Every day that your heart beats, you have the opportunity to change tomorrow. What will you do with it?

The American lie is that we can be anything we want to be. We can’t. I’m colorblind. Consequently, I will never be a pilot no matter how desperately I chase that dream. A good friend once told me that the earth had better be burning into the sun before I touch anything administrative. It does not matter how badly I want to be Chief Operating Officer, it’s not a good idea.

Fitting Square Dreams into a Round Box

The Bible tells us that God formed us in our mother’s womb. He developed our inward parts, designing us with gifts and talents. Our maker is intentional about our design. He has a desired outcome.

A fool’s journey is spending life trying to fit square dreams into God’s round box. We are all designed with a purpose. My purpose is to activate Kingdom-minded entrepreneurial leaders that are ready to step into theirs. It sounds so precise, so figured out, so easy to identify. However, discovering that has been an arduous journey.

The life of an entrepreneur is not an easy life. It requires great sacrifice, many hard days and a continued perseverance to see beyond what is in order to create what could be.

For me, the day I realized I was an entrepreneur was the day I first acknowledged my failure.

In 2001, I was in pursuit of a business that turned out to be one of my many failures on the road to success.. There I was, standing in a Newport Beach parking lot talking to a friend on the phone when she asked me, “How is Funpuns going?” It seems like such a benign question now; but for me, it would shape every day that followed.

Historically, I would have turned the conversation to focus on the next. I would quickly make an excuse for what wasn’t and move on to what could be. This day, however, was different. For the first time in my life I uttered two simple words that were monumental in my personal development: “I failed.”

In that moment of identifying my failure out loud, the question of purpose confronted me, “What am I?” It was in that moment that I realized, “I’m an entrepreneur, and win, lose or fail, my life will be about living in that reality. I would rather fail chasing my purpose than spend my life fulfilling someone else’s.”

I would not find financial success for 10 more very difficult years when I finally sold a company, but I did find joy and happiness every day. When we live in our calling, using our gifts and talents, leaning into our strengths and filling in our gaps by building teams around of us, we find purpose. Fulfilling God’s purpose for our life will always produce success, it just may not look like what you expect on the front end.

The most precious commodity we have is not money, assets or relationships. Our most precious commodity is time. We cannot relive one moment of our life. Once it is spent, it is gone forever. The present moment is the only one about which we can do anything. Our job is to make the most of each and every moment we have.

As I now step into the role of activating others, I do so with the scars of experience and the successes and failures of a life lived as an entrepreneur.

There are many choices I have made that proved successful and other choices that have hurt others beyond repair. I have been a champion of faith in business as well as a torchbearer for what not to do. My hope now is to help others avoid the heartaches and refine through better pursuit the life God called me to, the life of an entrepreneur.