12.07.2007

An Entrepreneurial Spirit

As you would have ready earlier in my blog I am fascinated by the ways of my Grandmother who is now a healthy 100 year old. I believe that we have lost many of the good things about this style of living.

 I am not saying that it would be nice to go back to having no electricity and no running water but I think we can implement many of the ideas and philosophies from that time to benefit our modern lives.

One thing about the old ways that I love is the entrepreneurial spirit.

That is, the ability of people to create their own incomes. I am certain that it wold not have been viewed in such a romantic light back then, it was more a case of survival.

 If you wanted to eat then you needed to either grow it yourself or make some money doing something in order to buy your food.

There were no credit cards. If you didn't have the money then you didn't buy the goods. I often think that if it wasn't for credit cards and redrawing on mortgages we would be living almost like the Great Depression days.

How would you go if you got your weekly income out of the bank, held it in cash and new that it was all you had to sustain you for the week, or new that you had to actually save some of it to buy more expensive things?

In times gone by people created their own money without a job as such. Lots of people worked for themselves - the old idea of the butcher, baker, candlestick maker. My Grandmother worked hard to save money when it came in from selling wheat and wool. She also made money through extra things like selling eggs and turkeys.

Have we lost our Entrepreneurial Spirit ? Would we be brave enough to sell our services or goods for money ?
Would we be brave enough to know that if we worked hard we would make more money but if we were lazy we would make less?

Something worth thinking about.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think a lack of confidence is why some of us don't do this. I have worked for myself before and as a landscaper and gardener but only got more jobs through word of mouth. I wasn't confident enough to "push" my work.

Even now, I keep putting off going to the lady in our street whom I know buys expensive "free range" eggs, to ask if she'd like to buy them from me........

Anonymous said...

thanks for the inspiration for my blog post today :) where I linked back to you of course!!

Anonymous said...

I got your message on my "my room" post. That was some time ago. My new bogo is www.jeannie1975.typepad.com

I have all my supplies together... My customers use my tools as needed and I take paper from my inventory and keep track of it as needed too. I also have my own stash that is "all mine". It is sometimes confusing keeping track of everything, but I seem to do a good job at it. It is nice to know someone saw my blog out there!!!

Jeannie

Anonymous said...

Great post. Credit cards have transformed the way we function as a society, and not necessarily for the better.

Kate

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