Are you in the business you think you are in?

A lot of people go into a business for themselves because they have an overriding passion for an area  in which they also  have a lot of expertise, but they later discover that there is a lot more to running a business than they imagined. There are books to keep. Employees to hire. Regulations to which they must conform. But imagine you're Wilbur or Orville Wright, who, in addition to running their own bicycle business, decided to take on the "problem of flight," which included not only successfully flying a heavier-than-air craft under its own power, but also maneuvering in mid-air.

Oh, and due to a general human intolerance to blunt force trauma and impalement, landing alive consistently was another important issue to solve.

But what business were the Wrights in? Weren't they just bicycle men?

Well, yeah. But they were so much more than that.

They were even more than entrepreneurs or even inventors. They were all of these things.

But chiefly they were problem solvers who, importantly, were not afraid to try, though they might fail.

So many times we allow others to define us, and we refuse to break out of our boxes for fear that we would be ridiculed by those who have more "expertise" than us.

When you find yourself in this situation, think of the two brothers from Ohio. And remember that their success depended on their doing, not on what others may have expected of them based on their credentials. - Cam Beck