Dreams versus Adventures

Dreamers are often defined by the fact that the big ideas they create remain in the realm of ideas, thus earning the mildly derisive Dreamers label.

But what about those folks who think big and then work to make it happen? Then the 'Dream' becomes an Adventure.

Adventures are real, with real-world risks and rewards.

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Louis & Clark, Dan Morgan, John Parker: Adventurers.

Some Adventurers go in search of Adventure, some simply refuse to ignore a challenge when it lands at their feet. Either way, such people earn the title: Adventurer.

We recently scratched the surface of an idea about a III Community in Wyoming. Dream, or Adventure? That depends entirely on us, doesn't it?

I have taken some big risks in my life, and been kicked in the teeth more than once (and more than rhetorically). My wife and I have worked for months without taking a paycheck so we could pay employees, even knowing we were eating into our savings on a one-way trip, simply so we could help keep our employees earning a paycheck as long as possible. When TL mentions losing a business and the heartache involved, I know exactly what he is talking about.

I have also had some of my biggest rewards simply because I chased the idea rather than letting it reside entirely in the realm of inaction (Dreams). My wife is in that category. She is way out of my league. But the day I met her I knew she was the one for me. I sent her flowers that day (anonymously) and called my mother and told her I had met the woman I'd marry.

Holly wasn't as easy to convince.

Two years later we married.

Had I not pursued her, I would have missed the best 10 years of my life. (By the way, guys, my success at wooing her proves that if done properly, stalking can be an effective technique. ;)

In our lawsuit against ServiceMagic, Inc., Holly and I were living our lives, running an HVAC business, and we discovered that ServiceMagic had registered domains very similar to domains we had been using for years as Service Marks, domains that our customers used to reach us. The consumers in the market were being bled from our legitimate websites to theirs, and the leads then sold to our direct competitors.

We wrote their local affiliate a polite letter (not a threatening letter from an attorney, as is typical in such cases) and asked them to please stop using the infringing domains. Their response was...less than polite or satisfactory.

So, we filed suit.

That is an example of an Adventure that came to us, and never had to happen.

What does any of this have to do with the agenda of this blog?

If we choose to create a III Community somewhere, we can do it. The only thing standing in the way is inaction, of permitting oneself to be intimidated by the work involved. I'm not built that way. I don't think many III Patriots are built that way, either. Read the comment Miss Violet left about her tax return, and you'll see that she isn't built that way, to be sure!

Cash is the biggest impediment to a Wyoming concept. Someone has to get the cash required to get the ball rolling, properly, and then go to Wyoming and get the ball rolling physically.

To that end I have a new column posted at Kerodin.com today. I encourage everyone to read it, and especially any member of our community who is a serious professional in the finance world, and anyone who is supportive of the concept of a living, breathing III Community (even if you have no intention of living in one).

Here's the link.

Kerodin
III