I wish I had realized my value as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship provides tremendous value to society. While government gets gridlocked and seems incapable o

I wish I had realized my value as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship provides tremendous value to society. While government gets gridlocked and seems incapable of providing even the simplest answers to human problems, entrepreneurship is solving human needs and providing value at a very fast pace. So many tools are available to ordinary people for free, that used to be expensive. Before the internet and the explosion of tech entrepreneurship, GPS systems once cost $400. Dating services with a human matchmaker once cost $2000. A file sharing system like Dropbox or Google would have taken a mainframe and a staggering amount of money to build just for a small group of people. Now all of these things are FREE to anyone who wants to use them and has a smartphone. And it shows also in the level of education and advancement I see among young people. The whole level of discourse is much higher-level than it was in the 1970s due to the sheer amount of information available to anyone with a smartphone or a laptop. Entrepreneurs are the people who make their own "luck," and shape their own destinies. And they do it all just by refraining from watching much television, TikTok/Snapchat, or playing too many video games, being efficient in their personal spending, and buckling down with commitment and vision to an idea to solve a human problem. They are the butterflies of the world - flying above a world of ordinary insects. On a darker note, however, I have had the sobering realization that we influence each other. It's imperative to avoid too much contact with negative or manipulative people. The people who are the best at manipulating others are the ones who seem the most charming or persuasive at first. Some can even be "pillars of the community" types and spout the importance of doing good for others, or having an advanced progressive political philosophy. These are the hardest to spot. They can worm their way into your life, and slowly take control over your way of thinking about things, until one day you wake up and wonder how you got to where you are. Red flags to look for are someone who makes subtle attempts to separate you from friends or family, and/or criticizes things about you that others let slide. I'm not talking about helpful, constructive criticism, but the kind of insidious criticism that sticks in your head, but does you no good. Avoiding such people can honestly mean the difference between you being able to build the future and being kind to yourself, or getting sucked into a vortex and not being able to save yourself, let alone build anything for others. It's super important to be aware of and avoid such people.