist for years and later worked as a classroom school teacher and a museum educator.  I enjoyed and learned a great deal from each experience, yet all the while, I knew I’d not quite found my niche.  I’ll note here too that I was beginning to consider the fact that I was taking paychecks from employers to follow their vision, someone else’s dream.

I’d always had a great interest in History.  I’m sure that interest evolved from the earliest thought I can remember having as a small child…”Why did the adults do that.”  I’ve never stopped wondering what causes people to make the decisions they make, especially when they make decisions different from those I could have made.  I’m certain that’s not unusual.

I did some “living history” work at a local historic site during the summers and found I very much liked the technique as a teaching tool.  After also doing some “re-enacting” as a hobby, several friends and I thought we might “gamble” that we might actually earn some money portraying people from the past for paying clients.  We thus started a business called Living History Associates, Ltd. in 1986.  http://www.lhaltd.com/speakers/cheatham/index.html

We knew a good bit about History, but we knew next to nothing about running a successful business.  In essence, we became an unusual type of speakers bureau.  We offered well-known “dead people” with important things to say for all sorts of events and meetings.

Some of the characters I portray professionally are the following; John Rolfe, Pocahontas’ husband, the poorly known entrepreneur who saved the USA long before the Pilgrims landed, Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Paine, radical patriots whose passion for liberty and their perseverance brought us independence, Captain Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson’s personal secretary and a great leader and team builder and President John Tyler, recently cited as being America’s best President in the new book, “Recarving Rushmore” by Ivan Eland.  We also offer many other characters from History portrayed by other professional historians who are the best at what they do.

Eventually we came to understand that what we were actually selling through our business was classic lessons from the past for the benefit of contemporary audiences.  Technology is ever-changing, however fundamental human nature does not and has never changed throughout recorded history.  We were selling the most inspirational and useful lessons in leadership, team building, planning, etc., lessons with great and timeless practical utility.  Our presentations became popular for audiences from corporate meetings and national conferences to elementary school classes and cruises on ships. They’ve taken us all over the USA, throughout the Caribbean and to Europe.

What do we sell?  We sell ideas and intellectual provocation.  We sell the classic wisdom in an entertaining and memorable package.  We sell true stories from History that educate, empower, inspire and even intellectually provoke.

Envisioning our business, we had to consider the question, “What do people need?”  Some of the answers we came up with were these.  They need knowledge of the past.  They need inspiration. They need to know about classic successes they could repeat and about failures they might avoid.  They need to feel empowered, to know themselves and their special talents and abilities and they need to know how those things might be useful to others.  They need to know that the past has answers for our present challenges, just as a person with amnesia might find it useful to know their name and what they did for a living.  I’d finally found the work I was born to do, teaching people how improve their lives and their choices through observation of people from the past facing similar challenges.  There’s no “profit” in being limited by a self-imposed and unnecessary “amnesia” about the successes and failures of the past.

I now live the life I choose and absolutely love my work.  I very much believe in its utility and value for people in my audiences.  I work for clients and customers, but no longer for an employer who pays me to advance his or her vision and dream.

I remember telling my parents that I’ve come to live a very luxurious life, not through having gobs of money, but by forgoing a higher salary working for someone else in order to live a life I would much rather live, a life that I couldn’t purchase otherwise for any amount of money.  I live a fabulous life.  Without problems?  No, but this is a life I choose and design and love.  One of the things very highly paid employees (yes, even corporate and government executives) are expected to sell for their high salaries is their intellectual independence.  Mine is not for sale, thank you.

I also came to understand many aspects of an entrepreneur’s life that I would never have imagined if I’d not become one.  I came to realize that we all gamble.  Every day every one of us makes decisions without knowing with 100% certainty the outcome of those decisions.  Employees gamble that the people they work for will gamble well for the future of their businesses and for those who take orders and paychecks from them.  Employees are paid to follow the dreams of others.  Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, follow their own dreams.  Entrepreneurs are certainly gamblers too, but they gamble upon their own judgment, knowledge, creativity and life experience more than upon someone else’s.  I’m determine to control my own gambles as much as possible and to place as few of them in the hands of other people and their judgment as possible.  I enjoy having, and need to have, as much of my life in my own hands as possible.

Entrepreneurs are true leaders and leaders must necessarily gamble.  Entrepreneurs gamble with their own resources and believe in and bet upon their own ability, perception and judgment as opposed to government “leaders” who typically gamble with other people’s resources and lives, often without their permission.  Those who gamble with other people’s lives and resources typically do so in a manner that may not be as “efficient” as those who gamble with their own resources.  Why would anyone expect otherwise?

Entrepreneurs made America great.  Government is a method limited to three basic tools; threats (laws), force (law enforcement) and confiscation (taxation).  It can only take and redistribute to favorites.  It creates nothing.  Who pays for government “solutions” and “help” anyway?  Where does government get its resources?

