SmallBizResource Blog -- Freelancing

Found on the Fourth

Posted by Gayle Kesten Friday, Jul 4, 2008, 04:16 PM ET

In my search for a relevant post for Independence Day, I happened upon three items I thought worthy of passing along.

First, for a weekly, online comic strip that any freelancer can relate to, check out Freedom Freelancer, by San Diego-based artist N.C. Winters. Fodder for fun includes the feast-or-famine nature of freelancing, clients who can't make up their minds, ODing on coffee and leftover Halloween candy, and the hazards of working in your underwear.

On a more serious second note, Jim Blasingame, who hosts a daily radio/Internet talk show about small businesses, credits a 12th century king for planting the seeds of freedom that our founder fathers nurtured and for which all entrepreneurs should be thankful:

"By definition, entrepreneurs take risks. But only freedom to enjoy success can make those risks acceptable. Thank you, Henry II.

Research shows that there is a direct connection between the rate of new business start-ups and economic growth. And the American experiment has demonstrated that a healthy entrepreneurial environment fosters national economic well-being. Thank you, Founders.

Without their vision, courage, passion and sacrifice, it's doubtful that entrepreneurship as we know it would exist today. And if capitalism is the economic lever of democracy, entrepreneurship is the force that renews the strength and reliability of that lever for each generation.

We began with freedom: freedom to dream and to try; to succeed and to fail; to own and to enjoy; to accumulate and to pass on to the next generation.

We began with freedom, and entrepreneurship was born. We began with freedom and capitalism was made to flourish.

Write this on a rock...

We began with freedom, and the world is the better for it."

The third, and last, item, a video, is of a song my son has been singing all day -- not so much because it's July 4th, but because he has a mad crush on the girl from American Idol who sang it. Like the object of his affections, I hope my boy will have the courage to go after his dreams. And that the spirit to dream and try, as Blasingame puts it, stays strong within each one of us in our small-business pursuits.

Enjoy.

Freelancing | SmallBizResource | Startups

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