Artists of Everyday Life

The late Jim Rohn spent nearly half a century sharing his insights on successful living, insights gained in his own entrepreneurial career. His seminars, books and tapes are considered classics and his recorded products continue to influence scores of people who are working to build a better life.

Of course, he had plenty to say about being entrepreneurial. Here’s a little sampling:

An enterprising person is one who comes across a pile of scrap metal and sees the makings of a wonderful sculpture.

An enterprising person is one who drives through an old decrepit part of town and sees a new housing development.

An enterprising person is one who sees opportunity in all areas of life. 

To be enterprising is to keep your eyes open and your mind active. It’s to be skilled enough, confident enough, creative enough and disciplined enough to seize opportunites that present themselves…regardless of the economy.

Rohn believed—and taught—that entrepreneurs needed to build character and cultivate creativity. Like so many other business philosophers, he realized that entrepreneurs are truly artists who simply happen to work in a different medium.

What goes hand in hand with the creativity of enterprise is the courage to be creative. You need courage to see things differently, courage to go against the crowd, courage to take a different approach, courage to stand alone if you have to, courage to choose activity over inactivity.

Jim Rohn was a quiet philosopher, which was quite a contrast to the army of self-proclaimed success gurus working diligently to sell you formulas, shortcuts, sure-fire steps for building a fortune. Popular as many of these events happen to be, they’re about as nourishing as fast food.

What’s truly needed, however, aren’t auditoriums packed for success rallies and pep talks. Entrepreneurs need to discover how to nurture their own creative spirits—and regularly do the things that inspire them to act.

That’s more easily accomplished in quiet ways, quiet places.

(Can you imagine what might have happened if someone had stood behind Van Gogh shouting, “Paint, damn it, paint!”?)

When we realize that running a business is a creative activity, not just a money machine, it alters everything. Like any art form, it’s an on-going exercise.

As Goethe pointed out, “The art of living rightly is like all arts: it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.”