There’s something very important about this entrepreneurial gambling that relates to our present economic challenges.  I’ve learned as much about running my business from our mistakes as from our successes, perhaps even more.  I’ve come to believe that the “founding fathers” I revere so much missed something very important.  I believe the “Bill of Rights” should have contained a right that they did not mention, “The Right to Fail.”

I don’t want to fail.  I hate failing.  I work very hard not to fail; however, I’ve learned some of my most important lessons in life and in business through my failures.  Pain has the ability to get our attention.

My business is not “too big to fail.”  Thank goodness!  I wouldn’t have it any other way!  That very fact keeps me on my toes serving my customers efficiently and at a mutually beneficial price.  I demand my right to fail!  I don’t need or want a government bailout or stimulus!  These days the compulsion government employs through its maze of laws, regulations, mandates, subsidies, tariffs, protections, legal monopolies, taxes, guarantees, bailouts and stimulus plans (paid for by confiscations from successful businesses and individuals) is everywhere being employed to prevent certain favorites from failing.  It must not do that!  Those plundered resources only encourage more failure and inefficiency at the same time they benefit a favored few at the expense of all others.  That is far more a Soviet-type system than a classic American one.

As a professional historian I’m very familiar with the importance of the year 1776.  Of course, Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Jefferson made their spoken and written declarations of independence that year.  Another magnificent thing happened also.  Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” was published.  The Declaration and the book together shook the world.  Many millions of people were freed in ways that radically changed and improved the world.

Smith spoke about an “invisible hand” in his great book.  Whereas government employs a gloved fist attempting to force all elements of the economy into a particular vision of economic perfection favored by an elite with political power, the “invisible hand” of a true free market guides the economy (without compulsion) toward the most productive and efficient use of scarce resources for the society.

That “invisible hand” not only rewards the producers of things free people prefer, it also punishes producers who do not satisfy people efficiently and honestly.  That means some fail.  Yes, some fail. They should fail.  The scarce resources they’ve employed would be better employed by others.

I have a right to fail and so do you.  I’m offended by politicians who select specific favorites who must not be allowed to fail, especially when they “save” these favorites with “other people’s money.” Beware of those who spend other people’s money.  Not only is it immoral, it’s also inefficient and wasteful and perpetuates a political elite.

I’ll gamble for myself and take my winnings when I do the right thing and my losses when I fail.  That “rigor” is essential to what’s left of out free economy.  The absence of that “rigor” is precisely why the Soviet Union failed.  They were neither free enough nor efficient enough.  Such societies inevitably fail, often with bloody results.

Entrepreneurs functioning in a free market did not create the present economic crisis.  The “rules of the game” and the system and regulations established by the Federal Reserve Bank and the United States government made failure inevitable and are preventing real recovery.  I recently heard someone say that those who blame the “greed” of entrepreneurs for the present crisis can’t understand the real underlying systemic reasons anymore than those who blame gravity for a plane crash.

I have advice for those who have yet to discover what they should do when “they grow up.”

*  Do your best to know yourself and your values.  Make self-evaluation a constant process.

*  Define success for yourself.  Understand that you have no peer.  There’s no one with your particular set of strengths, talents, abilities and experience.  The concept of a “division of labor” means that some people do certain things better than other people.  In fact, there are things you can do better than anyone in the world.  Discover them.

*  Have a healthy skepticism for “experts,” especially politically connected “experts.”  Judge them and their advice based upon your own values and life experience with the knowledge that as you can’t know everything, neither can anyone else.

*  Consider working for yourself doing something you would do whether you were paid or not.  You won’t mind all the hours and the hard work.

*  You can and should rely upon yourself.  Your self esteem and self image will depend upon this.  Your attitude toward life will largely depend upon those.

*  Deliver more than you promise.  Work hard at work you love.

*  Offer only those products and services in which you believe.  Know what you offer helps and provides value to your customers.  Do your best to know what others might want and need.

*  Learn from your mistakes as well as your successes.  Pain and high costs can lead to useful lessons!

*  Always favor creativity, productivity and persuasion (from the bottom – the free market) over force, threats, manipulations and confiscations (from above – the government).

*  Understand that entrepreneurs are gamblers (everyone is).  Understand also that you gamble when you work for someone else, you’re gambling that your boss’ gambles are good ones.  After all, you too will suffer the positive and negative consequences..

In conclusion, one might wonder why everyone wouldn’t aspire to be an entrepreneur.  Some reasons might be that some people don’t yet know what they want out of life.  Perhaps some don’t yet have the confidence to gamble on their own abilities and knowledge and feel more comfortable in depending upon the gambles of an employer.  Perhaps they simply haven’t been “empowered” to know they can be entrepreneurs by a non-entrepreneurial education system.  Whatever the reason, America would be a better, freer and more prosperous place if they knew.