My parents worked a variety of jobs and my dad was self-employed several times in his life. But I think my true inspiration was being the youngest of 5 and always wanting to be different than them. Going to small parochial schools, the nuns would always say, “Are you…., brother?” Well I wanted to be different and typically by the end of the 1st quarter they had stoped comparing me to the others, good or bad??

My spirit by the way has always been to become a master of something. Never have went into much halfway.

Good post John! Allowed me to write for myself instead of others.

2) What did your parents do?
My mom worked at a bank doing teller work and retired in new accounts. My dad worked in factories for most of his life, got a 2 yr degree at the age of 50 and was an electrical engineer until he retired at 70.

3) How did that impact your entrepreneurial spirit?
While playing it safe and going with the norm is fine and works ok for most, I never knew anyone that played it safe and did not take risk make it big with an idea.

I’m an independent business consultant and technology specialist. I began my own business 10 years ago, built a network of subcontractors and was chugging along fine until a health issue cratered my business. The person I chose to take my place for 2 weeks, couldn’t. I wound up finding income and a place to rest in an LLC that I had cofounded with another consultant. We incorporated three years ago. We provide a web application product he developed and I am the COO. It is a sweet business (just broke 1M in revenue) with a great vision and I ought to love it, but I don’t. Maybe because it’s just not my vision. So, at the end of this month, I’m soloing again with a variety of businesses that I’m focusing on, one at a time, none of which have made any money yet. I feel like a fool, but, hey, I’ll be a happy fool.

I love being in business for myself. I have, however, significant issues and problems in very basic areas where I don’t even know I have problems until they bite me from behind. I often feel that at least one entrepreneuial resource in my family would have helped tremendously. Not only was there no one in my family to talk to, I went on to develope habits of not seeking advice and trying to do everything myself, instead of listening to “no” and “don’t” one more time. Not good enterpreneurial traits.

My father was an engineer and a mid-level manager in a large corporation. In later life, he transitioned to niche technical sales. My mother’s father owned a dairy, and my mother hated the life of a small businessman. She was a homemaker, with a capital H, and never worked or sold anything, even when a little money may have come in handy for the family.

The impact on my entrepreneurial spirit? God it was hard. I had to move to another city before I felt anonymous enough to build a new life and step out on my own. Everyone I talked to about self-employment painted pictures of homelessness and starvation. It’s funny now but I wasn’t laughing then, and I am still fearful, even though this time around I know it can be done.

One thing though. My father told me before he died how much he admired me for what I have managed to do, and that he was proud of me. That makes up for a lot.

All of my design skills and old techniques of building out websites came from school. As soon as I got into the working world I was blessed by working for a fantastic company that specialized in SEO and internet marketing.

I love what I do so freelance after hours never seemed like more work. I’m close to making the same paycheck from my freelance, but have yet to take the plunge.

My father is a doctor with a private practice but I never thought of him as an entrepreneur or even owning his own business. Mom worked with him in the office.

I don’t think that their choices effected mine, but who knows. I just think I love what I do so when I can’t get enough at work it overflows over to the freelance world.